ReferencesBooth, Anne. (2011). China’s economic relations with Indonesia: Threats and opportunities. Journal of

Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 30(2), 141–160.Chandra, Alexander C., & Lontoh, Lucky A. (2011). Indonesia-China trade relations: The deepening of

economic integration amid uncertainty? Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada: International Institute forTrade Development, Trade Knowledge Network.

China asked to lead on single currency. (2011, April 28). Retrieved from http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2011/04/28/China-asked-to-lead-on-single-currency/UPI-81591303969735/.

Ginting, Abren. (2011). The impacts of ACFTA to Indonesia-China trade. Jakarta, Indonesia: ICRAIndonesia.

HIV/AIDS groups protest Vietnam’s trade deal. (2012). Cathnews-Philippines. Retrieved from http://www.cathnewsphil.com/2012/01/12/hivaids-groups-protest-vietnams-trade-deal/.

Ng, E-Jay. (2009, March 24). The new Public Order Act—More arbitrary powers, more tyranny.SGPolitics.net. Retrieved from http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=2558.

Ramakrishnan, Mahi. (2011a). Malaysian anti-free trade activists protest FTA deal with US. Retrievedfrom http://www.bilaterals.org/spip.php?article20714.

Ramakrishnan, Mahi. (2011b). Malaysians protest EU free trade agreements. Retrieved from http://www.bilaterals.org/spip.php?article19106.

Vinod, G. (2011, June 2). SMIs stand to gain from free trade agreements. Free Malaysia Today. Retrievedfrom http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/06/02/smis-stand-to-gain-from-free-trade-agreements/.

Wang, V. Wei-cheng. (2005). The logic of China-ASEAN FTA: Economic statecraft of “peaceful ascen-dancy.” In H. K. Leong & S. C. Y. Ku (Eds.), China and Southeast Asia: Global changes and regionalchallenges (pp. 17–41). Pasir Panjang, Singapore: ISEAS.

Robert K. ArakakiHawaii Tokai International College, USA

Failing to Win the Battle against the Polarized Media(http://www.taiwanonline.cc)

Personal access to the Internet has revolutionized the channels through whichindividuals receive news, which was previously dominated by newspaper pub-lishers and television networks. The rise of so-called “New Media,” particularlyin terms of how the Internet platform enables digital interactivity, has alsoempowered Internet users to voice their grievances and opinions on a widearray of issues, ranging from personal relationships to global politics. One cansee, for example, how the New Media, breaking the state monopoly on infor-mation, has exercised far-reaching social and political influence in the ongoing“Arab Spring” revolutions where despots have been toppled. The study of theconnection between the Internet and politics is indeed increasingly capturingthe spotlight, with much work focusing on authoritarian regimes. However, theperformance of New Media in East Asian democracies such as Taiwan hasrarely been examined.

The Web site TaiwanOnline, previously named Against the Media (Yu mei tidui kang, ), was formed as a countervailing force against the“Old Media” in Taiwan—primarily news in print—immediately after the tragic“Bajhang River Incident” ( ) in 2000. In this incident, four workerswere washed away by the floods in Bajhang River due to a miscommunicationbetween rescue teams. The accident had immense ramifications on public per-ceptions as the whole process was broadcasted. Both the newspaper and thetelevision reportage selectively distorted the damage done and the poor manage-ment by bureaucrats of that local accident.

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This misfortune occurred simultaneously with a power struggle taking placebetween the then-opposition party Kuomintang (KMT) and the then-rulingDemocratic Progressive Party (DPP). Chen Shui-Bien, the president at the time,was compelled to issue a public apology twice in succession, whereas Yu Shyi-kun, the then-vice premier, resigned. Volunteers who later organized “Againstthe Media” construed the reporting on the Bajhang incident as misconduct, usingthe typical modus operandi of the Old Media traceable to the dictatorship era.Back in the 1950s, the authoritarian government under Chiang Kai-shek hadharassed dissidents and communists by colluding with a number of KMT party–sponsored media groups.

People behind the “Against the Media” campaign saw these Old Media cor-porations as sacrificing their professional ethics to commercial interests throughpolitical alignments. In short, such misconduct, as plotted by the “reactionaryforces,” was intended to repress the development of any “Taiwan local conscious-ness.”1 Dismayed, these volunteers decided to rally under the flag of “Against theMedia” for purposes of protecting Taiwanese identity.

