WantWant Creates Pro-China Media Monster

Hitting the seafood restaurants near the red light district in Keelung

Huge news as pro-China tycoon Robert Tsai of the WantWant Group seems set to dominate Taiwan's media markets:

The KMT news organ:

The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday approved, with a record large number of conditions, an acquisition bid by Want Want China Broadband (旺中寬頻), which is affiliated with the Want Want China Times Group (旺旺中時集團), to buy up eleven cable TV service providers owned by the China Network Service (CNS/中嘉網路), the country’s second-largest multiple-system operator, after 18 months of delays. The Want Want China Group is expected to pay NT$ 76 billion to CNS to become the largest media group in Taiwan.

....

Yesterday, NCC chairperson Su Herng (蘇蘅) and three NCC members held a press conference to explain the NCC’s decision. Some scholars and cable services providers voiced their opposition out of concern that the acquisition would limit speech and lead to a media monopoly, so they cast doubts on whether or not the affixed conditions would be able to restrict the Want Want China Times Group from becoming a media hegemon. NCC chairperson Su repeated twice, “These conditions can prevent that.”

AP has a longer report:

The decision comes as other cable stations on the island weigh the advantages of silencing anti-China commentators to help them sell Chinese language programming to the lucrative China market. In one potentially far reaching move, an outlet normally known for its pro-independence, anti-China sentiment recently pulled the plug on a popular talk show with a reputation for unrestrained China bashing. Critics said the decision reflected the outlet’s bid to try to sell Chinese-language soap operas on the mainland for many times the revenue it earned on the talk show.

With six round-the-clock cable TV news stations and three brashly partisan national newspapers — one owned by the China Times Group — media independence is a big issue on this island of 23 million people, particularly as it seeks to maintain its de facto political independence in the face of an unstinting Chinese bid to bring it under its control 63 years after the sides split in a civil war. Critics say the battle is already being lost, though Wednesday’s NCC decision suggests that such a conclusion may be premature.

AP's report has some really good reporting at the end of the story, on page 2, on how local TV stations are going soft on China reporting to in order to sell their own products in China. But then AP goes soft itself -- FT had the courage to call Tsai "pro-China" in its headline, while AP says he is "China-friendly" but then terms an opposition TV show "anti-China." It's a small point, but telling... FT's report was good and had a quote from Ketty Chen, one of my favorite analysts of local politics.

“People are extremely uncomfortable to the point of being angry at him, knowing that he has a pro-China stance and that he has publicly advocated that Taiwan be part of China,” said Ketty Chen, a political scientist at National Taiwan University. “That’s the main reason why people don’t want him to become the Rupert Murdoch of Taiwan.”

The AP's bog-standard Establishment view really came through in its comments about the National Communications Commission (NCC). To wit:

By putting strict conditions on CTG’s China Network systems acquisition, the NCC appeared to acknowledge these criticisms, while trying to forestall the emergence of a single dominant media group in Taiwan.

But the NCC can only do so much to maintain the independence of Taiwan’s media.

AP here treats the NCC as if it were a real regulatory body which is really trying to protect media freedom and the market. But of course, that is nonsense. The NCC was created in 2006 by the KMT-controlled legislature with the express purpose of getting around the DPP's control of media oversight and keep media organs reined in within KMT-established boundaries. It is difficult for me to regard the NCC as anything but a KMT tool. From an old post on the topic from a moment when the NCC showed a tiny bit of independence that the Ma Administration then moved to curb:

The irony of the move against the NCC is that the NCC was created under the Chen Administration in 2006 by the KMT controlled legislature to bring mass media under the control of the government. The Executive Branch, then controlled by the DPP, argued that it should have the authority to appoint NCC commission members, but the legislature clearly intended that it would have the last word on who the commission members were. Since the legislature was controlled by the KMT and its allies, the intent of the law was obvious: it was a legislative end-run around the DPP controlled executive branch intended to restore KMT control over the media and chill pro-Taiwan speech by centralizing control of the media oversight in KMT hands.

The NCC commissioner make-up reflects party share of the legislature -- with the KMT dominant in the legislature, the NCC is dominated by the KMT. For a taste of the NCC and other media issue, see this article from last year on claims that the NCC was being pressured to approve the merger, this one on PTS, and this one on the NextMedia case and the NCC.

The Taipei Times gave a taste of that in its article on the merger:

Lin said the party condemned the commission’s opaque, closed-door review of the merger application and demanded full disclosure of all records and video recordings of the meeting.

While the deal was neither legitimate nor urgent, it was hastily approved with one week left before the terms of the four remaining NCC commissioners ended, he said.

Recall that two Decembers ago Next Media mogul Jimmy Lai applied for new cable TV licenses in Taiwan.  Lai is disliked by Beijing. In a piece in WSJ he criticized the Administration and the NCC, observing:

We are not the only media company affected; the government of President Ma Ying-jeou has undertaken several initiatives to restrain the previously vibrant Taiwanese press. As the majority owner of Next Media, I have a strong vested interest in this particular case. However, I believe that anyone who values the free flow of information—not to mention the future of a free Taiwan—should be concerned.

In delivering its decision, Taiwan's National Communications Commission cited concerns that we might not be able to satisfy various regulations, and that we might try to circumvent existing program-rating restrictions. Most ominously of all, the NCC said it could not be sure that Next Media would "fulfill its social responsibilies as a mass media operator." These are all shockingly subjective rationales. Instead of dealing with the facts and merits of our application, the NCC is punishing us on the basis of what we might do.

....

Here it helps to remember that though the NCC is an ostensibly "neutral" body, its members are nonetheless nominated in proportion to the number of seats of political parties held in the legislature. Today the KMT has an overwhelming majority in Taiwan's legislature and holds the presidency. So one has to wonder whether the quality of reporting in Taiwan is really the driving concern here. The NCC would not undertake actions that endanger press freedom and the reputation of Taiwan if President Ma and the ruling KMT did not back their actions.

Lai attemped to purchase the China Times group, which was eventually sold to....Robert Tsai and the WantWant Group.

As I always say, the closer we get to China, the farther Taiwan moves from democracy. Growing dominance of the media by a rabidly pro-China billionaire won't be good for any aspect of Taiwan's public life.
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Is there press freedom in Taiwan, asks NextMedia =UPDATED=

Those of you in academia, NGOs, and on Capital Hill, note this. Next Media is turning up the heat on the government. With the NCC blocking NextMedia's application for a TV news channel license, the battle is now moving to the internet. NextMedia plans to launch there soon to obviate the NCC's obstructionism. Next Media is planning to distribute set top boxes for internet TV distribution which would have all Apple content (see this annual report, p22). Since this plan was made public pan-Blue legislators have lead a charge to regulate internet content, which NextMedia/News in Motion see as a thinly disguised campaign to prevent NextMedia from distributing its content over the internet.

REF: Previous post on the NCC.

UPDATE: See second comment for another view. ADDED: Mark Simon of Next Media says this response is completely wrong, further down.

UPDATE II: IPI from a couple of days ago:

Taiwan’s NCC Refuses Broadcasting License to Next TV, Legislators Threaten Stricter Internet Regulations
IPI expresses concerns about NCC’s failure to promote press freedom

VIENNA, 15 December 2010: More than a year after Taiwan-based Next Media Group requested a broadcasting license from Taiwan's National Communication Committee (NCC), the company has yet to receive permission to broadcast news programs.

Representatives of Next Media Group have informed IPI that in August 2009 the company applied for licenses for a news channel, a general interest channel, an entertainment channel, a sports channel and a movie channel. The NCC reportedly refused the request twice, eventually allowing only the sports and the movie channels to air and withholding the license for the news and the general interest channels.

The reason for the refusal, according to NCC, is that there are “concerns that the channel’s broadcasts would violate the Regulations Governing the Classification of Television Programs.”

In its 8 September 2010 rejection of Next TV’s application, the NCC stated that “doubts remain as to whether the applicant is able to fulfill the social responsibility expected of a television broadcaster.” It also noted that “mass media have a responsibility to ensure that their programming conforms with ethical and moral standards acceptable to the general public.”

