Analysis: Violent Rhetoric Not Protected in Taiwan

TaiwanPlus News

As debate rages about a Chinese influencer losing her Taiwanese residency for making videos in support of China's invasion of Taiwan, TaiwanPlus spoke to Soochow University political science professor Chen Fang-yu. Chen explains why speech supporting Chinese military action against Taiwan is not protected under Taiwanese law, and why he's not worried about the slippery slope of censorship.

Transcript

00:00So, Fang Yu, tell us, which laws has this Chinese influencer been accused of violating?

00:06And if a Taiwanese citizen made the same kinds of videos, would they also face punishment?

00:11So basically, this influencer violates the Cross-Strait Act, which is a special law regulating

00:19Taiwanese people and mainland Chinese people.

00:23These people cannot help China's government to do some political affairs.

00:30So I think that is a main reason that the government is now punishing the citizens by

00:35revoking the permit.

00:37And for the citizens of Taiwan, then we have different laws.

00:41So for example, we have the anti-infiltration law, that is for the election period.

00:48Actually in 2019, we revised several, a series of national security laws.

00:54So you cannot take money for China and organize or to recruit the government officials or

01:00the military personnel and to promote for unification or to sell out our information,

01:08classified information.

01:09So we do have different regulations for citizens or for some of the immigrants.

01:17What would you say to those who argue that democratic societies should tolerate objectionable

01:22speech, especially political speech, since criticizing the government is fundamental

01:27to democracy?

01:28Well, admittedly, political speech is very essential, is very important.

01:35So I totally agree.

01:37However, freedom of speech has its boundaries.

01:42So we don't encourage, we don't endorse hate crimes.

01:47We don't endorse that everybody can insult others and saying that it is freedom of speech.

01:54Yeah, that's illegal.

01:56So I think the basic point I want to make is that freedom of speech is not unlimited.

02:02So according to our constitution, the clause 23, we have several preconditions that says

02:11that the government can make some restrictions on freedom of speech or other individual rights.

02:18And I do agree that we can support for unification with China, we can support for China, we can

02:23have a preference on China, it's all fine.

02:26However, right now, in this case, it is a case that people support China's armed conflict,

02:35military actions on Taiwan.

02:37That is encouragement of the military invasion, that is a violent annexation.

02:42So it is not a freedom of speech because we cannot endorse any kinds of violence.

02:49And China's military actions is a violence, a state violence against Taiwan.

02:54And also it will destroy our democracy.

02:57So we cannot say that it's kind of political speech, or we cannot say that, justify that

03:03it's just a freedom of speech.

03:07So for you, you're not worried that this kind of action from the government could lead

03:10to more restrictions on speech down the road?

03:14I don't think so.

03:15Because in democracies, we have checks and balances.

03:19So the government is doing or having some of the regulations or enforcement.

03:26And then the legislatures and the laws, including the cross trade laws and others, the series

03:32of the national security laws are all passed by the legislature in recent years.

03:37And also we have the judicial systems to make a balance.

03:41If the government is making too much restrictions on citizens, then there must be some rulings

03:48by the constitutional court and the constitutional court can make the final decision.

03:53So I think that the system works very well in Taiwan right now.

03:57So I don't think that there's a danger of this.

04:01But I do admit that we have to be very careful about any kinds of punishment or restrictions

04:10on people's individual rights.

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