Taiwan's Legislative Yuan Continues Support for NTD AP in Chunghwa Case

NTD's partner station - NTD Asia Pacific - continues to get support from both main political parties in Taiwan over the future of NTD's broadcast in the region. Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom is partially government-owned. But so far they've been ignoring the government's calls to continue NTD's satellite contract on their new ST-2 satellite starting in August.

Many legislators from Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan - which is like a parliament - say they want NTD AP to have uninterrupted service.

[Tsai Ing-wen, Chair, Democratic Progressive Party]:
“It has to do with the rights of media and the public’s right to access information. With Chunghwa’s monopoly in the market, it needs to consider public interest, not just commercial interests.”

Our partner station in Taiwan has used Chunghwa’s ST-1 satellite since 2007 to broadcast our programming into mainland China. In April, Chunghwa notified the station it would stop service once the satellite contract expires in August. They said there's not enough bandwidth for NTD on the new satellite, ST-2.

But some suspect the Chinese Communist Party is behind it - that they've been pressuring Chunghwa to stop NTD's broadcast. That's because NTD's uncensored news and information reaches parts of mainland China.

Following a meeting with Taiwan’s Premier, Chunghwa said it would renew NTD AP’s service - but only on a third-party satellite. But both NTD AP and lawmakers say this is unacceptable, because the signal would not be protected against interference from China.

[Wang Jin-ping, President of Legislative Yuan]:
“We fear that [a third party] could rescind the contract at will, and things would happen so [NTD] can't operate. So we’re asking the Ministry of Transport and Communication to monitor [Chunghwa] so that it provides space on the ST-2 satellite for [NTD].”

[Hsieh Kuo-liang, Kuomintang Legislator]:
“Whether it’s the Democratic Progressive Party, the Kuomintang, or the Transport Ministry, we all understand the seriousness of this issue. We won’t allow NTD to have [even] one day of discontinued service in Taiwan.”

Taiwan’s government is the biggest shareholder of Chunghwa. Commentators say the outcome of this contract dispute will indicate the state of Taiwan's press freedom and democratic ideals - as it pursues closer ties with the Chinese regime.