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China has sway over
media: DPP
GROWING INFLUENCE: The legislators called on the
government to do more in the wake of China paying the ‘China Times’ for
reporting and illegally advertising via CNA
By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
Mainland Affairs Council Minister
Lai Shin-yuan, right, answers lawmakers’ questions at the Legislative Yuan in
Taipei yesterday about how the China Times reported on Fujian Province Governor
Su Shulin’s visit to Taiwan late last month.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Growing Chinese influence on the Taiwanese
media, in particular via embedded marketing, is a concern and the government has
not done enough to address the matter, Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers
said in the legislature yesterday.
At the meeting of the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee, lawmakers
accused Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) of doing
nothing about embedded marketing by China’s Fujian Provincial Government in
local newspapers.
The Chinese-language China Times, a subsidiary of Want Want Group, was
reportedly paid to cover Fujian Province Governor Su Shulin’s (蘇樹林) visit to
Taiwan last month.
Taiwanese law prohibits Chinese advertising in the media and Chinese investment
in local media.
In the question-and-answer session, Lai said an investigation had shown there
was “clear evidence” that the newspaper was involved in illegal advertising.
However, the Ministry of Economic Affairs is the agency with the authority over
the violations, because Su was invited by the Chinese National Federation of
Industries and the ministry has demanded an explanation from the newspaper, she
said.
Lai said there was no law in -Taiwan regulating the content of print media
because the Publication Act was abolished in 1999, leaving only self-regulation
by the media because the Taiwanese government respects freedom of speech and
freedom of the press.
DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) also cited media reports claiming that
state-funded Central News Agency (CNA) had published travel information about
Fujian Province on its Web site, which Lai confirmed was against the law.
Lai said Taiwanese media were barred from publishing advertisements provided by
unauthorized Chinese advertisers.
Such violations could be traced as far back as 2008, DPP -Legislator Yu Mei-nu
(尤美女) said, -adding that the Control Yuan had said in a report that the China
Times and the Chinese-language United Daily News were both involved in similar
violations in their news coverage on China’s Hunan Province in 2010.
DPP Legislator Chen Ou-po (陳歐珀) said officials from the Taiwan Affairs Office
were also suspected of paying personnel in Taiwanese media, citing the case of
Feng Fu-hua (馮復華), daughter of former New party legislator Feng Hu-hsiang (馮滬祥).
There has been no coordination among government agencies on the issue, lawmakers
said, with the MAC saying it has neither the power to regulate the media nor to
determine if visiting Chinese officials violate laws, such as promoting
investment in China.
In Su’s case, the ministry was the responsible agency, while in the case of
Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) Deputy Chairman
Zheng Lizhong (鄭立中), who visited southern Taiwan for two weeks in February, the
responsible agency was the Council of Agriculture, Lai said.
DPP lawmakers accused the MAC of shirking its responsibilities as the main China
policymaking agency over its inability to tackle the issue.
The committee reached a resolution that demanded the MAC coordinate an
inter-agency investigation on the matter and levy punishment, if any violation
is found, within a month.
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