3The system of control over the press, or baojin1, set up by the Nationalist government was based on a multiplicity of legal arrangements, and it is difficult to date its establishment exactly. Generally this is accepted to be the date of a directive of the Yuan executive, June 10 19512. Taiwan’s press was subject to legislation which flowed on the one hand from the emergency regime in force on the island — especially the martial law proclaimed on May 19 1949; backed up, on the other hand, by specific laws on publications. The Nationalist regime, which had retreated from mainland China to Taiwan in 1949, justified the maintenance of emergency legislation by its claim to be pursuing the civil war against the communists in order to reconquer the mainland. Article 11 of the martial laws restrained the exercise of fundamental rights and liberties; in particular, it gave the military authorities the power to suppress newspapers, magazines and other printed materials « judged to be detrimental to military affairs ». A whole set of measures were linked to the martial laws, some of which dealt with the press.

4Another important text concerning the press was the law on publications, promulgated on April 9 19523. This law, which was revised to make it more restrictive in 1958, allowed the government to close a daily paper definitively and to impose all the sanctions on publications — warnings, fines, suspension or stopping of publication — by administrative means, which is to say without any judicial procedure4. This law fell into disuse after 1988, but was not repealed until January 25 19995.

7Up to January 1 1988, when the baojin was repealed, the number of dailies in Taiwan remained constant at 317. From 1945 to 1959, the government press was dominant: first it was the Taiwan xinsheng bao (Taiwan Shin Sheng Daily News), published by the provincial authorities which had the largest circulation8; then, from 1954, the flagship of the Guomindang press, the Zhongyang ribao (Central Daily News)9. But very quickly, private dailies got the upper hand. These dailies, tolerated in particular because the Nationalist government was determined to put up a good show on the international level and to ensure American support, did not belong to the government, to the Guomindang or to the army; but the authorities made sure that they were in the hands of the regime’s faithful. In a symptomatic way, with rare exceptions, most of the newspapers — as well as the media in general — were then in the hands of of Mainlanders (Waishengren)10. The private newspapers, which were not subsidised, were concerned with commercial profit: thus, in 1952, the main private dailies in Taipei united against the government press in order to obtain from the authorities the publication of institutional advertising in their pages11.

9Baojin led to the constitution of two big private press groups in Taiwan, that of the Lianhe bao12 and that of the Zhongguo shibao (China Times)13. Jiang Jingguo, the son of Chiang Kai-shek, brought their bosses, Wang Tiwu and Yu Jizhong, both former members of the Nationalist army, into the Central Committee of the Guomindang in the 1970s.

10At the end of the 1980s, Taiwan’s daily press was extremely modern. Its plant and technology were those of a developed country, in terms of writing, editing and printing. Taiwan’s dailies were in colour: the first to equip itself with colour printing facilities was the Zhongguo shibao, in March 196814.

11The growth of the Taiwanese press has paralleled economic expansion. The existence of newspapers calls for a fairly advanced level of development, particularly at infrastructure level. It also calls for a potential readership, which is to say a population with high levels of education. One of the key factors in the Taiwanese « miracle » has been the importance given to education, which put an end to illiteracy15.

12With economic development, Taiwanese society entered the mass consumption era, and the advertising market went through a stunning expansion. Newspapers have two major sources of revenue: sales to readers and advertising (small ads and commercial advertising). The majority of Taiwan’s dailies draw most of their resources from the latter: in 1960, they attracted 62 % of advertising investment, and, in 1987, 41 %, as against the 34 % accruing to television, which appeared on the island in 1962. Between 1960 and 1987, the advertising revenues of the daily press went from 102 to 9,665 million $NT16. In the framework of a limited pagination, such a flood of advertising obviously posed a problem. The dailies strove to meet it: no space was wasted, and advertising was to be found in the margins and even in the central folds of newspapers. Moreover, a procedure called suoban (« page reduction »), mainly applied to small ads, consisted of reducing the pointage of the characters. Over the years, the small ads were composed in progressively smaller characters until they became tiny and almost impossible to decipher. A second procedure (huanban, « changing pages ») consisted of a multiplicity of local editions. Each paper published editions different with different editorial content, as well as different small ads and different commercial advertising (especially property advertisements)17. Finally, a third procedure, called fenban (« page sharing »), consisted of selling the same advertising space, on the front page for example, to two different advertisers, A and B ; half the papers printed would carry advertisement A and the other half, B ; each sales outlet was supplied with half A papers and half B. The abolition of baojin, by putting an end to limited pagination, also finished off most of these practices.

