Despite President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) repeated vows to protect the freedom of the press, the government under his leadership never ceases to surprise with how little it actually cares about the subject — with the latest example being the arrests of three journalists and the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) lawsuit against them.
China makes no secret of its ambition to annex Taiwan. The objective is clear in Chinese officials’ repeated insistence that Taiwan is an inseparable part of the People’s Republic of China — “one that must be brought back into the fold of the motherland” — as well as in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) reiteration in September last year of Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for Taiwan.