Chinese media quiet after protester lobs shoe at Wen

AGENCIES, BEIJING AND LONDON
Wednesday, Feb 04, 2009, Page 1
　

China’s media, quick to report when a shoe was thrown at former US president George W. Bush last year, sidestepped any direct mention or images yesterday of a protester hurling his shoe at Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) during a speech in Britain.

Unlike the now-famous incident when an Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at Bush in December, covered widely not only in China but around the world, state-run newspapers and Web sites in China carried stories on Wen’s speech but had no reference to the shoe-throwing. Content mentioning it on Internet forums also appears to have been deleted.

The Xinhua news agency issued a story saying that Britain apologized for an incident and that China had “expressed its strong feelings against the occurrence of the incident.” However, it did not say what the incident was.

China’s state-run CCTV network reported Foreign Ministry comments, which acknowledged a “disturbance” during the speech, but made no mention a shoe had been thrown at Wen.

‘DIRTY TRICKS’

In the live broadcast of the speech on CCTV’s Web site, the camera remains fixed on Wen, not showing the shoe or the protester, although his remarks and the sound of the shoe hitting the stage can be heard. Wen pauses, glances sideways as the shoe hits the stage, and then continues his speech.

“Teachers and students, this kind of dirty trick cannot stop the friendship between the Chinese and the British people,” Wen said, followed by applause.

Papers like the staid People’s Daily and the commercial tabloid Beijing News carried reports of Wen’s Cambridge speech but made no mention of the shoe-throwing.

China keeps a tight grip over the Internet, blocking any content deemed as a challenge or insulting to the Chinese Communist Party.

The incident came at the end of a three-day visit to Britain that was dogged by demonstrations over human rights and Tibet.

The protester leapt from his seat near the back of a crowded auditorium at Cambridge University, blew a whistle and yelled that Wen was a “dictator” before throwing a shoe toward the stage.

“How can this university prostitute itself with this dictator here, how can you listen ... to him unchallenged,” the man shouted.

CHARGED

Security staff escorted the young man, who was not Chinese and had dark hair, a short beard and glasses, from the auditorium.

The shoe missed, and one of Wen’s aides stepped on stage, picked it up and took it away.

Later, the 27-year-old man was charged with a public order offense, police said yesterday.

He will appear before Cambridge magistrates next Tuesday.

In the past, Chinese leaders have demanded that foreign governments keep protesters out of the way during visits. In Switzerland last week, police sealed off streets in Bern to keep Tibetan protesters away from Wen to avoid repeating an incident during then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin’s (江澤民) visit 10 years ago.

After protesters got too close to Jiang, he angrily told the Swiss president: “You have lost a good friend.”

Chai says president continues to lie about his birthplace
　

By Rich Chang
STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, Feb 04, 2009, Page 3

A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator yesterday accused President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of lying about his birthplace, saying Ma was born in Shenzhen, China, and not Hong Kong as Ma has said.

DPP Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) told a press conference that Ma had a “trust issue” because he had lied about his birthplace.

Chai said that between 1981 and 1982, Ma signed three documents that proved he was not born in Hong Kong. Ma wrote in his first unpublished autobiography and on the birth certificate of his daughter Lesley Ma (馬唯中) that he was born in Shenzhen. In a second autobiography, Ma wrote Guangdong Province as his birthplace. Shenzhen is in Guangdong Province.

Showing copies of the three manuscripts at a press conference yesterday, Chai told reporters that Ma's signatures on the three documents were identical, hence the documents were authentic.

However, “when Ma started to run for public office, he told the public he was born in Hong Kong,” Chai said. “Ma was not honest at all.”

Chai said he had raised the issue last month in a press conference, asking Ma and the Presidential Office to clear the matter.

However, Ma has chosen to avoid the issue, he said.

“Honesty is very important for a head of state, and it is sad that Taiwan has a president who is not honest,” he said.

When reached by the Taipei Times for response yesterday, Presidential Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said that the office had already shown a copy of Ma's birth certificate proving he was born in Hong Kong.