According to news reports and talks held by IPI with media representatives in Taiwan, the issue of contention appears to be Next Media’s use of realistic computer-generated animation in support of news reporting.

The NCC, along with many members of Taiwan's media community, has reportedly expressed concern over the graphic content of some of the other publications of the Next Media Group and the fact that the website of the group’s newspaper, Apple Daily, shows computer-generated animations of violent crimes, sexual assaults, homicides and suicides.

Similar animations are also shown on the online news service launched by Next Media in July 2010, where Next TV streams five hours of news programming every day. This led to calls by 20 legislators (19 of them representing the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party - KMT, and one representing the Democratic Progressive Party - DPP) to impose stricter regulations for the internet. The NCC’s Communication Content Department Director, Jason Ho, told the Taipei Times on 22 October that unlike content on TV or radio, the government had adopted a policy of low supervision regarding internet content.

In most democratic countries, the allocation of broadcasting licenses is carried out by statutory bodies, which need to ensure their decision-making independence from government and political or economic powers. The National Communications Commission was established by the Taiwanese government in February 2006 to regulate the telecommunications, information and broadcasting sectors. Similar commissions exist in the United States and in the United Kingdom.

A spokesperson with the British Office of Communications (Ofcom) told IPI that while Ofcom’s Guidance Notes for Applicants allow for refusal of licenses if “the proposed service [is] likely to involve contraventions of the standards for programs and advertising,” as included in the Ofcom Broadcasting Code, this clause has never been applied. “We have never refused a license on these grounds,” the spokesperson told IPI.

IPI Acting Director Alison Bethel McKenzie said: “NCC’s pre-emptive refusal to grant Next TV a license on the basis of content that may be broadcast raises concerns about press freedom and equal access as key criteria in the allocation of licenses. We urge NCC and Next TV to engage in dialogue and to identify precisely which aspects of Next TV programming may be in breach of broadcasting content regulations so that Next TV has the possibility to selectively remove what is deemed unacceptable or apply for a license under a different rating.”

She added: “IPI believes NCC should encourage diversity of television content and be open to new ways to present information.”

Article 1 of the 2005 NCC Organization Act, states that the NCC “was established to implement the Constitutional guarantee of free speech; […] promote the sound development of communications; preserve the independence of the media; effectively exercise regulation on communications; […] protect the consumers’ interests and respect the rights of the disadvantaged; promote the balanced development of cultural pluralism; and increase national competitiveness.”

In response to accusations of undermining freedom of expression, KMT Legislator Hsu Shao-ping defended the proposal to regulate internet-based Next TV, saying that she was simply doing her job by addressing public concerns over Next TV’s internet broadcasts, which rely on controversial animations that may be unsuitable for certain audiences.

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WantWant media monster merger maneuvers

My wife and daughter attempt to lure a puppy dumped in our neighborhood so they can take off the collar left on him by the idiot who dumped him. Near a hilly area, our neighborhood is a big favorite for dumping dogs.

WantWant's drive to create a media monster by annexing Next Media hit a snag at the National Communications Commission (NCC) this summer when the NCC demanded that it meet three conditions:

• Want Want China Times Group Chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) and his family sever all ties with the management of CtiTV’s news channel
• China Television Co’s (CTV, 中視) news channel be changed into a non-news channel
• an independent editorial system be set up for CTV’s news department

which WantWant then publicly rejected:

...Chao Yu-pei (趙育培), special assistant to the chairman of Want Want China Broadband, yesterday said that the Want Want China Times Group could not accept the NCC’s conditions, saying that “The company will not sell CTI Television Inc. (中天電視台) or alter the operating status of China Television Co. (CTV, 中視).” He went on to stress that “The NCC does not have any legal authority to demand that we delink the Want Want China Times Group and CTI, or change CTV’s operating status....

WantWant and the other buyers of NextMedia agreed to all of the conditions last week when it announced that it was putting CiTV in a trust run by the Industrial Bank of Taiwan and then submitted a proposal to the NCC for handling the second and third conditions listed above. Throwing in the towel?

Previously the KMT had been against legislation for handling the media monopoly issue, but reversed its position the other day. Legislation sailed through the legislature. The KMT news organ passed this around today:

The legislative Transportation Committee on January 9 reported out of the committee amendment bills to the Radio and Television Act (廣播電視法), the Cable Television Act (有線電視法) and the Satellite Broadcasting Act (衛星廣播電視法) proposed by the DPP caucus.

.......

According to media reports, the KMT party central hoped that the whole matter would be dealt with only after the NCC proposed an exclusive draft bill on anti-media monopoly in March.

The anti-media monopoly amendment bills sailed through the Transportation Committee in a hasty manner on Wednesday. Yesterday, NCC Chairperson Howard Shyr (石世豪) called on Premier Sean Chen (陳冲), expressing the NCC’s view that many parts of the amendment bills were impracticable. Premier Chen concurred with Shyr in that regard.

In a rare press conference last night, an NCC official commented on the anti-media monopoly amendment bills, saying that the NCC, as the competent government agency, considered the adoption of the amendment bills by the Legislative Yuan as the worst possible outcome.

The NCC official said that the DPP’s proposal in the amendment bills to separate media operations from the financial services industry would adversely affect the financial industry’s willingness to invest in the media industry because the proposal was too draconian.

Hmmm..... lots of backdoor dealings there. Was the NCC concerned the bill would limit its power? Was the KMT concerned that the bill would stop the WantWant deal? I'm taking Door B on that one. Reuters reported it that way -- KMT blocks bill:

In an about-turn on Friday, the ruling Nationalist Party (KMT) rejected the anti-monopoly media law proposed by Taiwan's major opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a move that is expected to swell numbers at a rally planned for Sunday against China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou.

MEDIA NOTE: Reuters version of The Formula for China's claim is subtly delicious:

China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's forces won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's KMT fled to the island. Beijing has vowed to bring Taiwan under its rule eventually, and by force if necessary.

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Pray I Don't Alter it Any Further: WantWant Rejects NCC Conditions

"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."

Well...well... It seems WantWant Corporation, which was aiming to become the biggest player in Taiwan's frenetic media market, is rejecting the conditions of the deal. It doesn't want to sell CTI television nor will it alter the status of CTV. Will the NCC hang tough and make WantWant take its ball and go home? Or are the princess and the Wookie going to be put on Vader's ship? Stay tuned for the next installment of the WantWant empire strikes back!...

The National Communications Commission (NCC) two days ago approved, with three conditions for terminating the license and 25 further stipulations, the acquisition bid by Want Want China Broadband (旺中寬頻), which is affiliated with the Want Want China Times Group (旺旺中時集團), to buy up the China Network Service (CNS/中嘉網路), the country’s second-largest multiple-system operator, which owns eleven cable TV service providers.

However, the prospects for the deal going forward made an abrupt U-turn after just one night. Chao Yu-pei (趙育培), special assistant to the chairman of Want Want China Broadband, yesterday said that the Want Want China Times Group could not accept the NCC’s conditions, saying that “The company will not sell CTI Television Inc. (中天電視台) or alter the operating status of China Television Co. (CTV, 中視).” He went on to stress that “The NCC does not have any legal authority to demand that we delink the Want Want China Times Group and CTI, or change CTV’s operating status. The deal still has some variables.”

Nonetheless, NCC chairperson Su Herng (蘇蘅) had already clearly expressed the NCC’s stance two days ago that if the Want Want China Times Group could not accept conditions they had set, the NCC would not approve the acquisition.

Su said that she believed that the three conditions for terminating the license were important measures to assuage concerns that the acquisition would limit speech and lead to a media monopoly.....

The NCC has staked out its position, which on the surface is correct -- it is preventing media monopoly. Is it going to hang tough? Will it fold in the face of corporate opposition to its announced public-oriented policy? Or is this prearranged political theatre that will result in WantWant getting what it wants, which is what the NCC intended all along? Only time will tell....

If you want a glimpse of the kind of world WantWant seeks to build, the Taipei Times has food for thought this week:

On Friday, the Chinese-language China Times, China Times Weekly and local news channel CTiTV — all members of Want Want Group — ran stories with pictures showing student protesters taking money after a rally outside the National Communications Commission (NCC) building.

