Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Grace Liao, right, host of SET-TV’s political talk show New Taiwan Go Go Go, is pictured in a screen grab from the show on Thursday.
Photo: Chen Yi-chuen, Taipei Times

Grace Liao (廖筱君), host of SET-TV’s New Taiwan Go Go Go (新台灣加油), the successor to popular political TV talk show Talking Show (大話新聞), famous for its criticism of the government and China, confirmed her resignation on Friday, allegedly due to increasing pressure by the Chinese government on the show’s editorial autonomy.

“I don’t feel at all sleepy even though I have been awake the entire night. Making this decision was not an easy task, but after doing so, there is a sense of relief … We will meet another day and until then, we will fight for this land called Taiwan,” Liao said in a Facebook post at about 4am on Friday.

On the eve of Nov. 26, when a consortium was to sign a contract to buy Next Media Group’s Taiwanese businesses, dozens of students gathered in front of the Executive Yuan despite the cold and heavy rain, urging the government to stop Chinese influence over Taiwanese media, to oppose media monopolies and to safeguard press freedom. The students waited for a day and a night, but the authorities refused to engage them in a dialogue.

Their failure was not very surprising. Still, seeing their mobilization, organization, publicity materials, division of labor and discourse, I was pleased to see the genesis of a new, mature, social movement. I would like to call this generation the “Wild Strawberry generation.”