13Another element favoured the modernisation of the Taiwanese press: the Chinese language. As long the composition of texts was still carried out manually, one character at a time, the production conditions for publications in alphabetical languages and in Chinese were about the same. But with the automation of composition, Chinese was penalised by its enormous number of characters18. The computerisation of Taiwanese newspapers, which began in the early 1980s, made it possible to reduce the difference in productivity between Chinese and the alphabetical languages19.

14In the 1960s, when the Taiwanese economy took off, the total circulation of the daily press doubled, from 680,000 copies in 1960 to 1.22 million in 197020, and advertising revenues increased fivefold, from 102 million $NT in 1960, they rose to 507 million in 1970. The appearance and content of the dailies improved, because of plant modernisation, but also because of better training for journalists. The government press was losing ground. The Lianhe bao was the leading private newspaper in terms of ciculation, closely followed by the Zhongguo shibao at the end of the decade.

15In the 1970s, the total circulation of the daily press tripled, reaching 3.5 million copies in 198021, while its advertising revenue increased eightfold over the decade to reach 4.4. billion $NT in 1980. The Lianhe bao and the Zhongguo shibao, which, in 1979 announced that it had become the leading Taiwanese daily, shared most of the market. The success of the Zhongguo shibao can be explained in particular by a more tolerant attitude than that of the Lianhe bao in the face of increasing opposition to the Nationalist regime, at a time when the Republic of China was being isolated on the diplomatic level. In any case, over all, the daily press, which was in the hands of personalities loyal to the government, was conservative and supported the political status quo. Only two papers, held by native Taiwanese, distanced themselves from the official line, while being careful to remain within limits tolerable to the regime: the Zili wanbao (The Evening Independent) et le Minzhong ribao (The Popular Daily). The Zili wanbao, an evening daily which first appeared in Taipei on October 10 1947, played, under the aegis of Wu Sanlian22, the role of a powerhouse in the handling of political news for the press as a whole23. The Minzhong ribao, created on September 5 1950 in Jilong, and which set up in Gaoxiong in 1978, adopted an editorial line closely based on that of the Zili wanbao, but its quality was not as good24.

16The government’s control of the media produced in the 1970s a blossoming of dissident magzines on the island25. In 1975 Taiwan zhenglun (The Taiwan Political Tribune) was created, and in 1979 Bashi niandai (The Eighties) and Meilidao (Formosa) were launched26. Bashi niandai represents the opposition’s moderate faction, while Meilidao was launched by the radical faction Dangwai which, at the end of the 70s, went from demands for democracy to demands for independence. On December 10 1979, International Human Rights Day, Meilidao organised a gathering at Gaoxiong which ended in an explosion of violence. Many members of Dangwai were arrested. Eight people were tried for sedition by a military court, and sentenced on April 19 1980 to prison terms ranging from twelve years to life. Among them was Annette Lü (Lü Xiulian), Chen Shiban’s running mate in 2000, who was elected vice-president, and is running for reelection in 2004. Chen Shuiban, a lawyer, entered politics at the time of the Meilidao trial. The dissident magazines of Dangwai have played a central role in the expression as well as the organisation of political opposition, and consequently in democratization.