Although the media outlets provided no evidence to back up their claims, the three outlets reported that Academia Sinica research fellow Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) may have been involved in paying the students.

Huang had organized a separate demonstration at the same time as the student rally in front of the NCC building because the commission was reviewing the merger at that time. However, reports from the China Times, China Times Weekly and CTiTV did not differentiate between the two demonstrations.

Although Huang organized a press conference denying that he had any connection with the student protest, the media group continued to accuse him of “not wanting to clarify the incident,” while saying he was “not willing to disclose the truth.”

Yesterday, several media outlets, including the Chinese-language Apple Daily, claimed to have discovered the identity of a woman who handed out money to students on Wednesday.

The woman, identified as Liang Li-hui (梁麗惠), is an accountant at Chinsen Communications Co.

While reporters were unable to contact her, Liang’s colleagues said that although they did not know who had hired the company to recruit students, they were certain it was not Huang.

Netizens are increasingly voicing suspicions that Want Want Group may be behind the incident and using it as a way to stigmatize opponents of the takeover.

Scary, eh?
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Next Media Owner Lai in the WSJ

Next Media owner Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong media mogul, weighed in at the WSJ on the NCC's refusal to grant a cable license to Next Media. This is a forthright, strong, and important article -- all credit to WSJ for running it and to Lai for writing it. Note the title: Taiwan's Less-Free Media: The government of President Ma Ying-jeou is tightening controls on Taiwan's press. Lai says:

In China, government assaults on free expression regularly generate attention around the world. Less so in other parts of Asia, alas. So when Taiwan's telecommunications and broadcasting regulator rejected my company's application for new cable TV licenses multiple times in the last year, most recently last month, the news went almost unnoticed outside Taiwan.

We are not the only media company affected; the government of President Ma Ying-jeou has undertaken several initiatives to restrain the previously vibrant Taiwanese press. As the majority owner of Next Media, I have a strong vested interest in this particular case. However, I believe that anyone who values the free flow of information—not to mention the future of a free Taiwan—should be concerned.

In delivering its decision, Taiwan's National Communications Commission cited concerns that we might not be able to satisfy various regulations, and that we might try to circumvent existing program-rating restrictions. Most ominously of all, the NCC said it could not be sure that Next Media would "fulfill its social responsibilies as a mass media operator." These are all shockingly subjective rationales. Instead of dealing with the facts and merits of our application, the NCC is punishing us on the basis of what we might do.

Next Media has been an effective competitor in the Taiwan market, and it is likely at least some of the pressure on the NCC comes from media firms that do not want to compete with Next. Apple Daily, the print rag, has managed to do something amazing in Taiwan's partisan media environment: it has positioned itself as an unaligned media outlet.

Lai says right out loud: this refusal to give a license is an attack on press freedom sanctioned at the highest levels:

Nor has the government stopped with Next TV. Last week, the NCC revoked the entertainment channel license of another broadcaster, ERA TV, sparking protest from some lawmakers.

In an even more worrying development, the Taiwanese legislature is now considering a bill that would ban news outlets from "describing or illustrating violence, bloodshed, pornographic sexuality, or lewdness in detail." The language containing this provision is part of a group of amendments being pushed by an NGO called the Child Welfare League Foundation, as well as by the Taiwanese government's Child Welfare Bureau.

The goal, to shield children from violent or graphic content, is a laudable one. But in practice, this law would have a chilling effect on reporting for children and adults alike. So vague is the wording, it has the potential to impact the reporting of every crime, every accident—not to mention every embarrassing misadventure by a Taiwanese politician.

Here it helps to remember that though the NCC is an ostensibly "neutral" body, its members are nonetheless nominated in proportion to the number of seats of political parties held in the legislature. Today the KMT has an overwhelming majority in Taiwan's legislature and holds the presidency. So one has to wonder whether the quality of reporting in Taiwan is really the driving concern here. The NCC would not undertake actions that endanger press freedom and the reputation of Taiwan if President Ma and the ruling KMT did not back their actions.

Lai's inclusion of the NCC's shutdown of ERA is probably unwise though the local media has reacted to it strongly as a threat to all of them. However, the NCC's case against ERA looks pretty solid. The Taipei Times reported last week:

Commission spokesperson Chen Jeng-chang (陳正倉) said ERA TV’s operating license was issued on Feb. 27, 2004, and expired on Feb. 26.

“The commission knew the channel had 49 recorded violations in the past six years, with penalties totaling NT$16.75 million [US$540,000],” Chen said. “Although the commission granted the renewal, there were two conditions.”

The first was that the channel’s content must abide by Articles 17 and 19 of the Satellite Broadcasting Act (衛星廣播電視法) — which in general terms regulate content and hidden advertisements respectively — for a period of a year following renewal. The second stipulated that program reruns could not exceed 60 percent of daily content.

The channel had three violations since February, Chen said.

The most serious was in June, when the channel was fined NT$1 million for failing to distinguish between regular programs and commercials, thus violating Article 19 of the act.

“The commission sent an official notice in July, which informed the channel it had violated the conditions for its license renewal,” Chen said.

The channel was also fined NT$2.1 million as it continued to operate after its operational license became invalid in July.

The interesting thing is whether the shutdown of ERA is what it appears to be on the surface, a reasonable response to a continuing problem, or whether it is the opening salvo in an assault on the media for political purposes, in which ERA is the "reasonable" victim that makes more outrageously politically-motivated attacks possible.

People often focus on direct government assaults on the media, but there are two other serious problems. First, the government's use of "advertorials", fake news stories that are really a form of advertising for the government's own policies and products, is out of control:

Although the practice, also known as placing “advertorials,” was adopted 10 years ago when the Democratic Progressive Party was in power, the KMT did not address it after regaining power in May 2008, [Premier] Wu told reporters.

“A government is bound to promote itself, so is a candidate, a political party, a company or a state, but there should be a clear distinction between news stories, advertisements and promotion,” Wu said. “Product placements should be avoided.”

Product placements “deceive” people, he said, because they are a form of paid advertisement masquerading as a news story.

“While it is impossible for -governments or companies to refrain from running promotions or advertisements, a line must be drawn to distinguish promotion and advertisement by businesses, political parties or individuals from objective news stories,” Wu said.

The controversy over the government’s use of advertorials came to the fore after veteran reporter Huang Je-bing (黃哲斌) resigned from the China Times on Dec. 12, likening the practice to the use of propaganda by the Chinese Communist Party. On Sunday, more than 100 reporters and professors of communication at various universities signed a petition calling on the government to stop resorting to advertorials, a practice they claim has grown substantially under the Ma administration.

The legislature is now working on legislation to address the issue. An article on the signature campaign is here. A media official, commenting in the Taipei Times, observed:

In 2008, Ma signed a pledge opposing embedded marketing of a political nature, but since then the government has continued to use taxpayers’ money for this purpose. According to ratings published late last year by AC Nielsen, advertising for the top 50 government agencies topped NT$1.24 billion (US$42 million), and the combined advertising and PR budget for the Mainland Affairs Council (陸委會) was as high as NT$180 million. These attempts to strip the fourth estate of its right of supervision and oversight threatens to destroy the core value of news reporting. This attack on the freedom of the press could force Taiwan even further down international ratings. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, compiled by the UK’s Economist magazine, has even returned Taiwan to the “flawed democracy” category.

The corrupting effects of government money flowing into the media are bad enough, but private corporations also do the same thing, I have heard. Chinese money also flows into Taiwan's media as well.....
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Daily Links

• A PRC citizen's bike ride around Taiwan. Truly excellent pics (the third page has great east coast pics). Could do without the asinine "Taiwan China" under every pic.
• International Human Rights are dead; China has killed them.
• Public confidence in Ma drops.
• LTH: 1992 Consensus a fabrication. Ma: DPP impractical on 1992 consensus. The reality is that since the CCP would talk to the KMT without any formal "consensus" it is the KMT that is proposing something entirely superfluous. This is all about rhetorical attacks on the DPP.
  
