Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV faces being taken off air in Taiwan over investments from mainland China
- Taiwanese law bans media firms from having any investments from the Chinese mainland and told the broadcaster to change its capital structure by May
- Taipei said last year that investments from Bauhinia Culture Holdings and state-owned China mobile gave Beijing effective control over the broadcaster
Taiwan has warned the Hong Kong-headquartered broadcaster Phoenix TV that it is at risk of being taken off air on the island next month because of its investments from mainland China.
Phoenix, which has been operating in Taiwan for two decades, has been told to change its capital structure by May to ensure it qualifies as a Hong Kong or foreign-held company.
Failure to do so would mean the TV company’s operations in Taiwan being terminated.
Taiwanese law bans companies with mainland owners or investors from operating mass media operations. It also bans companies with more than 30 per cent mainland investment from operating on the island.
The island’s authorities discovered last year that state-backed Bauhinia Culture Holdings had become the largest shareholder in Phoenix when it bought a 21 per cent stake in June 2021. Taiwan said this was enough to give the government in Beijing direct control over the network.
They also found that state-owned China Mobile also owned 19.68 per cent of Phoenix’s shares, making the TV company practically a Chinese-owned company, they noted.
“The investment commission started reviewing the shareholding and management structure of the company last year and in September asked that the company remediate the transfer of ownership within six months,” Economics Minister Wang Mei-hua said on Wednesday.
She said the TV company had asked for an extension of the order to deal with employee severance issues, and the commission had agreed to extend the deadline until May 14.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, its top cross-strait policy body, said firms with 30 per cent direct and indirect investment from any mainland Chinese individual or corporation are deemed Chinese companies and would be banned from operating on the island.
It also said that the blanket ban on any mainland investment in media businesses meant that last year’s changes to Phoenix’s shareholding and management structure had made its operations illegal.
Phoenix was founded in 1996 by Liu Changle, a former officer and political instructor in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
The network – which also has a headquarters in Shenzhen – offers Mandarin and Cantonese programming, including news about the world, mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
It was allowed to start operating in Taiwan in 2001 and at its peak had more than 100 employees there, but only 25 are left currently, according to local news media.
Taiwan and the mainland have been at odds since the end of the civil war in 1949.
Relations took a turn for the worse again in 2016 when Tsai Ing-wen, from the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, was elected and refused to accept the one-China principle.