17In the early 1980s, the daily press market stabilised and the Lianhebao and Zhongguo shibao groups reinforced their dominant position. In 1986, the total circulation of the daily press was estimated at 3.8 million copies27 ; or about one paper for every 5 inhabitants. The Taiwanese, with some 208 dailies sold per 1,000 inhabitants, read fewer newspapers than the Japanese, the biggest consumers of dailies along with the Scandinavians (in the early 1990s: 562 copies per 1,000 inhabitants) or the Americans (244), but more than the French (155) or the Italians (118). The Taiwanese advertising market continued to grow; between 1980 and 1987, the advertising revenue of the daily press more than doubled. On the eve of January 1 1988, the circulation of the Zhongguo shibao was estimated at 1.2 to 1.3 million copies and that of the Lianhe bao at 1.1 million28. The totality of the dailies published in Taiwan by the two groups represented 80% of total circulation and corresponded to 55% of daily press advertising revenue.

19These papers however cover very different realities: advertisers, for their part, take only twenty dailies into consideration. After 1988, the advertising market, which had reached a degree of saturation, no longer showed the same growth as before. And in 1996, for the first time, television overtook the daily press in advertising revenue. The growing interest of advertisers is explained by the growth of cable from 1995 on, but also by the decline of the dailies’ readership. The number of people who read a daily fell from 76% to 57% between 1991 and 200129. This decline is thought to be due to the young generations who prefer other media, such as television and the Internet, but may also reflect discontent, in particular in the face of a drift to sensationalism.

20The lifting of baojin allowed the Lianhebao and Zhongguo shibao groups to consolidate their positions. In 2001, the Lianhebao group took 38.5% of advertising revenues and Zhongguo shibao 30%; between them they took 68.5% of the market30, compared to 55% held before liberalisation31. First the two groups created new newspapers: by 1988 they had established a foothold in the evening daily slot. Then they considerably increased their pagination: their flagships, the Lianhe bao and the Zhongguo shibao, with 12 pages prior to 1988, increased to fifty pages during the presidential election in March 200032. Lastly both companies built new printing works in the north, centre and south of the island: to meet the increases in pagination, but also to better establish themselves locally through an increase in local editions, to facilitate their distribution and improve their tapping of the advertising market. Obviously the financial and technical means at their disposal (established distribution networks, for example), as well as their know-how, gave them an advantage over newcomers. The oligopolistic situation which prevailed before 1988 therefore favoured concentration.

23The lifting of baojin sounded the death-knell of the dissident press as well, and affected a paper like the Zili wanbao. On September 28 1986 was born the Democratic Progressive Party which brought together various factions of the Dangwai: the opposition no longer needed a journalistic cover for its political activities; moreover, the legalisation of the opposition led to an improvement in the coverage of its activities by the media. It became more difficult for dissident magazines to have subversive content. The Zili wanbao, whose publishing company launched a morning daily The Zili zaobao (The Morning Independent) on January 1 1988, was also losing ground. On the one hand, because of liberalisation, its editorial line lost some of its originality and thus some of its attraction. On the other hand, the lifting of baojin having made it possible for the two major groups to gain a foothold in the evening daily sector, the Zili zaobao found itself directly confronted with the two giants. The Zili zaobao closed in February 1999 and the Zili wanbao disappeared in the autumn of 200133. Lastly, the general dailies, because of the frenetic competition between them, tended to fall into line with each other. Liberalisation has therefore been a source of standardization.

25The Ziyou shibao is none other than the old Ziyou  ribao based in Taizhong, and acquired in April 198034 by Lin Rongsan. A businessman who had prospered in property, he had one of the largest fortunes on the island ; he was a member of the legislative Yuan (1975-1979), and then of the Yuan of control (1980-1991) of which he was then vice-president (1992-1993), he was close to President Li Denghui and became an advisor of his in 1997.