• New municipalities = CHAOS
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NCC to stand firm against WantWant Media Maw?

Pandemonium in the cafeteria today as dozens of groups competed in the annual gingerbread house building contest on campus.

The Taipei Times reports:

National Communications Commission (NCC) Chairman Howard Shyr (石世豪) yesterday said the commission’s ruling on Want Want China Times Group’s purchase of cable TV services owned by China Network Systems (CNS) remain unchanged and that the transaction would not take effect until the group fulfilled each and every requirement issued by the commission.

....

The preconditions include that group chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) and his family members, as well as his business associates in the deal, must completely dissociate themselves from the operation of CtiTV News. In addition, China Television’s (CTV) digital news channel must be turned into a non-news channel. As a TV network, CTV must have an independent editorial system as well.

These conditions were already rejected by WantWant back in July, months ago (my post). A media report quoted:

Chao Yu-pei (趙育培), special assistant to the chairman of Want Want China Broadband, yesterday said that the Want Want China Times Group could not accept the NCC’s conditions, saying that “The company will not sell CTI Television Inc. (中天電視台) or alter the operating status of China Television Co. (CTV, 中視).” He went on to stress that “The NCC does not have any legal authority to demand that we delink the Want Want China Times Group and CTI, or change CTV’s operating status."

The curious thing is that a couple of years ago the NCC, originally created during the Chen Administration to be a lapdog of the KMT in its ongoing struggle to gain control of the media and do an end-run around the Chen Administration's control of the government news organs, was in turn targeted by the Ma Administration (here) for being a bit too independent. The Administration obviously wants this deal to go through.  Last year there a journalist who reported that the NCC had been pressured to pass the deal was sued, a case that caused an uproar. Either the NCC is simply grandstanding for the public and will be ignored by WantWant as it engulfs Next Media, to which the NCC will quietly acquiesce when presented with the usual fig leafs so it can claim the conditions were met, or else the Administration will slap it down.

The Taipei Times also reported...

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said on Tuesday during the release of the nation’s first human rights report in English that he did not want the media in the nation to present only one viewpoint.

....since so much of the local media is being eaten by China, one wonders.
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Daily Links:

• Law and the Taiwanese police by one of the coolest people I know, Jeff Martin.
• Taiwan gov't releases its first human rights report.
• Richard hikes Mts Shihguanyin and Erkonggui.
• October export orders run ahead of estimates. Yay!

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An Old Whine In New Bottles: Ma to "fight corruption" with new Agency

Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy. -- Peter Ustinov

Big news this week as President Ma has created a new anti-corruption commission. Here's the news:

Revisions to the Court Organic Act that were passed earlier this year will see Taiwan emulating Japan and South Korea by setting up a new special investigation unit under the Taiwan High Prosecutor's Office. Prosecutors with a high level of integrity and strong investigative skills will be assigned to this unit and will exclusively pursue investigations of major corruption and economic crimes that involve legislators, government ministers, high-level military officials, the heads of the five yuan (major branches of the central government), and the president and vice president. In preparation for the establishment of this unit, Counselor Shen traveled to South Korea at the end of October to gain experience by observing how prosecutors there conduct anti-corruption activities.

WHOOPS! Oh wait! SORRY! That was 2006 (here). Let's try again from the Taipei Times.....

“After the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Panel [SIP] revealed a serious scandal involving several Taiwan High Court judges, I decided to establish the nation’s first anti-corruption agency,” Ma told the ceremony.

The purpose of the AAC is to prevent corruption, because prevention should precede crackdowns, he said, adding that its creation should deter public servants from engaging in corrupt activities.

“As the agency investigates corruption cases, one precondition is that it must collect sufficient evidence [of corruption] before it makes an indictment [of a public servant],” Ma said, adding that this should increase the conviction rate.

A great idea, having sufficient evidence of corruption before indicting someone. Is Ma saying things were different when he was the Minister of Justice?

What he appears to mean, though, is that the SIP simply lost too many cases against DPP politicians....

Yes, it's looking like the rewind button, as the DPP noted after the commission was announced:

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday said it feared the new agency could represent a “second wind for the SIP, which has become a tool for the current administration to carry out political oppression.”

It's not difficult to see what is going on. The Special Investigations Panel (SIP) has basically gone dead in the water. It is now being sued by 26 civic groups for its handling of the Chen Shui-bian case:

A group made up of 26 civic organizations yesterday sued the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Panel (SIP), accusing it of forging documents, subornation of perjury and abuse of judicial power.

Led by Taiwanese National Party (TNP) Chairman Huang Hua (黃華), the groups filed the lawsuit with the Taipei District Court against the SIP, which they said cut a deal with former -Chinatrust -Financial Holding Co (中信金控) vice chairman Jeffrey Koo Jr (辜仲諒) to testify against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in an attempt to imprison him.

Koo, who was involved in a scandal over Chinatrust’s bid for rival Mega Financial Holdings Co (兆豐金控) — known as the Red Fire Case (紅火案), after the name of the offshore company used to conduct the illegal transaction — returned to Taiwan in 2008 after evading an arrest warrant and hiding in Japan for two years.

The banker testified at the time that he had donated about NT$300 million (US$10.4 million) of his illegal profits to Chen, currently serving a 17-and-a-half-year term for corruption and money laundering, as a kickback.

Koo’s lawyers told the Taiwan High Court in May that Koo did not remit the money to Chen, adding that he testified out of fear of being detained upon his return to Taiwan.

I blogged on that testimony a little while back (a good post, if I do say so myself). The prosecutions against the DPPers mostly ran aground -- Yunlin County Chief Su Chih-fen was found innocent, the embezzlement charges against Chen Shui-bian were laughed out of court, and now the Koo family has testified that their testimony in the conviction of Chen for taking bribes from them was extorted by the prosecutors. The Special Investigation Panel was also behind the laughable investigation into Su Tseng-chang for allegedly running off with 36,000 documents from the government files.

In other words, the SIP has basically become a worn out tool that couldn't get the job done, so it looks like the KMT is now going to add another unit to go after "corruption" in the government which of course was the task of the SIP.

The Taipei Times ripped this move this week, arguing that: "In all likelihood, the AAC will become the AADPPC, or the Agency Against DPP Corruption, especially in the lead-up to January’s presidential election." More tellingly, they identified the Administration's real attitude on "corruption":

Just how determined is the Ma government to stamp out corruption? Recent moves regarding the rampant and ongoing practice of vote buying are telling. From December 2008 to May last year, 26 local officials belonging to the KMT were indicted around the nation for vote buying. How did the government reward Hsin Tai-chao (邢泰釗), the chief prosecutor at the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office, who is credited with being Taiwan’s leading prosecutor against the practice of vote buying? He was transferred to Kinmen Island. That shows real determination.

Today the DPP complained that Ma had appointed two biased individuals to head up the new AAC, confirming the worst fears of the pro-Taiwan opposition. In some one-party states I know, slander is the tool. In Taiwan, it is looking like accusations of corruption are the charge de jour.

However, the new AAC will have to move fast if it is going to affect the elections -- they are just six months away....

This is a twofold pattern -- first the typical pattern of authoritarian inefficiency, in which overlapping bodies are created to carry out identical tasks, partly because of Authority's dissatisfaction with the original and partly to keep everyone divided and competing against each other for the approval of Authority. Instead of reforming and strengthening the SIP, which is what should be done....

The other pattern is the formation of bodies to carry out tasks of political control when the original ones fail to please their masters. A good example of this pattern is the creation of the National Communications Commission (NCC) in 2006. The tasks it was charged with were already being carried out by the telecoms bureau and the Government Information Office (GIO). However, that was during the Chen Administration and those organizations were not sufficiently servile towards the KMT even though, even under the Chen Administration, the rank and file were predominantly pro-Blue bureaucrats. Hence the KMT-controlled legislature went ahead and created the NCC under its control to shape the media's presentation of politics....(from this old post):

The irony of the move against the NCC is that the NCC was created under the Chen Administration in 2006 by the KMT controlled legislature to bring mass media under the control of the government. The Executive Branch, then controlled by the DPP, argued that it should have the authority to appoint NCC commission members, but the legislature clearly intended that it would have the last word on who the commission members were. Since the legislature was controlled by the KMT and its allies, the intent of the law was obvious: it was a legislative end-run around the DPP controlled executive branch intended to restore KMT control over the media and chill pro-Taiwan speech by centralizing control of the media oversight in KMT hands.

