Pasuya Yao (the head of the Government Information Office) is fast becoming my favourite politician in Taiwan[*]. He epitomises the current government perfectly: He seems to believe in the rule of law – but is too selective in applying it to inspire confidence, he’s obsessed with righting the wrongs of the KMT (or punishing them for those wrongs) – to the point where seems to be more important to him than the well-being of the country, and he seemed a damn sight more competent in opposition than in power. But the main reason I like him is this: when he finds himself in a hole of his own devising, he seems to think that “keep digging” is the best motto.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked whether Pasuya Yao was really as incompetent as the media was making him out to be, or the victim of a witchhunt … the past fortnight has answered that pretty conclusively[**].

The TVBS Fiasco

It all started when a talk show on TVBS uncovered evidence that Chen Che-nan, a senior government official under investigation for his involvement in the Kaohsiung Metro scandal, had illegally visited a casino in Korea in 2002 (a claim that Chen had denied).

Less than 2 days later, the GIO slapped a NT$200,000 (~US$6,000) fine on the station for falsely reporting their funding – and warned that it might consider closing the station down if it was operating illegally. Of course, Pasuya Yao claimed these two events were completely unrelated.

Unsurprisingly, this caused an uproar: the opposition screamed about censorship of the media, and threatened mass protests and impeachment of the president if the station was shut down.

Start digging Pasuya

Aware that he might have put his foot in it, Yao then did what any smart politician wouldn’t – by raising the stakes:

Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Pasuya Yao (姚文智) yesterday said the GIO possesses sufficient evidence to prove that cable TV station TVBS is a foreign-owned company and therefore breaking the law.
…
“I think this clearly shows that the TV station is a now completely foreign-owned company. If that is the case, the GIO is authorized to suspend all operation licenses for its four channels,” he said.

These comments just inflamed the situation more, to the point where President Chen felt the need to do some firefighting – by stating that he would not close down any TV station during his presidency. There was also some attempt to calm the situation by Premier Frank Hsieh [***].

Deeper and Deeper

Clearly a man who doesn’t know when to stop, Yao next turned his attention to how TVBS had received its license, implying that previous directors of the GIO Jason Hu (胡志強) and Cheng Chien-jen (程建人) – both KMT members – had failed to do their job properly by awarding then renewing the license for TVBS. Strangely, he didn’t try to criticize the goon who had renewed the TVBS license earlier this year.

Next he fined TVBS again, and threatened them with worse[****]:

The TV station has been found to be 100 percent funded by foreign capital, and thus is in violation of Article 10 of the Satellite Broadcasting Law (衛星廣播電視法) which stipulates that direct foreign investment in a TV station should not exceed 50 percent, GIO Minister Pasuya Yao (姚文智) said.

Therefore, the GIO has decided to fine the station NT$1 million (US$29,686).

The cable station was also given the deadline of Dec. 20 to improve its condition, or else will face more severe disciplinary measures, to include being stripped of its operating license, Yao said.

Threatening to do something that the President had explicitly ruled out a few days earlier is never a smart move. TVBS promptly proved how stupid it was by calling Yao’s bluff and refusing to pay the fine.

I’m keen to see what Pasuya Yao’s next move is …

* I was hoping to meet my ‘hero’ yesterday, as he was due to give an opening speech at the Fantabulous Forum I was attending. Unfortunately he stood me up … I guess he must have had other things on his mind.
** On a related note, I’m rather proud of the fact that this site is the first result on Google when searching for ‘incompetent Pasuya Yao‘ – which you’d expect to be a pretty common search term nowadays!
*** Yao is Frank Hsieh’s protege (having worked for him both when he was a legislator and also when he was mayor of Kaohsiung) – so this is yet another of Hsieh’s boys who is busy embarrassing the DPP.
**** At this point, you may be asking “Has he got a point? Is TVBS illegal?” The answer is “Possibly”. There is a law that requires all TV stations to be at least 50% Taiwanese owned … TVBS is 53% owned by a Taiwanese company – but that company is a shell company 100% owned by overseas money. So the GIO claims it is 100% foreign owned, while TVBS claims it is not. Unfortunately, the recent actions of the GIO mean that noone believes it can make an impartial judgement on this …