A disability rights lawyer yesterday said it was “absurd” for a Chinese journalist to criticize Taiwan’s elections, after the former China Central Television reporter ridiculed the lawyer’s appearance at a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) election rally.
On Monday’s episode of the online talk show The Night Night Show with Hello (賀瓏夜夜秀), Wang Zhian (王志安), a Chinese investigative journalist who lives in Tokyo after being blacklisted by Beijing for his work exposing corruption, appeared on the program in Taipei to discuss Taiwan’s elections and other topics.
Wang criticized the rallies put on by the major parties, saying they even “pull disabled people up [onto the stage] to rouse sympathy.”
Photo: Screen grab from YouTube
He then mimicked a speech made at a DPP rally by Chen Chun-han (陳俊翰), a DPP legislator-at-large candidate and human rights lawyer who has spinal muscular atrophy.
A producer of the show named Hawkins (霍金) in the comments of the video on Tuesday said that the disrespectful clip made it into the program due to a production oversight, and an apology has been made to Chen.
The production team would be more careful with editing in the future, he said, apologizing to viewers for any trouble caused by the clip.
Chen told reporters in Taipei that it was “absurd” for Wang to ridicule Taiwan’s elections when China “does not even have the freedom to hold elections.”
A progressive society should recognize the dignity and value of people with disabilities as human beings, he said.
In China, people with disabilities are viewed as unable to have their own ideas or stand in elections and are only used as tools for sympathy, he said.
Yet in Taiwan, anyone who is of age and has ideas is free to participate in politics, he added.
Chen said he was most disappointed by the reaction of the audience and host who laughed at Wang’s comment, adding that the host should have immediately stopped him.
Hopefully, this incident can help society reflect on its discrimination against people with disabilities, he said.
Responding to the backlash online, Wang initially refused to apologize, saying it would not bother him if he could not return to Taiwan because of the incident.
“I’m not even afraid of the Chinese Communist Party, how could I be afraid of these little ‘green communists?’” he wrote on X.
However, he later said he was willing to apologize to Chen.
“But this is not contradictory to my condemnation of the DPP’s use of disabled people as an election tool,” he added.
The National Immigration Agency yesterday said in a statement that Wang, who had left Taiwan on Sunday, would be prohibited from re-entering the country on a short-term tourist visa for five years, as his appearance on the talk show contravened the terms of his tourist visa for Chinese citizens.
Additional reporting by Hu Yu-jou, Chen Yu-fu, Jason Pan and CNA
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
TAIWAN DEFENSE: The initiative would involve integrating various systems in a fast-paced manner through the use of common software to obstruct a Chinese invasion The first tranche of the US Navy’s “Replicator” initiative aimed at obstructing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be ready by August, a US Naval Institute (USNI) News report on Tuesday said. The initiative is part of a larger defense strategy for Taiwan, and would involve launching thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was first made public by the Washington Post in June last year, when it cited comments by US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue
MARITIME SECURITY: Of the 52 vessels, 15 were rated a ‘threat’ for various reasons, including the amount of time they spent loitering near subsea cables, the CGA said Taiwan has identified 52 “suspicious” Chinese-owned ships flying flags of convenience that require close monitoring if detected near the nation, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday, as the nation seeks to protect its subsea telecoms cables. The stricter regime comes after a Cameroon-flagged vessel was briefly detained by the CGA earlier this month on suspicion of damaging an international cable northeast of Taiwan. The vessel is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company with a Chinese address given for its only listed director, the CGA said previously. Taiwan fears China could sever its communication links as part of an attempt
RSS