As a commentator in the Taipei Times observed, even the utterly pro-KMT NCC was still too independent. And now the SIP, a recent invention, is being marginalized by a new body. How long before that one is tossed by the way side?

ADDED: A friend reminds me that "Mr Clean", Chen Ding-nan, who was Chen Shui-bian's first minister of justice, pushed for the establishment of an independent anti-corruption commission along the lines of Hong Kong`s ICAC almost as soon as he got into office. This proposal (raised in various forms by various DPP premiers) was of course totally boycotted by the KMT.
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Daily Links:

• A very theoretical look at the South China Sea vs Senkakus. Meanwhile recent agreement between the claimants in the South China Sea is incomplete. Not that it matters because Beijing will promptly violate it.
• Nat Bellocchhi's excellent piece on the Lee Teng-hui indictment
• Far Eastern Sweet Potato looks at the relative decline of Taiwan's Navy
• David goes to the DPP rally on Thursday and comes back with good pics.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Notes from the US

Joseph Wu, Taiwan's de facto ambassador to the US, had an opinion piece on our democracy here in a US paper.

Taiwan's democracy is young and vibrant, though by no means perfect or fully matured.

In Taiwan, for example, the public has become increasingly dissatisfied with its media's turn toward sensationalism.

Media companies in Taiwan seem more interested in expanding their individual market shares than in the pursuit of excellence in journalism. It is an affliction common to journalism elsewhere, as well.

Yet, media reform in Taiwan must come from within the profession itself, upon the demands of the consuming public. Government attempts would be viewed as a violation of media freedom.

As the United States has the Federal Communications Commission, Taiwan has the regulatory National Communication Commission, modeled after the FCC.

But, as in some sectors of the U.S., the public is wary of the role of the NCC, as its leadership is based on "party-proportional representation." This principle guarantees the politicization of a commission intended to be a neutral rule-maker and enforcer for Taiwan's media market.

Taiwan's Council of Grand Justices — the constitutional court — has ruled that NCC's system of proportional political representation is unconstitutional. Yet, reorganization of the NCC does not appear to be forthcoming at the present time.

The piece focuses too much on the NCC, which will not be something American readers will know or care about, and not enough on perfidious Beijing, but it does sound the alarm on Beijing's behavior:

The extremely hostile PRC government continues to view Taiwan as part of China, and this dangerous irredentist claim, paired with constant military threats against Taiwan, has prolonged and intensified a polarizing domestic debate on the island over whether Taiwan is — or ought to be — an independent country.

It is, indeed, a wonder that, with the currently hostile political environment created by the PRC government, any political party on Taiwan would continue to claim that Taiwan is a part of China.

Despite the fact that Taiwan's democracy is neither perfect nor mature, the reality of competitive elections at regular intervals under the watch of an open media and the active scrutiny of the political opposition, means that Taiwan nevertheless is a vibrant and enviable democracy.

Furthermore, Taiwan's democratic success stands as an excellent counterargument against the fallacious proposal, vis-à-vis China, that traditional Chinese culture cannot sustain a Western-style democracy.

Also from the US is this blurb I found in my email on Obama's right-hand man. The info is originally from the NY Sun:

Reporter Eli Lake describes an "inner circle" of three top advisors...former Clinton National Security Advisor Tony Lake, former Iraq Study Group staffer Ben Rhodes, and retired Air Force Gen. Scott Gration.

"They are part of a nine-person team, in contact every day, often by e-mail. The team develops policy positions, clears language for use in comments to the press, and prepares [Obama]......for a dangerous world and a global war."

Global war? Gulp...

Continuing..."The...team funnels input to Denis McDonough, an Obama campaign staff member who briefs the candidate..." And McDonough helps coordinate "a broader group of 250 advisors...divided into [20-member] groups dealing with the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, South Asia, East Asia, Russia-Europe, defense, veterans, counter-terrorism, democracy and development, and multilateral institutions."

(We'd note that Denis, with one "n", McDonough is a veteran of former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's staff, and has spent the past few years at The Center for American Progress. He is well-versed in Asia issues, especially those involving Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan.)

Daschle was a longtime friend of Taiwan. The Center for American Progress, which bills itself as a progressive think tank, is here. McDonough is profiled on the CAP website.

[Taiwan] [obama]

AP on the WantWant Media Monster

AP's Peter Enav in Taiwan occasionally finds the time to produce longer review articles; last week he came out with a really good piece on the WantWant media monopoly campaign. A taste:

The controversy over Tsai and his expansive Taiwanese media holdings goes right to the heart of the dominant issue in Taiwanese politics: Whether the island should attempt to maintain the separate political identity from the mainland it has maintained since splitting apart from it amid civil war in 1949, or whether it should bow to China's increasing political and economic might and accept its sovereign sway. Taiwanese media, particularly the island's four national newspapers and its seven major 24-hour cable news stations, play a crucial role in the debate, using their columns and broadcasts to promote the competing pro-China and independence agendas of the two main political parties.

The strength of Tsai's pro-China views were underlined in January 2012 when he told the Washington Post newspaper that he unreservedly backed Taiwan's unification with the mainland. "I really hope that I can see that," he said. In the same article he also attacked the widely held belief that Chinese security forces killed hundreds if not thousands of demonstrators during pro-democracy protests around Beijing's Tiananmen Square in June 1989, citing the refusal of a phalanx of Chinese tanks to run over a famously bold protester as evidence of the forces' restraint.

Want Want's own internal newsletter reported in its December 2008 edition that during a meeting in Beijing, Tsai told Wang Yi, head of the Chinese government's Taiwan Affairs Office, that Tsai had acquired the China Times Group "in order to use the power of the press to advance relations between China and Taiwan." The newsletter quoted Wang as saying that if Tsai's company had any future needs "the Taiwan Affairs Office will do its best to help it, including giving support to its food business."

If you didn't read that last paragraph, read it. There's plenty of personal data on Tsai and views of Tsai from other sources, so read the whole article too. Really good work, Peter.

AP's treatment focuses on what outsiders are interested in -- the China's relentless drive to annex Taiwan and Taiwan's resistance to it. But there is another aspect that needs to be remembered: Next Media did plenty of investigative reporting of local politicians and corporations, and Tsai will likely hamstring that.

The day before the AP article, the National Communications Commission (NCC) ruled that WantWant had not satisfied the conditions laid down by the NCC months ago. The Taipei Times reported:

The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday ruled that Want Want China Times Group (旺旺中時集團) has not met the three conditions it set last year for the group’s acquisition of the cable TV services operated by China Network Systems (CNS, 中嘉網路), adding that another administrative hearing would not be necessary.

For the acquisition to be valid, group chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) and his family members or associates must completely dissociate themselves from CtiTV’s (中天電視) news channel. China Television Co’s (CTV, 中視) digital news channel, which also belongs to the group, must be changed to a non-news channel and CTV must have an independent editorial system.

The commission said that each condition must be met for the Want Want-CNS deal to take effect.

I haven't heard what WantWant intends to do about it. But last July when they were first promulgated, the food giant rejected them out of hand. It's hard for me to imagine that in a society where big companies routinely get whatever they want, this deal won't go through. It will be interesting to whether and how the NCC will either retreat or be bypassed or simply... ignored.
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Daily Links:

• Brian Benedictus' interview with Gordon Chang
• The little pangolin, one of the most threatened animals due to the illegal trade in their meat and scales.
• Taiwan Communique #140 out!
• Government accepts referendum on nuclear power.
• Last month, we learned that the rice noodles aren't made from rice. This month we learn that sodium levels in the instant noodles are much higher than stated on the package.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Public Television, Private Interests

Freedom House warned on the political maneuvering around Taiwan's Public Television Service....

