Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Sean Young (@assanges)/WikiCommons/CC BY 4.0
AT A TIME of increased securitization in Taiwanese society, the alarm has been raised regarding Chinese over-the-top (OTT) boxes, allowing for access to Chinese streaming services in Taiwan.
Recent comments by Cable Broadband Institute in Taiwan CEO, Claudia Peng, warned that there may be up to seven million OTT boxes in Taiwan. This means that there are enough OTT boxes in Taiwan for between one in three and one in four Taiwanese.
Specifically, concern has been raised regarding whether such OTT boxes may show Chinese content intended to push China’s pro-unification political agenda in Taiwan. Likewise, there is no way for media regulators to regulate the content that such OTT boxes broadcast.
There were moves taken regarding Chinese OTT providers under the Tsai administration.
Use of iQiyi and other Chinese OTT providers, such as WeTV, was deemed to be illegal by the Mainland Affairs Council and National Communications Commission in 2020. This was followed up later in the same year by legislation that banned Taiwanese companies from acting as agents for Chinese OTT providers. OTT providers are online streaming services such as Netflix, as distinguished from traditional cable or satellite networks.
At the time this took place, Chinese OTT provider iQiyi.com had six million subscribers in Taiwan, though other statistics reported that iQiyi had two million active users. If so, this would mean that between 8% to 25% of residents of Taiwan subscribe to iQiyi.
Indeed, there had long been fears in Taiwan about the inability of the Taiwanese government to regulate Chinese OTT providers. It was feared that the Chinese government could use OTT providers to spread disinformation or to try and promote political viewpoints favorable to a pro-unification political agenda.
Chinese OTT providers have also been known to axe politically sensitive content from Taiwan in the past. In 2017, for example, iQiyi.com abruptly axed the broadcast of Days We Stared at the Sun 2, a Public Television Service television drama, because it is set during the 2014 Sunflower Movement, which erupted in opposition to a free trade agreement that the then-ruling Ma administration sought to sign with China.
Chinese OTT providers were previously excluded from regulations governing television and radio, leading to calls from domestic media platforms that OTT providers should face the same regulations as they do. Chinese OTT providers could not be taken off the Internet because they operate through servers in Hong Kong, but the government moved to block local servers distributing Chinese OTT services.
Notably, the Tsai administration did not seek to ban OTT providers outright. Blocking Chinese OTT providers would also have raised questions regarding freedom of speech.
This did not prevent the KMT from leaning into political attacks on the Tsai administration that framed the issue as the Tsai administration seeking to infringe on fundamental freedoms of speech, Particularly after CtiTV, long accused of financial and political links to the Chinese government, did not have its broadcast license renewed, the KMT leaned into such attacks. When the Tsai administration proposed regulations that would ask OTT providers to register with the government, the KMT claimed that this registration system could be used as a way to politically monitor, blacklist, or take off air OTT providers that do not comply with the wishes of the government.
In a very changed political environment, more than five years later, the Lai administration may finally be willing to take stronger actions. The Lai administration has been more combative than the Tsai administration, investigating Taiwanese entertainers who repost statements from Chinese state-run media during military exercises directed at Taiwan, or who have resorted to illegal means to dodge the draft. The Lai administration has also sought to crack down on potential infiltration, investigating civil servants and members of the military who may hold Chinese national IDs, as well as requiring Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who have naturalized to provide proof of having given up their Chinese nationality.
The KMT has continued to hit out at what it claims is the Lai administration’s “dictatorial rule”, claiming that the DPP has interfered in its failed efforts to collect signatures to recall DPP politicians. It is probable that the KMT will again lean into such attacks against the Lai administration’s recent actions, then.