26The acquisition of the Ziqiang ribao is said to have cost 40 million $NT35. On the eve of liberalisation, more than 600 million $NT were invested in the daily. Despite this, its losses were estimated at 20 million $NT a month in its early stages. The Ziyou ribao then took two initiatives which allowed it to balance its budget in the middle of the 1980s. First it slashed the prices of its small ads. A line of text which was sold at 35 $NT, and even went up to 45 $NT later on, was discounted to 5 $NT. This practice of dumping allowed the daily to establish itself on the market: it first attracted large numbers of legal advertisements, and then others, because of the lack of space in the big dailies, due to limited pagination. Then, it took advantage of the rise of dajiale clandestine lotteries36. The Ziyou ribao published columns specialising in the forecasts of winning numbers, inspired by the predictions of divines, mages and other fortune-tellers. This policy not only brought it many new readers, but also an enormous increase in small ads linked to dajiale, to the point where it created local editions to accommodate them. Thanks to dajiale, the paper balanced its books: circulation rose from 30,000 to 40,000 copies and the small ads brought in over a million a month.

28Before the liberalisation of January 1 1988, a complete reform of the daily was carried out37. The Ziyou shibao gave greater importance to « Taiwan » over the « Republic of China », emphasized local difference (bentuhua), and « roots » (caogen). Its slogan, in its promotional campaigns, was: « Taiwan above all, priority to freedom » (Taiwan youxian, ziyou di yi). Lin Rongsan’s daily aligned its positions on those of the Democratic Progressive Party, thus setting itself apart from the Lianhe bao and the Zhongguo shibao. In parallel, it gave unconditional support to Li Denghui, the first islander to be President of the Guomindang.

29The Ziyou shibao experienced spectacular growth and, in June 1989, moved into the city of Taipei. On June 15 1999, Lin Rongsan launched an English language daily, The Taipei Times, thus creating the Ziyou shibao group. The spectacular growth of the Ziyou shibao was linked to its new format, the reason generally given by its supporters. But it also owed much to an aggressive and much-criticized commercial policy, not to mention Lin Rongsan’s sizeable financial resources and political support,  being close to Li Denghui and very active in the paper from the beginning of the 1990s38.

30After 1988, in the absence of an organisation to measure circulation in Taiwan39, the main reference was the readership rates of the dailies, measured by a private polling institution and aimed at advertising professionals40. The Ziyou shibao’s readership went from 4.1% to 21.7% in 1996, the year in which he claimed the title of Taiwan’s leading daily.

31Immediately after the liberalisation, the Linhe bao and the Zhongguo shibao were faced with a steep decline in sales. In the space of a few months, both publications doubled not only their pagination, but also their price: on September 1 1987, they went from 12 to 20 pages and from 5 to 8 $NT. Both papers’ circulation fell below a million copies between January and April 198841. The rise in prices seems to have played a decisive role in this fall: before 1988, 40% of Taiwanese subscribers to a daily subscribed to both the Lianhe bao and the Zhongguo shibao; only 10% of them did so at the beginning of the 1990s. In January 1996, the Lianhe bao and the Zhongguo shibao raised their prices again, from 10 to 15 $NT, because of rising paper costs, and saw another fall in sales. That year the readership rate of the Lianhe bao went from 24.8 % in 1995 to 20.8 %, and that of the Zhongguo shibao from 22.6 % to 19.1 %. In contrast, the Ziyou shibao, which held its price at 10 $NT, saw its readership jump from 14.2 % to 21.7 %.

32But the success of the Ziyou shibao cannot be explained by its price alone. In July 1997, the monthly Tianxia published a dossier criticising the methods used by Lin Rongsan’s daily to obtain its good results, in particular the large-scale distribution of free copies42. The Ziyou shibao was said to distribute up to 300,000 copies free; the Lianhe bao and the Zhongguo shibao, for their part, up to 100,000 copies43. Meanwhile the Ziyou shibao had adopted an aggressive distribution policy, buying over the employees of the Lianhe bao and the Zhongguo shibao distribution network by paying them better. In the centre of the island, the Ziyou shibao is said to have used the distribution networks of its two competitors, by arranging for every subscriber to the Lianhe bao and the Zhongguo shibao to be also distributed, free of charge, a copy of Ziyou shinbao. When in 1996 the price of the first two papers rose from 10 to 15 $NT, many of those who previously received the Ziyou shibao free of charge, subscribed to it at its unchanged price of 10 $NT.