Freedom House urges Taiwan to safeguard the integrity of the country’s public broadcaster following the removal of its leadership.

On September 19, Taiwan’s Public Television Service Foundation, the entity that oversees the Public Television Service (PTS), took the unusual step of removing the station’s leadership, Sylvia Feng (President and CEO) and Chung Yu-yuan (Executive Vice President), just three months before their three-year terms were set to expire. The Public Broadcasting Foundation claimed that the firings were made on the basis of poor performance, an assertion that Feng and Chung reject and may challenge in court.

......

The changes at the PTS are being made within a context of a highly polemical and politically polarized media environment in Taiwan. They also come just eight weeks before the country’s important municipal elections. Wu Tsang-Rong, Director of the Administration Department, will apparently assume the position of interim director of Taiwan’s PTS.

Reporters without Borders has also criticized the move.

The struggle by the KMT to gain control of the Public Television Service (PTS) was outlined in a Taipei Times editorial from a few days ago. According to the editorial, in December of 2008, "the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee passed a resolution proposed by KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) to freeze the PTS’ budget for last year unless the broadcaster gained approval from the GIO for every item on its budget request." Item by item review by the GIO essentially gives the GIO head, a political appointee, control over everything PTS does.

But that was still too much freedom for the PTS, so in June of 2009 the legislature enlarged the board of directors for the PTS. Since the PTS is funded by the GIO, the GIO instantly appointed eight new directors. You can imagine which party they supported. In September the GIO sued six of the 11 remaining directors, saying they were illegally holding meetings without the necessary quorum.

In Dec of 2009 the Control Yuan censured the GIO for increasing the number of board members, a widely criticized move. In calling for a Control Yuan investigation of these shenanigans, the Taipei Times wrote:

Adding to the controversy was last month’s dismissal of PTS Foundation president and chief executive Sylvia Feng (馮賢賢), who had worked for the station for 12 years, on grounds of incompetence by acting PTS chairman and KMT supporter Chen Sheng-fu (陳勝福). This was while, under Feng’s leadership, funds raised by the PTS skyrocketed to close to NT$10 million (US$321,000) in the second half of last year and the PTS’ viewership rate had grown from 0.03 percent in 1998 to 0.18 percent last year.

The campaign against PTS is also part of a larger campaign to gain ascendancy over the media that has unfolded since Ma took power. Another piece in the Taipei Times summed it up:

After Ma came into power, his administration changed the national news agency, the Central News Agency, so it now gives preference to the KMT’s party-state. It also forced out the chairperson and the management team of Radio Taiwan International and used placement marketing to gain total control over the media. It has also planned to curtail the independence of the National Communication Commission.

The irony of the move against the NCC is that the NCC was created under the Chen Administration in 2006 by the KMT controlled legislature to bring mass media under the control of the government. The Executive Branch, then controlled by the DPP, argued that it should have the authority to appoint NCC commission members, but the legislature clearly intended that it would have the last word on who the commission members were. Since the legislature was controlled by the KMT and its allies, the intent of the law was obvious: it was a legislative end-run around the DPP controlled executive branch intended to restore KMT control over the media and chill pro-Taiwan speech by centralizing control of the media oversight in KMT hands.

Yet even that had too much independence for this Administration to stomach.

Sylvia Feng had a piece in Apple Daily last month giving her point of view.

有人說，你們不是「自己人」，理應知難而退。是的，我不是任何政治人物的「自己人」。立委叫我們停節目，我們沒答應。新聞局叫我們跟央廣、中央社討論如何配合花博報導，我們婉謝了。大埔農民陷入困境，我們最先報導。在眾多媒體負責人向政商勢力靠攏的傳統中，我們是傻瓜與孤鳥。

Some people said: you all are not an "us", you should quit. Yes, I am not any politician's "one of us". Legislators asked us to stop a program, we didn't agree to do that. The GIO told us to discuss with the CNR and CNA to determine how to coordinate reports on the Taipei Floral Exhibtion, we declined. We were the first to report on the problems of the Tapu farmers [land seizures in Miaoli - MT] . From the standpoint of the traditional media role of something that business and government lean on, we are idiots and loners.

Today we are all idiots and loners.
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Daily Links:

• NOT TO BE MISSED: Danny Bloom's excellent piece on Taiwan's 886 international phone code.
  
• The era of great power politics in Asia isn't over.
• Intelligence agent busted for deleting files of Chinese persons of interest. Out of laziness, it said. I hope that's true.
• Hot money inflows forcing NT to rise, Central Bank intervenes.
• Reuters Factbox: Key Political Risks in Taiwan.
  
• Podcast: Our life in Taiwan: the Grand Hotel with much snark.
• A commenter alerted me to the Google Earth updated Senkaku area. If you fly over you can read the competing markers that ROC and PRC nationalists have placed there.
• James Fallows writes:

  In mentioning, earlier this afternoon, that Christine O'Donnell had claimed in 2006 to have secret-document proof of China's master plan to conquer America, I left out the context. Several readers have helpfully pointed out that she made the remarks in a primary-campaign debate -- and directed them to a primary opponent who beat her (handily) and another candidate (narrowly) to win the Republican nomination. He is a Harvard Law School graduate and Temple University Law School professor named Jan C. Ting... Stay classy, Christine!

  Ting was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His father was an immigrant from China who left to escape the Japanese invasion and served as a doctor in the US Army in WWII. Christine O'Donnell is beyond disgusting.
• Every married man knows it: the more women in a group, the smarter it is.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

An Apple a Day Keeps the News Awry

Apple's Indecent Cartoons Make Global News: Apple Daily put out a cartoon of Tiger Woods (at Salon). Salon.com, for example, not only misspelled TAIWAN but note the third to last word in the URL there:

http://open.salon.com/blog/stellaa/2009/12/02/crouching_tiger_chinese_tv_video

Many other news organizations picked up the video. If it makes Apple Daily stop putting out these borderline slanderous, pandering animations, so much the better. The whole media atmosphere would benefit if Apple stopped this crap.

Taipei Mayor Hau's banning of Apple Daily from elementary schools also made the international news, picked up by MSNBC as Keith Olberman named him the World's Worst Person, mostly tongue in cheek, and then played the Apple Daily video of Tiger Woods' alleged sex life. Yes, it is so rare for a wealthy celebrity who travels a lot to have affairs with women much younger than himself; the whole world should be interested when that occurs. Hau had taken firm action against Apple....

The Hau administration gave Next Media Ltd, publisher of the Apple Daily, two fines totaling NT$1 million (US$31,000) for publishing sensational content in violation of media classification regulations in the Children and Juveniles Welfare Act (兒童及青少年福利法).

The city government also ordered all schools in the city to cancel their subscriptions to the newspaper because it contained a barcode enabling free downloads of News-in-Motion clips to cellphones.

The video service, called News in Motion, was launched last week by Apple Daily:

He [Hau] said it was the appropriate course of action now that the Apple Daily had decided to classify the content, adding that it proved that the city was right.

The city will continue to monitor News-in-Motion, he said, to ensure that it conforms to the Children and Juveniles Welfare Act (兒童及青少年福利法).

Hau made the remarks while attending an annual prayer breakfast meeting in Taipei yesterday.[MT - we have prayer breakfasts here?]

The Apple Daily — published by Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai (黎智英) — launched the feature last week in a trial run as the Apple Group expands from print to TV.

The service is only accessible to readers who pay a fee.

It uses animated graphics to reconstruct stories that appear in the newspaper and can also be viewed by cellphone users who scan a bar code printed in the newspaper. Some of the stories feature sexual content and violence.

The Taipei City Government fined Next Media on Wednesday and Thursday for violating the media classification regulations in the Children and Juveniles Welfare Act.

The calls for regulation did not go unheeded, as Taiwan's legislature, following in the tradition of legislative bodies the world over who are always ready to act rapidly in making gaudy displays of public morality, is pushing through revisions to the laws regulating the media:

In order to control violent and sexually explicit news content in TV, online and print media, lawmakers and civic groups have joined hands to push for revisions to relevant laws.

