A local broadcaster is being investigated for reportedly allowing a correspondent from China’s Xinhua news agency to give it instructions about its programming, the National Communications Commission said on Tuesday.
In exchange for commercial interests in China, the broadcaster allowed Xinhua reporter Zhao Bo (趙博) to set program topics, script dialogue and supervise filming, a source told the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper), adding that other broadcasters were offered the same deal, but rejected it.
Obviously, it comes as no surprise that China is attempting to infiltrate the media in Taiwan. It is good that other broadcasters had the integrity to reject this offer, but the channel that allegedly accepted it must be made an example of. Under articles 22 and 27 of the Satellite Broadcasting Act (衛星廣播電視法), the channel could face a fine of NT$400,000 to NT$2 million (US$12,327 to US$61,633), and may be ordered to suspend broadcasting or have their license revoked.
A fine is unlikely to be a deterrent to would-be offenders if business opportunities in China or bribes from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would exceed the maximum fine — which is very likely, so license revocation should be a must for any broadcaster found collaborating with the CCP. At the same time, anyone at the broadcaster involved in the offense should have their finances scrutinized, and be prohibited from ever owning, operating, investing in or working for any media outlet in Taiwan again.
China is well aware that it lacks the capability to invade Taiwan at present. It is also highly unlikely to impose a military blockade around Taiwan, which could lead to US military involvement.
Even a quarantine is unlikely according to experts who recently commented on the matter. Carl Schuster, former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, told CNN that a quarantine would be too costly and risky for China.
Given its limited options to force unification on Taiwan, China is likely to continue pressuring Taiwan through a combination of “gray zone” tactics, manipulation of Taiwan’s legislature and “united front” efforts such as cognitive warfare waged on social media by infiltrating schools and organizations in Taiwan. Taiwan must swiftly and resolutely respond to any sign of these efforts and must not allow Taiwanese collaborators to act with impunity.
It is odd that correspondents from Chinese state-run media would be permitted to operate in Taiwan, given that the Taiwanese government is well aware of the CCP’s cognitive warfare efforts against it.
In the same vein, several legislators from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) reportedly are known to have contact with CCP officials, and it has been alleged that some legislators act under instructions from the CCP. Given such suspicions, it makes little sense that active legislators in Taiwan should be permitted to travel to China.
The threats directed against Taiwan and its people continue to worsen under the administration of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), with the CCP most recently threatening those in favor of Taiwan’s independence with the death penalty.
It is time that Taiwan’s government begins placing restrictions on exchanges with China. Failure to do so puts Taiwanese at risk of losing their freedoms and way of life.
US aerospace company Boeing Co has in recent years been involved in numerous safety incidents, including crashes of its 737 Max airliners, which have caused widespread concern about the company’s safety record. It has recently come to light that titanium jet engine parts used by Boeing and its European competitor Airbus SE were sold with falsified documentation. The source of the titanium used in these parts has been traced back to an unknown Chinese company. It is clear that China is trying to sneak questionable titanium materials into the supply chain and use any ensuing problems as an opportunity to
It’s not every month that the US Department of State sends two deputy assistant secretary-level officials to Taiwan, together. Its rarer still that such senior State Department policy officers, once on the ground in Taipei, make a point of huddling with fellow diplomats from “like-minded” NATO, ANZUS and Japanese governments to coordinate their multilateral Taiwan policies. The State Department issued a press release on June 22 admitting that the two American “representatives” had “hosted consultations in Taipei” with their counterparts from the “Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” The consultations were blandly dubbed the “US-Taiwan Working Group on International Organizations.” The State
The Chinese Supreme People’s Court and other government agencies released new legal guidelines criminalizing “Taiwan independence diehard separatists.” While mostly symbolic — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never had jurisdiction over Taiwan — Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳), an expert on cross-strait relations, said: “They aim to explain domestically how they are countering ‘Taiwan independence,’ they aim to declare internationally their claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan and they aim to deter Taiwanese.” Analysts do not know for sure why Beijing is propagating these guidelines now. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), deciphering the
Many local news media last week reported that COVID-19 is back, citing doctors’ observations and the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) statistics. The CDC said that cases would peak this month and urged people to take preventive measures. Although COVID-19 has never been eliminated, it has become more manageable, and restrictions were dropped, enabling people to return to their normal way of life due to decreasing hospitalizations and deaths. In Taiwan, mandatory reporting of confirmed cases and home isolation ended in March last year, while the mask mandate at hospitals and healthcare facilities stopped in May. However, the CDC last week said the number