33The final objective of this policy of low cover prices and distribution of free copies is the advertising market; the readership rate, which is the point of reference for advertising professionals, serves in particular to set the price of advertisements. When the results of the first quarter of 1996 were published, the Ziyou shibao raised its advertising rates. At the end of May 1997, after having registered the highest readership rates for four consecutive quarters, the Ziyou shibao aligned its prices on those of the Lianhe bao and the Zhongguo shibao. The Ziyou shibao’s turnover, which was less than 2 billion $NT in 1995, was said to have risen to around 2.9 billion in 1996, most of the rise being due to increased advertising revenue. However, according to Tianxia, the Ziyou shibao remained in the red44. The Lianhe bao, whose turnover was said to be around 8.9 billion $NT in 1996, showed a profit of more than 700 million, and the Zhongguo shibao a profit of 20 million $NT on a turnover of 8 billion. Faced with the rise of the Ziyou shibao, the Lianhe bao and the Zhongguo shibao were said to distribute up to 100,000 free copies each, which amounted to costs of  25 to 30 million $NT per month. They also launched spectacular promotion campaigns, based on those of the Ziyou shibao45. Smaller papers, such as the local dailies, were severely affected by the fierce struggle between the three majors.

36In 1997, in order to counter the erosion in its readership, the Zhongguo shibao resorted to a change in editorial policy with disastrous results. In 1995, the Hong Kong businessman Jimmy Lai (Li Zhiying) had launched the daily Pingguo ribao (The Apple) in the British colony, which by 1996, was threatening the leading Dongfang ribao (The Orient)46. In early 1997, the directors of the Zhongguo shibao, impressed by this success, undertook a radical reform inspired by the Hong Kong daily. The Zhongguo shibao set out to seduce the Taiwanese by choosing a more « popular » orientation. In February-March 1997, short news items appeared on the front page. On pages 2 and 3, traditionally reserved for important news, people features cropped up.

39In a text published on Spetember 1 1989 in the Zhongyang ribao, and entitled « Observations and suggestions to the media after the lifting of martial law », the Director of the Government Information Office (GIO), Shao Yuming called for self-regulation of the media : « One can distinguish self-regulation from the discipline imposed by regulations. Discipline stems from the laws, codes and pressure groups which defend the public interest. These two forms of discipline are not incompatible, but the former is better… for it has no influence on the freedom of the press. Where discipline is concerned we should first reinforce the role of the Media Council47. The government is in fact under the surveillance of the media, and it is not suitable for the government to use administrative means or the law to punish them. That would raise criticisms about freedom of the press being hampered ». It was one of the first times that a member of the government looked upon the media as an independent power — whose functions include keeping an eye on the government — and declared that the government should not intervene in the area of the media48.

40After the lifting of martial law and up to the abrogation of the Law on publications in 1999, the GIO, which still had the power to monitor the press, only claimed a restricted role. According to its Director, Shao Yuming: « The GIO has contributed to national policy over some forty years. However, in parallel with the democratic development of our country, the GIO’s role should be simplified: instead of being both government spokesman, in charge of political propaganda and responsible for press regulation, it should only keep its function as government spokesman. We should leave press regulation to the press itself. A civil entity such as the press should be regulated according to its own norms and professional ethics, and not by the government »49.

41According to Zhu Jiying, Director of the Guomindang’s Cultural Affairs Department, which is to say the party’s propaganda, « in a democratic society, the press is the spokesman of the public and represents the public’s interests. I believe that the role of the party’s spokesman is to provide information, not to control the news. He must manage information, not control it. He must explain the party’s policy to the media and relay public opinion to his superiors. The rigid, domineering political style is out of date »50.