The Legislative Yuan’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee reviewed draft revisions to the Children and Youth Welfare Act Dec. 2. Although no progress was made in reviewing the bill, lawmakers have been active in working together to push for relevant legal revisions. Kuomintang Legislators Hung Hsiu-chu, Alex Fai and Shyu Jong-shyoung have proposed amendments to the broadcasting laws.

In their proposal, the lawmakers explain that the scenes of criminal acts, including sexual assaults and murders, reconstructed in graphic detail on Next Media Ltd.’s online “news-in-motion” service are harmful to viewers, undermine human rights, damage social values and violate journalistic ethics and morals.

It is very tempting to see this kerfluffle as payback to Apple Daily's owner, Jimmy Lai, for attempting to buy into Taiwan's cable media market when he went after the China Times group, which was eventually acquired by Robert Tsai, the ardently pro-China tycoon. In the very least, it is tempting to read it as a shot across the bow, as if to say, don't get out of line again. One is also tempted to point out that nailing the foreigner/outsider for not having approved sexual mores, a variation on the familiar trope of They're rogering our women! with a media-appropriate Save our children from them!, may well be swelling a few heads here.

In fact the National Communications Commission (NCC) is reviewing Apple/Next's application for a cable news and information network:

The controversy surrounding “News-in-Motion” has placed tremendous pressure on the National Communications ­Commission (NCC), which is in the process of reviewing the group’s application to establish the Next TV network. The applications include plans for “News-in-Motion” to feature on its news channel.

NCC spokesperson Chen Jeng-chang (陳正倉) said that Next TV’s chances of securing an operating license for its news and information channels are very low, especially in the wake of the “News-in-Motion” scandal.

Chen said that the commission would review the three other channels that the group intends to set up — entertainment, sports and movie channels — this week, adding that commissioners are likely to approve them as they are “less controversial.”

It sure is tempting to say that Jimmy Lai is getting "the treatment" to make sure he understands his place in the scheme of things.

But I would never ever ever say such a thing.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

China Survelliance Net to Extend Across the Strait

J Michael Cole, former intelligence analyst, has a great piece in the Taipei Times today pointing out the problems with the stake that China Mobile has taken in Far EasTone....

While a 12 percent minority stake in a firm may appear innocuous, the target sector — telecommunications — is a sensitive one, as it touches on matters of individual liberties and freedom of expression. In democratic countries, intelligence agencies must obtain a warrant before they can intercept someone’s conversations on mobile phones, land lines or via electronic means of communication such as the Internet.

.........

No country today has refined the art of control and seizure of communication more than China, which relentlessly polices Internet chat rooms, phone conversations, e-mail, video content and SMS exchanges, as well as more traditional media such as print, radio and TV, doing so both preemptively — that is, to prevent individuals from making certain claims, or “leaking” information that is assessed as “secret” — and post-facto as evidence of subversion or “splittism.”

These efforts come in many guises, from cute cartoon reminders on Web sites and state-owned portals establishing the parameters of what users are allowed to say, to worryingly intrusive spyware targeting specific dissident groups within China and abroad, as was recently exposed in the Tracking GhostNet report.

It is with this in mind that China Mobile’s proposed investment in Taiwan’s third-largest telecoms service provider, which has a 25.5 percent share of the market of about 24.7 million subscribers, is so worrying. The problem does not lie with a Chinese company buying a stake in the Taiwanese firm, but the fact that the Chinese government has a 67.5 percent share in China Mobile. Not only does this mean that part of the NT$17.77 billion (US$528 million) investment would come from Chinese state coffers, but it would leave the door open for the introduction of Chinese individuals on the board of directors at Far EasTone.

Through this and by dint of further investments in the company, human-to-human contact, sharing of corporate data and electronic exchanges, the Chinese government could, if it chose, gain access to subscriber information (overtly or covertly) and thereby facilitate electronic surveillance of Taiwanese citizens. The implication is that the Chinese government could now monitor Taiwanese dissidents — or independence advocates — with far greater ease.

What makes this proposed investment doubly troubling is China Mobile’s chairman, Wang Jianzhou (王建宙), who during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last year, raised eyebrows after revealing with disquieting nonchalance the extent of the personal data his company had on Chinese subscribers as well as the willingness of his company to provide personal subscriber information to Chinese authorities on request. Although Wang has since 1999 worked in the private sector, his ties to the Chinese government include positions as technology director in the Zhe­jiang government, director-general of the posts and telecommunications bureau in Hangzhou, director-general of the planning and construction department at the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and director-general of the general planning department at the Ministry of Information Industry.

As J Michael notes, once China has its foot in the door, there is no doubt that China Mobile's stake will be used against Taiwan citizens.

One reason that is so is because Taiwan is already classified as an "endemic surveillance society" by Privacy International, and has one of the worst international records. There is nothing in the Taiwan experience to suggest there will be resistance to a China presence in Taiwan's surveillance networks. Note that the presence of Chinese personnel at Far EasTone at some point, implied by the deal, means that China will not merely be able monitor dissidence in all its forms, but also to intercept corporate and private business data. Forbes.com offers this article on China from last year:

McIndoe says the tracking usually begins with the temporary confiscation of a laptop, cellphone or PDA at customs. If this happens, consider it a "virtual guarantee" that its contents will copied, including everything from sensitive call lists to clues on how to infiltrate a network back home. Calls and text messages can also be remotely monitored, particularly if a key word like Tibet or Falun Gong has triggered the surveillance system.

Safest Bets
Unfortunately, cellphones or PDAs purchased outside of China are not immune to eavesdropping. Once a call or text goes through the country's cellphone towers, it may be picked up by authorities. McIndoe's advice is to leave these devices at home or wipe them clean of information before arriving. In some cases, employers keep sanitized loaner laptops on hand for this purpose. Either way, devices should be professionally scanned for bugs if they return to the U.S.

Though it may seem safer, e-mailing from an Internet cafe is the worst alternative. These are aggressively monitored by authorities interested in browsing and e-mailing activities. McIndoe warns that log-in usernames and passwords are easily captured and that accessing a virtual private network from a cafe or any wi-fi hotspot can expose the system to malicious software. Exercise caution about accessing e-mail accounts and be sure to change logins upon returning home.

Another article today noted that KMT and DPP legislators were criticizing the deal:

The unexpected move incurred criticism from lawmakers on the Transportation Committee. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) said the announcement had been made to cause speculation on the markets. Lo claimed that Far Eastern Group had been able to boost its total market value to NT$94.3 billion following the announcement.

“[The announcement] is intended to cheat and lie to individual investors in the stock market so they will invest in the company,” Lo said. “But the NCC have done nothing about it.”

Lo said the maximum penalty of NT$600,000 for violating the Act Governing Relations between peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例) meant nothing to the company.

Peng said the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) remained the nation’s highest authority when approving Chinese investment in the telecommunications industry. The NCC was only planning to allow Chinese investment in second-category telecoms carriers, not first-category carriers, she said.

The Telecommunications Act (電信法) states that first category businesses hold licenses allowing them to construct networks and offer services, whereas second category firms can only lease networks to offer services.

“Chinese firms are prohibited from investing in telecommunication services,” Peng said, adding that the MAC is canvasing suggestions from different administrative authorities to formulate a list of industries in which Chinese firms would be allowed to invest.

Peng said the NCC has asked Far EasTone to brief the commission about the investment on Monday. The firm’s representative assured the commissioners that so far it had yet to receive any investment from China Mobile.

In other words, Far EasTone's China funding inflow is simply one manifestation of the fundamental problem of large firm disregard for the law in Taiwan, and of the government's reluctance to pass meaningful legislation and to make meaningful the existing legal framework. Does anyone really believe that in this context of legal ambiguity and regulatory impotence, China Mobile will be blocked from accessing Taiwan subscriber data and from listening in to calls?
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Daily Links

• Echo Taiwan found this bird's eye view of the attack on protesters at the temple in Tainan earlier this week.
• Exports continue to fall.
• Understanding China's external portfolio from the CFR.
• US Committee of 100 on China meeting on CSPAN. US experts apparently think Taiwan's democracy gives Ma the right to sell out the island to China. They can go right on claiming that to each other as long as the Taiwanese remain in paralyzed somnabulence.

