Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Solomon203/WikiCommons/CC BY 3.0
CTITV ANCHOR AND REPORTER Lin Chen-you has been detained on suspicion of conducting espionage activities for China. Lin primarily covers political affairs.
Specifically, Lin was detained on charges of transferring funds on China’s behalf to active-duty and retired military personnel in return for information. Lin’s source of funds was the Chinese government itself.
All this is in itself somewhat unsurprising, in that China continues with efforts to conduct espionage against Taiwan, recruiting among active-duty military personnel and veterans. Apart from the intent of gathering information about Taiwan’s defenses or potential weak points, this can also serve propaganda purposes in undermining public confidence in the military.
What does raise eyebrows, however, is Lin’s daytime job. CtiTV is owned by Tsai Eng-meng, the founder of the Want Want Group. Tsai acquired CtiTV and the China Times in what was termed “media monopoly”, making no secret of that his aim in buying up Taiwanese media outlets was to promote positive views of China in Taiwan. Consequently, Tsai’s acquisition of Taiwanese media outlets with pro-unification ends led to the outbreak of the “Anti-Media Monopoly Movement,” one of the major antecedent movements of the 2014 Sunflower Movement.
In the years since, Want Want Group-owned companies have found themselves under scrutiny numerous times for acting as a platform for the dissemination aimed at benefiting the KMT and the pan-Blue camp, and for directly taking orders from the Chinese government.
A report by the Financial Times in July 2019 stated that the Want Want Group, CTV, and CtiTV were directly seeking approval from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) before running stories. Although the TAO did not interfere in all stories, the TAO was allowed to have a say in the placement of articles and their angle.
In April 2019, the Apple Daily also reported that the Want Want Group received over 477 million Chinese yuan—just over 2 billion NTD—from the Chinese government between 2017 and 2018. After this report, the Want Want Group sought to sue the Apple Daily, as well as the Central News Agency, which also reported on Apple’s scoop, to silence them.
In May 2019, over 70 representatives from Taiwanese media organizations visited 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.
CtiTV was eventually taken off air after its broadcast license was not renewed in 2020. This occurred on the basis of broadcast violations, including that 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. This first resulted in CtiTV being fined over five million NT in 2019.
Since then, CtiTV has switched to online broadcasting, while in the meantime protesting what it claims to be government persecution of opposing political views. Even so, in consideration of the network’s past history, it is not entirely surprising that a CtiTV reporter might be mixed up in Chinese espionage activity.
This would not be the only time that a news outlet has come under scrutiny for involvement in Chinese espionage activity. In 2018, a group of New Party spokespersons came under fire over charges that an online media outlet they ran, Fire News, was a front for a Chinese spying operation. Though they were later cleared of these charges and were, at the time, derided for a sloppily run United Front effort, they have since continued to be active figures in political life, with one of the spokespersons, Ho Han-ting, currently serving as a Taipei city councilor. In fact, it may be that the Fire News episode elevated the profiles of political figures that would have otherwise gone unnoticed in the public eye.