42However, while the press had more freedom than ever before, one daily, the Lianhe bao, had all sorts of problems with the authorities. Created in 1951, and viscerally anti-communist, the Lianhe bao distinguished itself from the 1970s onwards by its hostility to the Dangwai51, whereas in the early 1960s it had been in favour of the creation of an opposition party. While continuing to state its attachment to democracy and to a multiparty system, the daily adopted a hard-line attitude towards the Dangwai, which initially called for the democratization, and then — as it became more radical — the independence of Taiwan: the Lianhe bao claimed to support the Republic of China and its founding dogma, particularly the fight against communism and the reunification of Taiwan with the mainland « under the banner of democracy ». By the end of the 1970s, the Lianhe bao used the threats of Beijing, and played on the feelings of insecurity, in order to combat the independence movement.

43On October 29 1992, Li Ruihuan, a permanent member of the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party, invited representatives of the overseas Chinese media, from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, to Beijing. The interview drew to a close with a question from a Taiwanese, who asked how Communist China would react if the Taiwanese independence movement were to become a threat to reunification52. Li Ruihuan’s answer was published the next day by the entire Taiwanese press. The Lianhe bao’s front page headline on Ocotber 30 1992 ran: « Li Ruihan: continental China is prepared to interrupt its economic reconstruction to prevent the independence of Taiwan. Continental China will use « all means » to preserve the territorial integrity of the country, and will go without hesitation as far as « shedding blood and sacrificing lives » (…) ». Three other dailies gave over their front pages to Li Ruihuan’s statement: the Zhonnguo shibao and two government newspapers, the Zhongyang ribao and the Taiwan xinsheng bao. In the Ziyou shibao and the Zili wanbao, the news appeared respectively on page 2 and page 3. The various Taiwan dailies did not therefore accord the same importance to Li Ruihuan’s statement, and the Lianhe bao was undeniably the paper which gave it the most prominence; but the difference in hierarchisation was not great and the content of the articles — which was purely factual — was almost identical.

44On November 11 1992, the Permanent Committee of the Guomindang met to discuss relations between the two shores; one of its members, Shen Changhuan, brandishing the Lianhe bao of October 30 as evidence, was of the opinion that Li Ruihuan’s remarks proved that adopting the policy of « One China, One Taiwan » would lead the island to disaster. President Li Denghui retorted: « The recent statement by Li Ruihuan in Communist China, as far as I know, does not correspond at all to what Mr Shen said. Those journalists who were present then can testify. But a person from a certain newspaper, on his return, gave a frightening account of it, to put fear into our population. (…) According to Comrade Shen, Li Ruihuan stated that he wished to set Taiwan awash in blood and renounce economic development. In reality Li Ruihuan did not say that …53. Li Denghui’s answer is surprising: on October 30 the entire Taiwanese press had attributed the same remarks to Li Ruihuan. Li Denghui did not, however, state the name of the newspaper in question.

47These four papers had supported the boycott as early as November 24, by more or less adopting the movement’s ideas. Moreover, on November 25, the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) reacted favourably to the boycott, by deciding not to advertise in the Lianhe bao any longer. On December 8, the organisers asked the Guomindang to follow the PDP’s example54 ; three arguments were advanced : the Lianhe bao was « commonly considered to be the most conservative Taiwanese newspaper », was situated « on the extreme conservative right », a position in complete contradiction with the « innovation » advocated by the Guomindang ; the Nationalist party  wanted stability and prosperity, whereas the Lianhe bao was a troublemaker ; it asked people to have confidence while the Lianhe bao struck terror into them, « so much so that that even the leaders of the Guomindang are no longer able to put up with the ill-feeling disseminated by the Lianhe bao »55.