In the early 2000s, the idea behind “Against the Media” had attracted manydifferent bloggers and forums to the campaign countering printed news andtelevision broadcasting. However, the campaign slowly lost its drive when theoriginal gathering point, http://socialforce.net, was hacked and closed down in2009. The revival of the campaign in the name of TaiwanOnline failed to rekindlethe activism against the Old Media. As of this writing in March 2012, there areonly 1,977 members of TaiwanOnline, whereas the hit rate for Against the Mediahad accumulated to beyond 1 million hits just one and a half years after itslaunch.2

Contrary to many popular online forums that come with a wide array ofentertainment channels, TaiwanOnline is obviously focused on the discussion ofsocial or political matters. Out of 25 subforums (including three administrative-related ones), 17 of them are categorized as politically related. Among these, 10fall under the category of “International News” and the remaining ones are under“Political Culture.”

TaiwanOnline functions as a “legitimate” successor of the “Against the Media”campaign and has created a subforum demonstrating the legacy of its predeces-sor. Posts critical to the news corporations, and aligned with the pan-Blue bloc,are located in a subforum entitled “Against the Media.” As expected, companiessuch as the United Daily News, China Times, and TVBS have been recipients ofvehement assault in this subforum, mostly for their “collusion with the pro-unificationists and plots to wipe out the Taiwanese culture.”3 In contrast, theforum is more merciful toward the pan-Green media, as shown by the trivialityof denunciations against the pro-independence campaigns.

The criticisms launched by TaiwanOnline and its predecessor on the Old Mediagradually narrowed to news companies positioning with the pan-Blue campaignand can thus be associated with the polarization of news media. While such adevelopment partly reflects the general disillusionment toward the presidency ofMa Ying-Jeou and KMT, it is plausible that a split between two political campshad been emerging. In his study of the connection of media and elections inTaiwan, Huang (2009) noted that the media world has transited to overzealouscompetition since martial law was lifted in 1986. Nowadays, party lines have been

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very clear in the media world, where there is hardly any neutral organization,particularly in the printed news and television arenas (Huang, 2009). The recentpractices of TaiwanOnline in challenging the pan-Blue media might extend thedebate into virtual society too.

Though once a popular gathering point for the online community, TaiwanOn-line is now outdone by other forums more tailored to popular culture and depo-liticized features. According to the ranking provided by a Taiwanese bulletin,4 thetop five popular forums were not politically or socially oriented bulletins. Somedo not even include subforums related to politics. Mikael Mattlin (2011)described Taiwan as a “politicized society” where politics is “confrontational”rather than “consensus-seeking” and where political battles penetrate into every-day life. However, the community appears to be less politicized when its citizensare plugged in to the Internet.

Considering the fact that the Internet is most popular among youth,5 theabove-mentioned observation might point to a sense of disengagement buildingup among the next generation. Also, Taiwanese Internet users might find itunnecessary to exploit the Internet as a public space to voice their disgruntle-ment, given that they enjoy freedom of speech in the real world. Regardless, it isclear that TaiwanOnline has already lost the halo enjoyed by its predecessor.

In conclusion, TaiwanOnline was originally set up to criticize media corpora-tions for their discrimination and biased attitudes in reporting news. Thisdecade-long forum seems to have lost such a mandate in the eyes of manyInternet users. The proliferation of posts against the news media branded as“pro-unificationists” and its unveiled support for independence and “Taiwan-ization” places its raison d’être in doubt. Still, the forum provides an alternativechannel for specialists on Taiwan to study the development of Internet politics inTaiwan, especially in a society that remains relatively polarized.

Notes1See the posts titled “Yuan qi” (“The Origin”) at http://www.taiwanonline.cc/phpBB/viewtopic.

php?f=61&t=890.2Unfortunately, the original Web site for the campaign (http://socialforce.net) is already vacant

and was replaced by TaiwanOnline when this article was in process; thus, it is impossible to retrieveand compare the changes in the number of members. Comparing the rather meager numberof members of TaiwanOnline (1,977) with other popular discussion forums like http://bbs.wefong.com, which has 3,360,162 members altogether, it is justifiable to say that TaiwanOnline haslost its significance.

3See the post “Mie jue Tai Wan wen hua de mei ti zhan” (“The Battle of Media Extincts theTaiwanese Culture”) at http://www.taiwanonline.cc/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4163.

4See the ranking at http://www.pig.tw/CwP/P/P8859.html.5See the article “General Internet Users 2008” at http://www.find.org.tw/eng/news.asp?

msgid=380&subjectid=8&pos=1.

ReferencesHuang, C.-L. (2009). The changing roles of the media in Taiwan’s democratization process. Washington, DC:

The Brookings Institution.Mattlin, M. (2011). Politicized society: The long shadow of Taiwan’s one-party legacy. Copenhagen,

Denmark: NIAS Press.

Kalvin FungGlobal Studies Institute in Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

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