Taiwan suspends Chinese newspaper’s right to station reporters in Taiwan

Taiwan suspends Chinese newspaper’s right to station reporters in Taiwan

2025-01-03

The Taiwanese government has suspended the rights of a Chinese newspaper and its parent company to station reporters in Taiwan. The Mainland Affairs Council says the Strait Herald is engaged in United Front infiltration and reporters from the newspaper, and its parent company, the Fujian Daily Newspaper Group, are no longer allowed to be posted here. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office is furious and has accused the “Lai Ching-te authorities” of trampling on democracy. Mainland Affairs Council minister Chiu Chui-cheng has shot back that Taiwan has true freedom of the press and China has no comprehension of what it is.

Click on the YouTube channel of the Strait Herald. Although its content mainly reports on cross-strait affairs, when it mentions China, it presents it as having a robust military, while reportage on the DPP and President Lai Ching-te is uniformly negative.

Yao Chang
YouTuber and activist
There are all kinds of fabrications, including boasting about China and disparaging Taiwan, publishing content that is suspicious of the US and Japan, and anti-US and anti-Japanese. It carries a lot of comments from Taiwanese pro-China social media influencers but at the same time, everyone should pay attention to the reporters from the Strait Herald, who are responsible for other tasks besides news gathering.

Yao Chang, an anti-Communist social media influencer from China argues that the Strait Herald reporter’s mission in Taiwan is not a straightforward one. In fact, the Mainland Affairs Council had noticed long ago that the Strait Herald was engaged in United Front work. The newspaper’s social affairs committee member Lin Jingdong had once accepted payment for fabricating polls in an intervention in Taiwan’s presidential election. Taiwan’s announcement that it would suspend the rights of the Strait Herald and its parent organization, the Fujian Daily Newspaper Group, to have reporters posted in Taiwan has made China’s Taiwan Affairs Office furious. It has accused the Mainland Affairs Council of making “baseless arguments” to slander the “legitimate actions of reporting on the news” carried out by a Chinese media reporter stationed in the country.

Chiu Chui-cheng
Mainland Affairs Council
We will first temporarily suspend the Strait Herald from posting reporters in Taiwan. Then we hope that the opening in the quota of permitted Chinese journalists will allow other mainland Chinese media to come here. Taiwan has freedom of speech, it has true press freedom. Mainland China saying that we don’t have press freedom invokes the Taoist adage that a summer insect cannot discuss ice as it has no knowledge of winter.

Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng also took the opportunity to remind Taiwanese to be careful of falling into a Chinese United Front trap by applying for a Chinese ID card, as the losses would outweigh the gains.

Chiu Chui-cheng
Mainland Affairs Council
If you apply for an ID card on the other side of the strait, and you have household registration there, we will cancel your Taiwan household registration and your ID card. This would have an enormous impact, including your qualifications to receive national health insurance and long-term care, and including your rights related to citizenship and property. It will be a huge blow.

Statistics from the Mainland Affairs Council show a total of 679 people’s Taiwanese household registrations have been canceled in the past 10 years. However, Taiwanese YouTuber Pa Chiung claims there are more than 100,000 people in Taiwan with Chinese ID cards. Encompassing politics to economics, the media and the internet, China’s pervasive United Front operations have become the most serious challenge for President Lai Ching-te’s government.

For more Taiwan news, tune in:
Sun to Fri at 9:30 pm on Channel 152
Tue to Sat at 1 am on Channel 53

國台辦嗆「兩岸新聞交流開倒車」陸委會:夏蟲語冰.自曝其短

2025-01-03

陸委會週四宣布，海峽導報對台進行統戰滲透，已經不是單純的新聞媒體，未來將暫停海峽導報及其所屬「福建日報報業集團」來台駐點。國台辦點名「賴清德當局」踐踏民主，陸委會主委邱垂正表示，台灣有言論自由，新聞自由，中國說我們沒有新聞自由，真是夏蟲語冰。

點開海峽導報的YT網站，內容雖然是以報導兩岸事務為主，講到中國，是軍容壯盛，至於民進黨、賴總統全是負面。

[[中國反共網紅張堯]]
“各種造假啊，就是吹中國貶台灣，發布疑美、疑日，反美、反日等等這些內容，大量搬運台灣親中網紅的言論，但是同時大家要注意，就是海峽導報的記者，也肩負新聞採訪以外的其他任務。”

來自中國的反共網紅張堯分析，海峽導報記者來台任務不單純，事實上，陸委會也早就注意到，海峽導報明顯從事對台統戰工作，而且該報的社務委員林靖東還曾經拿經費指示、捏造民調介入總統大選，宣布未來將暫停「海峽導報」及其所屬「福建日報報業集團」來台駐點。這讓中國國台辦氣得跳腳，質疑陸委會以「莫須有的說詞」污蔑中媒駐點記者「正當採訪報導行為」。

