When Taiwan was under the martial law yoke of the Chiang dynasty, the "national security" label was slapped on almost any politically-sensitive issue and information. Reporting on corruption cases involving diplomatic envoys, for example, was barred as endangering national security and damaging to the the morale of Taiwan's diplomatic corps.
When Chiang Wei-kuo (
With the shift of political power to Taiwanese, begun under former president Lee Teng-hui (
Those who would use the banner of freedom of the press as a cover for publishing state secrets should be willing to undergo as thorough a scrutiny as that which they claim to be giving such secrecy. Good reporters try to maintain an impartial balance. Consumers know that they must consider the source of the stories they read or hear when weighing the validity of the reports.
In Taiwan, such evaluations are an absolutely necessity. The attitude and behavior of pro-unification media in the last few years has been as destructive to Taiwan as the KMT's censorship ever was. The issue of press censorship has been raised this week by the government's effort to block publication of Next magazine. Amid the furor sparked by that effort, the biased reporting in that magazine's reports about secret funds has almost been overlooked.
But the man who wrote Next's tell-all cover story is a long-time mouthpiece of the Beijing authorities. His sensational and inflammatory rhetoric -- "Lee Teng-hui is still at large beyond the arm of the law," "black money," "abuse of the law and exercise of dictatorial power fills one with fear," should raise questions about his objectivity. The magazine's cover reads "Lee Teng-hui illegally misappropriated NT$3.5 billion," a suggestion of embezzlement that is not backed up by any evidence in the story.
The author is also the younger brother of the PFP's deputy propaganda chief. Given the enmity between Lee and his one-time protegee, PFP Chairman James Soong (
Most people know that the PFP's loyalties, like those of the near-defunct New Party, lie in Beijing, not in a government led by Taiwanese. Politicians or parties who truly identify with Taiwan would never endanger national security through vicious political wrangling.