Seven more foreign news outlets have applied to open bureaus in Taiwan this year, including the New York Times, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday, following China’s expulsion of US journalists in March.
After the US placed a personnel cap on four Chinese media companies, China responded by banning US reporters for the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal from covering news from China, Hong Kong and Macau.
“We maintain bureaus in Beijing and Shanghai with correspondents, and are hopeful that the Chinese government will allow all of our reporters to return,” New York Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said in an e-mail to the Taipei Times.
“As a result of the expulsion order, some affected correspondents are in the process of relocating to Taipei and Seoul. Our newsroom has not missed a beat and continues to cover China fairly and aggressively,” she said.
“It’s great having @nytimes reporters in #Taiwan. Our vibrant international media landscape is much the richer for their presence,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) wrote on Twitter on Friday. “Welcome & enjoy the country’s freedom in producing all the news that’s fit to print!”
Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said that the ministry has also welcomed the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal to establish branches in Taiwan, although they have not formally submitted requests.
Including the new applications, 59 foreign news outlets are stationed in Taiwan from 16 nations: France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Norway, the Philippines, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US, she said.
The number of foreign journalists in Taiwan has increased in the past few years, as the nation’s press freedom has been praised by the global community, she added.
Before the nation’s presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 11, more than 210 foreign journalists, including nearly 60 originally stationed in Taiwan, had applied for permits to cover the elections, the ministry said.
A DECADE’S WORK: The two-volume, 1,400-page lexicon has collected more than 20,000 words and phrases, and is expected to help people learning the Liu Dui dialect The Liu Dui Culture Research Association on Saturday unveiled the nation’s first domestically compiled lexicon of Hakka-language words in the Liu Dui dialect, an effort that took a decade of work and cost about NT$7 million (US$233,085 at the current exchange rate). The two-volume, 1,400-page lexicon collected more than 20,000 phrases and words, and is estimated to be of great value in helping people learn the Liu Dui dialect and culture, the association said. It could also become a reference book for teachers, the association added. The lexicon collected phrases and common words used in daily speech, as well as local sayings, phrases
EXPANSION: The transportation ministry is to subsidize Taipei and Kaohsiung’s purchase of 63 multipurpose taxis, as well as the payment of incentives for drivers The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is appropriating nearly NT$60 million (US$2 million) to subsidize plans by the Taipei City Government and the Kaohsiung City Government to expand their multipurpose taxi fleets, it said over the weekend. The ministry said that it has since 2013 subsidized the multipurpose taxi service nationwide, as it has become a way for disabled people to travel. The nation has 980 multipurpose taxis, including 301 in Taipei and 272 in Kaohsiung, ministry statistics showed. Last year, the service was accessed more than 200,000 times in Taipei and 460,000 times in Kaohsiung, which the ministry said shows
The One Bear Museum in Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), a teddy bear museum once touted by the county government as a “luminous pearl” along Provincial Highway No. 13, is facing possible closure. The museum’s building, which was provided by the county government, has a serious water leakage problem and lacks a parking lot for buses to bring in tour groups, Hsinchu County Councilor Lo Shih-shi (羅仕琦) said on Saturday. The county government should step in to rescue the museum, or the negative reviews about the museum on the Internet might affect visitors’ impression of the township and the county, he said. The
‘NATIONAL SECURITY PROBLEM’: Two DPP legislators said the government needs to help public agencies replace Chinese equipment and pass legislation banning their use More than 200 government entities are together using 1,108 telecommunications devices from Chinese brands, posing a cybersecurity risk, a government report showed. At the suggestion of the Legislative Yuan’s Internal Administration Committee last year, the Executive Yuan investigated 7,704 public institutions to see whether they were using or had procured telecoms equipment manufactured by Chinese companies. They found that as of April 13, of the 3,837 public institutions that responded to their requests, 228 said they had been using equipment made by Chinese brands, including mobile phones, video cameras, drones and other Internet-related devices. The report highlighted products from seven brands considered to
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