Taiwan's "China Post", Newspaper, is it Turning Red?

Saturday April 09, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Taiwan's China Post (CP) newspaper has long had the reputation of being a "Pan-blue rag" among many in the ex-pat community of Taiwan. The paper originated in the 1950s and somehow seemed to navigate through the long period of White Terror, Martial Law and one-party state rule of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)without ever offending the powers that be. While many democracy advocates were being sent to Green Island or jailed and tortured, the China Post went blithely on its way. Many felt it substituted as the English spokesperson of the KMT, preaching the KMT propaganda and justification for one-party state rule. Even in the past decade when democracy took hold of the island,the China Post wanted to preach the questionable glories of the KMT, downplay its vast corruption and parrot the party line.

Now however, the pan-blue rag may fast be becoming the pan-red rag as the paper prints stories and propaganda straight out of Chinese Communist Party (CCP)newspapers as if they were noteworthy news. The Taipei Times, a rival paper exposed this double dealing of the CP.

The China Post had never liked Taiwan or Taiwanese; it seemed to bear the prejudice and haughtiness of the waishengren. But these recent developments indicate that it cannot stomach Taiwan's democracy and is becoming a paid shill of the CCP. The Government Information Office (GIO) that is supposed to monitor such things seems to be asleep at the wheel, but then again, the current government is pan-blue and questions of its loyalties to Taiwan are often raised.

Will it change now that it has been exposed? It seems unlikely; the paper that pleased the dictatorial Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo appears to have no trouble bowing to the dictatorial CCP. Watch out Taiwan.