49The exact impact of the boycott is difficult to estimate, but it appears to have amounted to a major shock. First of all on the psychological plane: years later, the managers of the Lianhebao group could not get over having been called « communists ». The participants in the boycott included all the opponents of the nationalist regime, whether pro-independence or not, on whom the paper had heaped criticism for years. But also Li Denghui — who was President of both the Republic and the Guomindang — and his allies: consequently a number of administrations cancelled their subscriptions ; the airline Eva Air stopped distributing the group’s newspapers on its aircraft56, etc. Between 1992 and 1993, the Lianhe bao’s readership fell from 31 % to 27 %, a fall which seems due to the boycott, for during the same period, the readership of the Zhongguo shibao remained stable, while that of the Ziyou shibao jumped spectacularly from 6 % to 13 %. To the loss of readership must be added the slowing of the Lianhe bao’s advertising revenues : these rose by only 14.6 million $NT between 1992 and 1993, where at the same time those of the Zhongguo shibao grew by 59.5 million and those of the Ziyou shibao by 48.5 million. All in all, the boycott seems to have caused considerable losses to the Lianhebao group.

50The boycotting of the Lianhe bao was only one episode in a wider power struggle. In 1990, Li Denghui, preoccupied with winning the support of the conservative mainland faction of the Guomindang, had appointed as head of the government the former Army Supreme Commander and Minister of Defence, Hao Bocun, who was close to the directors of the Lianhebao group. This appointment had caused much discontent; and the debates within the Guomindang about the policy to follow in relation to mainland China exacerbated passions. The Lianh bao seems to have served, in some ways, as a scapegoat. On the other hand, the attacks on the paper prove that it is also a major player on the Taiwanese political scene. On February 27 1993, Li Denghui rid himself of Hao Bocun and replaced him with Lian Zhan, a Taiwanese banshan57. Thereafter, the conservative mainland faction was increasingly sidelined within the Guomindang, and native Taiwanese came to power: on August 10 1993, there was a split within the Nationalist party, with the creation of the Xindang which essentially brought together young mainland politicians; in December 1995, Hao Bocun was excluded from the Guomindang, followed, in November 1999, by Song Chuyu. Li Denghui preferred Lian Zhan as candidate in the presidential elections in 2000, which indisputably contributed to the victory of the Progressive Democratic Party’s candidate, Chen Shuibian. Moreover, Li Denghui’s attitude in the debate over independence or reunification has always been ambivalent. One could judge as early as 1995 that there were two positions on the question of relations between Taiwan and mainland China which contained « numerous elements of convergence », those of the majority current in the Guomindang (the faction behind Li Denghui) and that of the Progressive Democratic Party58. All things which, obviously, could only profoundly displease the Lianhe bao.

51In the eyes of the directors of the Lianhebao group, the boycott was launched at the instigation of Li Denghui59. At the end of the boycott, followed by the dismissal of Hao Bocun, the Lianhe bao became an oposition paper, anti-Li Denghui. The daily accused the President of « anti-democratic practices », of being « dictatorial », and of not respecting the freedom of the press60. Its editorial position became radicalised, at the risk of reflecting only a minority of opinion in Taiwan and of marginalising itself by alienating the less conservative fringe of its readership. Indeed, Li Denghui then enjoyed wide popular support and indisputable legitimacy: in March 1996, he was reelected to the Presidency of the Republic for four years, by direct universal suffrage. Up to 2000, the Lianhe bao’s editorials displayed a belligerent opposition verging on hysteria, with regard to Li Denghui. Under Chiang Kai-shek, a newspaper so virulent towards the authorities would not have survived. Thus, freedom of the press now indisputably prevailed in Taiwan; the newspapers participated fully in a sometimes intense political debate.

52In March 2000, the victory of Shen Shuibian, the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the Presidential election, brought to an end over half a century of Nationalist government in Taiwan. His two main rivals were Lian Zhan, the official Guomindang candidate, and Song Chuyu, who had been excluded from the Nationalist Party and ran as an independent61. Chen Shuibian obtained 39.3 % of the vote, barely 300,000 votes more than Song Chuyu who received 36.8 % of the vote, but far ahead of Lian Zhan with 23.1 % of the vote62. In March 2004, Chen Shuibian, who is seeking a second term with his running mate Annette Lü, will once again have as main rivals Lian Zhan candidate for President, allied this time with Song Chuyu, who is running for vice-president.