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Freedom House Smokes KMT Crack

Blogger Feiren alerted me to the new country report on Taiwan from Freedom House. It is clear from the text that the report compilers simply regurgitate pan-Blue propaganda, and are either comprehensively incompetent or seriously malicious. Take a look at this nonsense:

Taiwan's political rights rating declined from 1 to 2 due to concerns about corruption, particularly links among politicians, business, and organized crime.

Overview

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) suffered a resounding defeat in the December 2005 local elections, which reflected growing public frustration with the political gridlock in Taiwan. Following revelations that members of his family and close political aides were being investigated in a series of corruption cases, President Chen Shui-bian was forced to delegate some of his powers to Prime Minister Su Tseng-chang. Despite large-scale, ongoing demonstrations demanding his resignation and approval ratings in the single digits, Chen remained firmly committed to staying on until the end of his term in May 2008.

In a single paragraph, Freedom House:

states that Chen delegated his powers to the premier though that was a brief headline that flared and died (never happened and was in fact impossible)

repeats partisan propaganda that Chen's popularity was in the single digits

thinks the anti-Chen demonstrations were actions of popular will rather than partisan political maneuvering aimed at the foreign media (successfully, in this case!)

refers to the political gridlock without referring to the causes

In fact, Taiwan's political rights rating fell even though political rights have expanded significantly throughout the President's tenure. Can't wait to see the details of this report, where the devil obviously resides!

After a short description of history. The report describes:

Chen Shui-bian's victory in the 2000 presidential race, as a candidate of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), ended 55 years of KMT rule. Chen and his vice presidential running mate Lu Hsiu-lien won reelection in March 2004 by a margin of only 0.2 percentage points after both were injured in an apparent assassination attempt. Although the opposition alleged that the shooting was staged in order to gain sympathy votes, two lawsuits challenging Chen's win were rejected by Taiwan's high court.

Note the word apparent in front of the description of the assassination attempt. No evidence exists that it was anything but a real assassination attempt. The use of the term "apparent" is a signal of the political slant of the author's sources.

After failing to capture a majority in the December 2004 legislative elections, the DPP suffered a resounding defeat in the December 2005 local elections, with the KMT gaining control of 14 out of 23 local governments. The results reflected growing public frustration with the political gridlock that had resulted from two different, strongly opposed parties controlling the executive and legislative branches of government. The DPP had also failed to live up to its promise to offer an alternative to "dirty politics,"and instead came to be racked by infighting and corruption scandals. Although the DPP regained some ground at the end of 2006, retaining the seat of mayor of Kaohsiung and doing better than expected in Taipei, the December 9 elections were marred by accusations of vote buying and bribery on both sides. The Ministry of Justice regarded the charges as "very serious issues"and reported that 81 vote buying and bribery cases related to the mayoral elections and 509 cases related to the city councilor elections were under investigation.

In May 2006, Chen was forced to delegate some of his powers to Prime Minister Su Tseng-chang following revelations that members of his family and close political aides were being investigated in a series of corruption scandals. Chen had also been questioned in an ongoing investigation into the misappropriation of funds from his office. Despite large-scale demonstrations demanding his resignation and approval ratings in the single digits, Chen remained firmly committed to serving out his term, which ends in May 2008. He survived two attempts by opposition legislators to recall him in June and November, as they were unable to gain the two-thirds majority necessary to launch constitutional recall procedures, which would entail a public referendum and review by the Council of Grand Justices. Following the corruption indictment of First Lady Wu Shu-chen in November, Chen declared that he would only resign if she were actually convicted.

The author simply regurgitates KMT propaganda on the anti-Chen demonstrations and Chen's approval ratings. Note the series of anti-DPP political judgments in the paragraph below:

The December 2005 election defeat also made it clear that the DPP had to formulate a more effective response to the opposition's conciliatory policy toward the PRC, under which the leaders of the two main opposition parties, the KMT and People First Party, had visited Beijing earlier in 2005. Despite China's March 2005 promulgation of an antisecession law providing for the use of "non-peaceful means"against Taiwan if efforts to achieve a peaceful reunification were "completely exhausted,"the opposition's policy had apparently resonated with the electorate. Nevertheless, polls consistently showed that more than 80 percent of Taiwan's people would prefer to maintain the status quo in cross-strait relations.

It's curious that the author apparently feels the behavior of President Chen is a threat to democracy, but does not feel that oppositions parties in cooperation with Beijing are a threat to democracy -- in fact, it declines to identify the anti-succession law as a negative event toward democracy, and lauds the policy of the pro-China parties.

In two major speeches in January 2006, Chen risked Beijing's ire by signaling a return to his pro-independence roots. He called for a referendum on a new constitution by 2008, with no subjects barred from consideration; advocated applying to join the United Nations under the name "Taiwan”; and announced tightened rules on investment in mainland China. Despite intense public and private pressure from the United States not to take further measures that would threaten the status quo, Chen in February abolished the National Unification Council, a largely symbolic act demonstrating that reunification with the mainland was no longer a policy goal of Taiwan's government.

Throughout this piece there is a focus on the actions of President Chen. What does that signal to you?

In contrast to the bellicose rhetoric with which it had previously responded to such moves, the PRC has recently adopted a far more nuanced approach to Taiwanese politics. Beijing was apparently confident that Chen's pro-independence initiatives had little chance of passing in the KMT-controlled legislature, and that front-runner Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT would soon replace Chen in the 2008 presidential election.

....and Ma the front runner makes an appearance too! Note that while the article focuses on Chen in detail, it never mentions Ma's own indictment and the far greater corruption of the KMT. Now check out this wildly pro-KMT paragraph:

The Taiwanese press is "vigorous and active,"according to the 2006 human rights report issued by the U.S. State Department. Print media are completely independent, but electronic media and broadcast television stations were subject to government influence through the authority of the Government Information Office (GIO) to regulate programming and the licensing process until mid-2006, when a new oversight body was established. Criticism of the GIO's handling of license renewal and revocation had ramped up in 2005, when TVBS, a Hong Kong–owned satellite television station known for its coverage of corruption and other government scandals, was fined for violating a law restricting foreign ownership to less than 50 percent. Following charges that the government was restricting press freedom, the GIO refrained from taking further action against TVBS. Given that most Taiwanese can access about 100 cable television stations, the state's influence on the media is, on balance, minimal. Moreover, legislation approved in 2003 bars the government, political parties, and political party officials from owning or running media organizations. It also ordered the creation of a National Communications Commission (NCC) to replace the GIO in overseeing the operations of the broadcast media. The legislation to create the NCC as an independent body under the Executive Yuan was passed in October 2005 and the body convened for the first time in February 2006. Although the U.S. State Department report noted that some homosexual rights advocacy groups have reported monitoring and interference in online chat-rooms by the Taiwan authorities, there are generally no restrictions on internet access.

Funniest sentence ever: when TVBS, a Hong Kong–owned satellite television station known for its coverage of corruption and other government scandals. TVBS is rabidly pro-KMT, but the article does not make that clear. The article makes no mention of the bias of the NCC and its unconstitutionality either. Clearly either the author or the source are pro-KMT.

And one sad truth: the plight of women:

Taiwanese women have made impressive gains in business in recent years, but they continue to face job discrimination in the private sector. Rape and domestic violence remain problems despite government programs to protect women and the work of numerous NGOs to improve women's rights. Although the law allows authorities to investigate complaints of domestic violence and to prosecute rape suspects without the victims formally pressing charges, cultural norms inhibit many women from reporting these crimes. The Ministry of the Interior reported that 6,601 charges of rape or sexual assault were filed in 2006; of these, only 1,825 were tried and resulted in 1,535 convictions. According to the U.S. State Department report, experts estimate the actual number of rapes to be 10 times the official number.

Shameful that Freedom House has chosen to come down on the anti-democracy side in its report on Taiwan's freedoms. Freedom House's staff directory is here; drop them a line and let them know how awful their report is.

[Taiwan] [Chen Shui-bian] [Democracy] [DPP] [KMT] [media]