About two weeks after one of Taiwan’s leading newspapers, the China Times, published a front-page story that called China’s envoy to Taiwan a “C-list politician,” the paper’s editor-in-chief was replaced.
The newspaper said the replacement was a routine rotation. However, it fueled talk at the paper and at the island’s other publications that the move was spurred by anger in China over the story and that it was another sign of China’s increasing clout in Taiwan.
Hsia Chen, former editor in chief of the China Times, had been running the newspaper since early 2008. Later that year, a Hong Kong-listed rice-cracker manufacturer, Want Want China Holding Ltd., acquired it. Tsai Eng-meng, chairman of Want Want, decided to replace Ms. Hsia late last week, according to the paper’s staff.
Tsai, a Taiwanese businessman who has been running business in China for two decades, is well-known for his pro-China position. Since he took the China Times reins, he has publicly reiterated that his newspapers are not supposed to criticize Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou, his administration and the Chinese government. Last August, he further founded a tabloid, the Want Daily, in Taiwan to promote China to the island’s readers.
Since the summer of 2009, Tsai has been complaining that the paper’s news pages are not supportive enough of the governments of Taiwan and China, according to some employees at the paper. In September, the paper’s front-page coverage of the visit of Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, whom China considers an enemy, specifically sparked Tsai’s anger, according to some of the paper’s reporters, who declined to be identified. The paper eventually decreased the quantity of reports about the spiritual leader’s visit and moved such coverage to inside pages.
“Our main guideline is about promoting the cross-Strait [Taiwan-China] peaceful development,” said Wang Chuo-chong, editor of the China’s Times China page.
Rumors about Hsia’s replacement had been circulating internally for months, the paper’s reporters and editors said. On Dec 26, a report on the paper’s front page quoted an anonymous official of Taiwan’s semiofficial negotiation organization, Strait Exchange Foundation, as saying that the scenario of three Taiwan political heavyweights trying to meet with China’s visiting negotiation envoy, Chen Yunlin, was like “the A-list politician versus the C-list,” with Chen representing the “C-list.” Beijing’s anger over the news story led to Tsai’s decision to replace Hsia, other local publications reported.
The newspaper denied the speculation. Hsia said in an email to staff last week, “There have been lots of speculation about this replacement. It is difficult for me to comment on why this happened.”
Hsia is exchanging her position with Wang Mei-yu, chief editor of China Times’ subsidiary weekly magazine, the China Times Weekly. After the shift , some of the daily newspaper’s reporters said they would censor themselves when they write about China.
“From now on, I believe everyone would be extra careful about China coverage,” said a staff reporter of the paper, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
–Ting-I Tsai
Source: Wall Street Journal 2010/01/11
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