Wrong on the economy

The Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration’s efforts to “rescue” Taiwan’s economy will not only fail, but they exemplify a collectivist morality and ought to be vigorously opposed.

The government’s attempt to engineer domestic consumer demand in response to dropping consumer demand abroad is misguided. As the supply side of the economy currently outweighs the demand side, it is the supply side that should be allowed to fall, not demand artificially created by means of public debt.

What your publication should seek to explain is not merely one of economic pragmatism, but a moral one. Each and every Taiwanese is a sovereign individual — not a mere economic number — and as such they should be free to make their own choices as to whether and how to spend or invest their money.

Consequently, the overwhelming desire of Taiwanese to save their money and curb their spending, and the choice of many Taiwanese businesses to cut costs and reduce the scale of their commitments, are decisions that ought to be respected — not interfered with.

The government has no moral right to order or merely encourage people on what they should do with their own money.

For years the editorial stance of the Taipei Times has generally been reflective of the broad political views of its readership. In that I mean the “social democratic” collectivist outlook expounded by the Democratic Progressive Party.

In the face of a possible run on the US dollar this year, this stance is likely a source of danger to Taiwan in the short to medium term. Consequently, I strongly urge a reconsideration of your philosophical premises and a complete about-turn in editorial stance.

MICHAEL FAGAN
Tainan

Beware the assault on Taiwanese free media
　

By Cao Changqing 曹長青
Wednesday, Feb 04, 2009, Page 8

The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) frequent moves to gag the press have drawn concern and criticism from the International Federation of Journalists and other organizations. The KMT’s moves make one wonder whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might not have been behind some recent “developments” in Taiwanese media.

It was recently reported that the daily political talk show Ta Hua Hsin Wen on SET-TV could be dropped after the Lunar New Year holiday. Regardless of whether this happens, the rumors have sown fear in the media.

With the sluggish economic situation, some media companies may be considering downsizing to save some money. However, Ta Hua Hsin Wen has always enjoyed high viewership ratings and is clearly not losing money for the station. In September, the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported that following Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) victory in the presidential election, pan-blue media outlets had gloatingly predicted that Ta Hua Hsin Wen and its host, Cheng Hung-yi (鄭弘儀), would be scrapped. Despite this, the show not only managed to secure high audience ratings, but has also dominated the 10pm programming slot.

Why would there be rumors about a popular political talk show being replaced? This is clearly not something that can be explained by commercial interests. Ever since Ma took power, the direction of the KMT has been clear: Cooperate with the CCP to block any approaches to making Taiwan a normal country. Internally, the KMT has weakened the morale of the pan-green camp by lashing out at an alleged money laundering case implicating former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his family members. Examples include the judiciary’s abuse of power in attempt to deal a blow to pro-Taiwan entrepreneurs and the Democratic Progressive Party’s backbone.

This has led to public insecurity and has considerably cut off all possible financial resources for the pan-green camp, while the KMT has benefited with its substantial party funds. The pan-green camp has been in a position of weakness in the media as there are only a few pro-Taiwan programs that are not afraid to speak the truth and these programs have naturally become a thorn in the side for the KMT.

Recently, reports in Chinese media overseas have said that pro-China Taiwanese businessman and chairman of the Want Want Group Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), who recently purchased the shares of the China Times and CTI TV, is now planning to buy out Hong Kong’s Asia Television station (ATV). It has also been reported that Tsai was by the side of Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) when he was unable to leave the Grand Formosa Regent Hotel until the early hours of the morning because of protestors during his visit in November.

Many people now fear that Tsai’s acquisitions of the China Times, China Television Co (CTV) and now Hong Kong’s ATV are being backed and controlled by Beijing.

Reports have said that the Chinese authorities decided one week before the Lunar New Year that they would invest 45 billion yuan (US$6.58 billion) into a mass propaganda campaign around the world, which would entail acquiring media in the West.

From the huge amounts of money Beijing has been investing lately, it is very foreseeable that the Chinese government would be able to interfere with media in both Hong Kong and Taiwan.

If SET-TV’s Ta Hua Hsin Wen really is dropped, there will be more to the matter than meets the eye.

Cao Changqing is a writer based in the US.