Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Solomon203/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 4.0
THE CHINA TIMES is being probed over its participation in the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit in China. Specifically, what has led to attention from the Taiwanese government is statements by representatives of the China Times at the summit, doubling down on the view of Taiwan as part of China.
The China Times, along with CtiTV, is one of several media organizations owned by the Want Want Group. The Want Want Group, which produces iconic Taiwanese snacks such as the Want Want rice cracker, is owned by Tsai Eng-meng.
In the early 2010s, Tsai made no secret of the fact that his interest in buying Taiwanese media outlets was to promote positive views of China in Taiwan, in light of how his business interests are in China and he would politically and economically benefit from closer relations with China. Concern over Tsai’s moves, as well the lack of action by government regulators to prevent the purchases, led to the Anti-Media Monopoly Movement, one of the predecessor movements of the 2014 Sunflower Movement.
CtiTV went off air after its broadcast license was not renewed by the National Communications Commission (NCC) in November 2020. The NCC ruled against CtiTV on the basis of a number of incidents.
In May 2019, CtiTV gave 70% of its airtime to coverage of its preferred presidential candidate, Han Kuo-yu. CtiTV also inflated the crowd count at Han’s mayoral inauguration, to create the perception that Han’s support was much larger than it actually was, claiming that 800,000 were in attendance at the inauguration. Another report claimed that an “auspicious cloud” shaped like a phoenix had appeared above an event attended by Han along with fellow KMT mayors Lu Shiow-yen and Hou You-yi.
CtiTV was fined 200,000 NT and 400,000 NT respectively for these reports. In addition to other fines, this resulted in CtiTV being fined over five million NT in 2019. The NCC stated that CtiTV has been fined 10.73 million NT for 21 violations of the law in the past six years, the most of any television station.
Controversy over comments by China Times representatives at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit may not surprise, then. Tsai Wan-ting, the general manager of Want Want Holdings and Tsai Eng-meng’s son, stated that “We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture, and that we come from the same veins and are charged with the same mission.”
Such comments led to criticisms from the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), which stated that the framing of the event was political and that it could not be viewed as a purely cultural event. To this extent, the MAC criticized the Want Want Group for having “willingly become a pawn in China’s united front strategies against Taiwan.”
Later on, the Want Want Group hit back, writing in an online statement in the China Times that, “According to the Constitution and the Act Governing Relations Between People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, Taiwan and the Mainland both belong to one China. Taiwanese people are Chinese people, children of Zhonghua (中華). This has always been our position. We urge everyone to uphold and defend the Constitution and work together for cross-strait peace and Taiwan’s future.”
This is not the first time that pan-Blue media outlets have drawn ire for participating in cross-strait forums that framed Taiwan as part of China. In May 2019, over 70 representatives from Taiwanese media organizations traveled to Beijing for an event co-organized by the Beijing Newspaper Group and the Want Want Group. The event focused a great deal on cross-strait relations, with participants urged to aid the political unification of Taiwan and China, and involved participant organizations signing a cooperation agreement.
Among the Taiwanese participants in the event were high-ranking staff from some of Taiwan’s largest media organizations, including Fan Ling-jia, the editor-in-chief of the United Daily News, Huang Qing-long, the president of the Want Daily, Wang Feng, president of the China Times, Chen Hong-jin, chair of the Taiwan Broadcasting Association, Ding Wen-qi, chair of the Taiwan Radio and Television Program Association, and Qiu Jia-yu, the chair of CTV. Tsai Eng-meng and former Taichung mayor Jason Hu were also present. High-ranking members of the People’s Daily and Xinhua News were present at the meeting, as was Wang Yang, chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference National Committee.
More generally, Want Want-owned outlets have long faced allegations of financial or political ties to the Chinese government. The Financial Times reported that the China Times, CtiTV, and CTV were directly seeking approval from the TAO before running articles in July 2019. In May 2019, the Apple Daily reported that the Want Want Group had received over 477 million Chinese yuan, or over 2 billion NT, between 2017 and 2018 from the Chinese government. Want Want subsequently attempted to retaliate against both outlets with lawsuits.
However, it is noteworthy that when CtiTV previously lost its broadcast license, the then-ruling Tsai administration did not attempt to go after CtiTV for its links to China, but instead on the issue of fraudulent reporting. It may be that the times have shifted, leading to a more aggressive posture by the Taiwanese government against Want Want-owned outlets. Broadly speaking, one notes that the Lai administration has been increasingly strident on the issue of Chinese influence in past months, whether with its much-touted 17 security measures, or its actions directed against Want Want.