A recent case involving the recruitment of Taiwanese as agents for spreading disinformation by the Chinese government has not led to a great deal of public attention. But the case is worth examining in detail...
After weeks of speculation, the National Communication Commission ruled today that it would not be renewing the license of television broadcaster CtiTV. One expects the ruling to lead to resistance from the KMT, as well as accusations against the Tsai administration that it is violating freedoms of press in Taiwan from the pan-Blue camp...
The party policy presentations which took place on December 6th, as organized by the Citizens’ Congress Watch, largely proved a non-starter in terms of genuine debate between the parties. Instead, debate largely took place between the pan-Green and pan-Blue alliances...
Controversy regarding a new anti-infiltration bill that the Tsai administration intends to pass before the end of the year largely proves a false issue. Namely, while Tsai seems in a rush to pass the bill before the year’s end and the KMT claims that the DPP is infringing on political freedoms and shrugging off legal oversight measures to pass the bill so quickly, it is actually quite unlikely the bill will do much to stop Chinese efforts to influence Taiwanese elections...
The New Party, unsurprisingly, illustrated its misogyny after recent comments by Yang Shih-kuang, the director of the party’s Youth Corps and its presidential candidate in next year’s presidential election, regarding current President Tsai Ing-wen...
With Wang Ping-Chung, his father Wang Ching-Pu, and fellow New Party officials Ho Han-ting and Lin Ming-cheng indicted on charges of espionage for spying on China earlier this month, this has prompted few reactions from Taiwanese society. This likely indicates that Taiwanese society has largely come to accept the veracity of charges against them...
Reflexive anger from Taiwanese publishers after reports earlier this month by the United Daily News that the Ministry of Culture was planning on screening Chinese books allowed to be published in China shows in microcosm the dilemmas facing free speech in Taiwan. Yet this also shows why free speech is aggressively defended in Taiwan and unlikely to come under threat from the government anytime soon...
Comments by Wang Ping-Chung of the New Party in an op-ed submitted by Wang to a Chinese state-run media outlet, the Global Times, have provoked outrage, due to Wang stating outright in the op-ed that “China cannot wait for unification". Wang, a prominent figure of the New Party, is currently under scrutiny due to charges that he operated a news outlet for China aimed at pro-unification views in Taiwan, with the aim of eventually developing an espionage network for China...
Controversy continues regarding alleged connections between four New Party members briefly detained by police earlier this month to Zhou Hongxu, a Chinese student studying in Taiwan arrested for spying in September. In particular, recent developments are that Wang Ping-chung, a television personality known for his pro-unification views and the best known of the four New Party members, may have been paid by China to develop a media website in Taiwan, with the eventual aim of developing this into an espionage organization...