[[陸委會主委邱垂正]]
“我們先會暫時的讓這個海峽導報，暫緩它在台灣的駐點採訪，那我們也希望這相關的名額，讓其他的中國大陸媒體能夠來。台灣是一個有言論自由，真正有新聞自由，中國大陸說我們沒有新聞自由，這就像是夏蟲語冰一樣。”

陸委會主委邱垂正還要提醒國人，小心掉入中國統戰身分證的陷阱，以免得不償失。

[[陸委會主委邱垂正]]
“那如果你申領了對岸的這個身份證，擁有對岸的這個戶籍的話，那我們就要註銷你台灣的戶籍，註銷一個人的戶籍跟身份身份證，這是影響很大的，包括健保包括長照的資格，包括你的公民權，以及跟產權有關的權利，都會受到衝擊。”

根據陸委會統計，過去十年共註銷679人的台灣戶籍，但網紅八炯卻宣稱，在台灣擁有中國身分證的人數超過十萬人。從政治到經濟，從媒體到網路，如何面對中國無孔不入的統戰滲透，已經成了賴政府最嚴峻的挑戰。

更多新聞內容，請鎖定：
民視台灣台（152頻道）週日至週五晚上9:30
民視新聞台（53頻道）週二至週六凌晨1:00

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The Taiwan High Court had called for repeated hearings based on evidence presented by prosecutors. Before the case came to light, in May, Ko had messaged Peng Cheng-sheng who is also implicated in the legal battle. In August Ko had many message exchanges and meetings with Sheen, who also kept in communication with Ying Hsiao-wei, Chen Chun-yuan and Wu Shun-min. During the investigation, Ying was found to have deleted record of her conversations with Sheen and other defendants. In addition, Lee Wen-tsung had instructed Lee Wen-chuan via a messaging app to delete financial records of MuKo Public Relations Marketing, a company associated with Ko. All these are among the reasons cited for the defendants’ detentions.

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The reasons provided by the Taiwan High Court are more specific this time around. In fact, they seem to be assisting prosecutors. There is a very high possibility that the defendants could use the internet to communicate and collude while being apart from each other. The situation is that of a higher court, the Taiwan High Court, giving less room to a lower court, the Taipei District Court, to grant bail to Ko Wen-je.

According to the Code of Criminal Procedure, detention of an accused may not exceed three months during trial. If the defendant is facing a sentence of at least 10 years, detention extensions can be requested six times, and each extension may not exceed two months. That is to say, the Taipei District Court can obtain up 15 months of detention. How long Ko and the other defendants will be held is yet unknown, but what’s for sure is that they’ll spend the Lunar New Year in the detention center.

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The “Sword Finger Art Style” is created on a tablet using fingers like a sword. The lines are drawn as if you are practicing tai chi. They are cartoon character lines. You can see that his work looks like it is written in cursive script. This exhibition uses the theme of a finger sword dance to present Hsiao’s series of works from 2017, as well as his reinterpretation of past classic works such as "The Little Hero of Holland." He uses different brushwork techniques - from the brushstrokes of early comics to the different presentations of the “Sword Finger Art Style.” There are also three-dimensional works that allow the audience to enter the world of comics.

Hsiao was a multidisciplinary creative known for being a famed cartoonist, professor, playwright, theater director and TV host. After becoming a comic artist, he devoted his time to perfecting the single-panel comic format. After being in his career for 30 years, due to the conflict between digital technology and traditional art, he decided to draw on an electronic tablet using his fingers instead of drawing with his nib pen. He was awarded the 2020 Golden Comic Awards Special Contribution Award and has sold over 200 million comic books during his career. His son spent a lot of time engaged in creative pursuits with his late father and was greatly inspired by his late father’s persistence.

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I probably started working for him when I was in college. For a series of works about Marilyn Monroe, he told me that he did not refer to her pictures for inspiration. He created them using his imagination. He said that it took him hundreds of attempts to complete this painting. When he finished the painting, he compared it with the picture. Even though many details were not the same, the audience would know what the picture is about. He thinks that is what makes this work successful.

Hsiao’s exhibition will be held at the Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art until Feb. 16.

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From military personnel to civilians, Taiwan’s residents have been preparing for an uncertain future with a new US president soon to take office and mounting pressures from China. Beijing considers self-governed Taiwan a part of China and says it will use force, if necessary, to make that claim a reality. While President Joe Biden has repeatedly said the US will come to Taiwan’s aid if China were to attack, President-elect Trump has suggested Taiwan should pay the US for its defense.

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They are hoping that by creating this sense of embattlement and containment of Taiwan, eventually that would compel Taiwanese voters, if not Taiwanese government to engage in risk avoidance.

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Can such scripts be compiled and recorded? Our maestro Liao has also been thinking about whether we can add more repertoires to Taiwanese opera, including preserving these wonderful and iconic repertoires. She has been archiving her shows since 1999. We compiled sources including her archives, compositions and stage presentations, her recounts of the creative process as well as performance records.

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