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Activists call for
Want Want boycott
NOT MANY DEATHS: The Want Want chairman said the
fact that a man who stood in front of a tank during the Tiananmen Square
protests was not killed proved that massacre reports were false
By J. Michael Cole / Staff Reporter
One of the top student leaders during the protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989
has called for a boycott of the China Times after the wealthy Taiwanese
entrepreneur who owns the publication denied the crackdown by the Chinese
military constituted a massacre.
Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), chairman and chief executive of the Want Want Group (旺旺集團),
which owns the China Times, told the Washington Post in an interview published
last Saturday that the crackdown on June 4 was “no massacre.”
Tsai told the Post he had been struck by footage of the lone protester standing
in front of a People’s Liberation Army tank — a now iconic image of the
crackdown — and added that the fact that the man was not killed was proof that
reports of a massacre were false.
Several hundred unarmed protesters, including students, were brutally killed in
the government response to the protests.
“I realized that not that many people could really have died,” Tsai said,
echoing Beijing’s propaganda in the weeks after the crackdown, which said the
tank incident was proof that the military had acted with humanity against the
demonstrators.
Wang Dan (王丹), one of the student leaders at Tiananmen Square who now lives in
Taiwan, was among many who reacted angrily to Tsai’s remarks.
“Such remarks are effrontery,” Wang wrote in a Tweet on Monday. “From now on, I
will never buy a copy of the China Times newspaper.”
Several netizens have also vowed to boycott food products from Tsai’s business
chains, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Tuesday. At press time last night, a
“Resist the Want Want Group” page created on Facebook on Tuesday — whose boycott
will continue until April 24 — had attracted 405 followers.
Want Want Group has made its fortune selling food products in China, where it
makes 90 percent of its profit. Tsai also runs several hotels in Shanghai,
Nanjing, Huai-an and Xining, and he has made various real-estate investments in
China.
Tsai, who according to Forbes is Taiwan’s third-wealthiest individual, in 2008
acquired a controlling 51 percent stake in the China Times Group, which owns the
Commercial Times, the China Times Weekly magazine, the Want Daily, the
English-language Want China Times and China Television Co.
Some China-based commentators also expressed anger at the business tycoon’s
denial of the massacre.
“Tsai’s words are illogical,” Mo Zhixu (莫之許), a Beijing-based cybercommentator,
told RFA on Tuesday.
“The murders of June 4 cannot be whitewashed by the fact that the young man who
blocked the tanks was not killed right away,” he said.
“Why did he say this? Apparently he is trying to present servile flattery to the
Chinese Communist Party government. That is completely unnecessary,” Mo said.
Since Tsai’s acquisition of the China Times Group, media watchdogs have observed
that the editorial line of the media within his consortium has softened their
stance on China, reportedly so that Tsai can ingratiate himself with the Beijing
authorities. The businessman denies those claims and says his only aim is to
encourage Taiwanese to abandon their fear of doing business with China.
In the same interview with the Washington Post, Tsai also indicated his support
for the unification of Taiwan and China, adding that such an outcome was
inevitable.
“Whether you like it or not, unification is going to happen sooner or later,” he
said, adding that he “really hoped” a swift merger would occur.
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