53During the presidential election in 2000, the Ziyou shibao, the Zhongguo shibao and the Lianhe bao devoted comparable space to the event. The Zhongyang ribao, the Guomindang daily, on the other hand devoted a proportionately much larger space to the election, because of its low pagination63. The four generalist Taiwanese newspapers devoted their front pages to the presidential election, with pages 2 and 3 being traditionally where important news appears. We have studied the first three pages of these four dailies from March 13 to 19, which is to say before and after the results of the election were made known, on March 19. All the articles on the front page concerning the election were taken into account, but only the headlines and the editorials on the two following pages. We estimated each time whether they were partisan or not, and if so in whose favour, and we measured their surface area. By adding up the positive and negative occurrences of each candidate, we determined which of the three candidate each paper favoured. The surfaces areas corresponding to the occurrences allowed us to refine the result64, on the hypothesis that an occurrence equivalent to a small surface has less impact than another which equals a large surface ; moreover, a big surface devoted to a candidate, even if it judges him negatively, gives him notoriety, and even recognition, in virtue of the principle dear to advertising professionals according to which it is better to be criticised than to be ignored, the main thing being to « exist in  the media ». Finally the proportion of neutral surface area to the total area studied made it possible for us to evaluate whether a newspaper was fairly « engagé » or not.

54The Ziyou shibao was resolutely in favour of Lian Zhan, the candidate of the Guomindang. That the champion of Taiwanese nationalism chose to support Lian Zhan rather than Chen Shuibian seems to be directly linked to the friendship between its boss, Lin Rongsan, and Li Denghui. Lian Zhang shows a score of +26, with virtually no criticism made of him. Meanwhile, the daily was very anti-Song Chuyu : when he was mentioned at all, it was in an entirely negative way (-11) ; this is hardly surprising since it is well known that Lin Rongsan and Song Chuyu have no liking for each other65. The Ziyou shibao’s attitude to Chen Shuibian seems to have been more mitigated: predominantly negative before his election (+7 as against –19, between March 13 and 18), it became positive afterwards (+7, from March 19 to 23). Moreover, considerable space was devoted to Chen Shuibian (9,178 cm²), compared to Song Chuyu (2,037 cm²) and even to Lian Zhan (6 232 cm²). Lin Rongsan’s paper was rather partisan (only 39 % of the surface area is neutral) and proved somewhat opportunistic in initially supporting the existing authorities’ candidate, and then rowing in behind the winner.

59In the run-up to the presidential election in March 2004, the Ziyou shibao is supporting the incumbent president Chen Shuibian (green camp) whereas the Zhongguo shibao and the Lianhe bao are for his opponents (blue camp). The fourth Taiwanese daily in terms of circulation is a newcomer: the Pingguo ribao (Apple Daily), launched on May 2 2003 by Hong Kong businessman Jimmy Lai. He established a foothold in Taiwan at the end of May 2000, with the weekly Yi zhoukan (Next), a scandal sheet which has been widely talked about since its creation66. The Pingguo ribao, in order to establish itself on the market, was initially priced at 5 $NT; moreover the Zhongguo shibao and the Lianhe bao dropped their prices from 15 to 10 $NT on May 1 2003, while the Ziyou shibao remained at 10 $NT. On June 1 2003, the price of the Pingguo ribao realigned with that of its three competitors. Sold mostly by the copy, the Pingguo ribao, has a high pagination and is studded with colour photographs: it contains about 80 pages as against fifty or so for its three competitors. It publishes three editions: one for Taipei, one for Taizhong and the third for Gaoxiong. The first pages of the editions for the south and centre of the island feature short news items.