Chapter 3 The Case of Reporters Without Borders
3.2 The Opening of the Taipei Office
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allows to impact because some countries would be proud to have a better ranking. Some countries, some politicians might want to act.
In addition to the work that goes into the index, as an advocacy NGO focusing on media freedom, RSF publishes articles relating to press freedom violations, trains and offers support to journalists in dangerous regions, conducts research and publishes in-depth reports on topics relating to freedom of information, and interacts with intergovernmental organizations and governments in order to promote adherence to freedom of the press.
3.2 The Opening of the Taipei Office
On July 18, Reporters Without Borders officially opened its first Asian bureau in Taipei. Led by Cedric Alviani, a French expatriate who’s lived in Taiwan for many years, the bureau was created to enhance RSF’s influence in East Asia. The Taipei bureau is responsible for tracking the press freedom of and engaging with journalists in the following countries and territories: Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, and Mongolia.
In addition to Alviani, the bureau employs one full-time Taiwanese staffer (who preferred to remain anonymous and is referred to as Anonymous A). This employee shoulders much of the responsibility for writing RSF’s Mandarin publications and conducting research of Mandarin sources. Alviani, meanwhile, handles most of the communication (in French) between the Taipei office and the headquarters in Paris. In addition to these two full-time staffers, RSF’s Taipei bureau also hires part-time interns on a rolling basis and usually pays them a small remuneration. These interns include Taiwanese as well as foreign citizens living in Taipei, often students. Alviani and the
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because neither of them are. I served as an intern at RSF’s Taipei office from October 2018 to January 2019.
The Taipei office occupies an important position at RSF as the organization’s gateway into the Asia Pacific region. The Paris headquarters relies on employees at the Taipei office to have the most knowledge and understanding of the region. Only with their perspective can the headquarters best adapt its global mandate to affect the region.
Alviani explained the imperative of having a bureau in the region:
Democracies around China, which are somehow threatened not only by the Chinese model but also inside by the temptation of authoritarianism from some of their politicians, so the action we do is very important. It’s somehow a new territory because from Paris, we could gather information coming from Asia but there was no way we could act on Asia; there was no way we could have a successful communication with Japan or Korea while not understanding their work culture, not understanding how they think.
The anonymous Taiwanese full-time staffer I interviewed on March 26, 2019, Anonymous A, elaborated on why it is important that RSF has an office in the region:
“By establishing ourselves here we have that local reach. We can do things we cannot do from Paris. We can talk to press freedom defenders from Asia directly; we can interact with them in their own language. I think that makes a difference. And that will help to promote press freedom in all the territories we cover.”
Paul Coppin, head of legal desk at RSF’s Paris headquarters, who I interviewed on April 26, 2019, explained the symbiotic relationship between the Paris and Taipei offices. “It’s the Taipei office who’s the expert on the area, so I do nothing on any case without information provided by them. They are alerted. They know the situation. They know the context. They know the cases,” Coppin said. “So when the Taipei office alerts me on a case, on a situation, I discuss it with my
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colleagues at the advocacy office, and then we decide what course of action is the most efficient.” In summing up his interaction with the Taipei office, Coppin said this: “I depend on them to have the facts and they depend on me to take action.”
One of the most consistent activities of RSF’s Taipei office is the publishing of articles to RSF’s website relating to press freedom violations in China. During my time as an intern, these seemed to average about two per week. For example, on November 15, 2018, RSF published an article to its site that was written by employees in the Taipei bureau with the headline: “China: two financial journalists sentenced to jail terms.” The article detailed the sentencing of two financial journalists who exposed an ongoing government investigation against the chairman of a powerful dairy company. Below is a screenshot of this article:
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Figure 3.1 Financial Journalists Article Source: RSF
RSF’s articles usually follow a standard format. A large bold headline introduces the main topic, then an isolated paragraph with font slightly larger than the article’s text follows, which proclaims RSF’s position on the topic.
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This is followed by the article itself, in slightly smaller font. The article begins with about two paragraphs relating the facts of the story in a standard news format, a simple inverted pyramid structure with the most important information coming first. For this article, the following two paragraphs related the substance of the events (bolded words appear as in article).
On October 24, a court in the Chinese Autonomous Province of Inner Mongolia sentenced financial reporters Zou Guangxiang and Liu Chengkun to prison terms of one year and eight months, respectively, on the charge of "picking quarrels and provoking troubles." Their sentencing comes after having revealed the existence of an investigation against Pan Gang the chairman of the dairy group Yili, from the region.
Zou was arrested in Beijing in March, two days after disclosing on his blog the existence of the investigation, information which became viral and caused a 3.5% fall in the share price of the company. Liu took some elements of the story and published them as fiction, probably to protect himself, which did not prevent his arrest a few days later. (RSF 2018)
Then the article will quote an RSF representative—for articles written in the Taipei
"These two journalists have done their job by bringing crucial information to the public’s attention and it is outrageous that it costed them their freedom, said Cédric Alviani, director of RSF’s East Asia office, who condemns "the policy of terror put in place by the Chinese authorities to replace independent journalism with a new media order based on censorship and propaganda.” (RSF 2018)
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After the quote, a final paragraph will briefly explain the overall situation for media freedom in the country and mention how the country scores on the RSF global press freedom index. In this case (hyperlinks are as appears in the article):
China is one of the world’s most egregious jailers of journalists, holding more than 60 professional and non-professional journalists behind bars. In the 2018 World Press Freedom Index published by RSF, the country stagnates at 176 out of 180. (RSF 2018)
The research done by employees in the Taipei office for these articles is usually reading of secondary news sources, though sometimes might also involve communicating with people on the ground with more knowledge of the events. After a draft of the article is finalized in the Taipei office, usually in English by an intern, it is translated into French by Alviani, who then sends this French draft to the Paris headquarters for approval. Once it is approved, it is sent back to the Taipei office.
Because RSF publishes its articles in both French and English, this approved French article must then be translated back into English, and finally both the French and English versions are published.
At the time of this writing, RSF’s articles are usually not published in Mandarin, which is a problem for RSF’s mission of advocating press freedom in the region. It is a goal of the RSF Taipei office to build the capacity necessary to regularly publish its articles in Mandarin.
Though the articles are only published in French and English, they are shared by RSF’s twitter accounts in simplified and traditional characters, as well as by its English-language account. They are also shared on Facebook and LinkedIn.
In addition to the articles, RSF’s Taipei bureau has sought to build connections in territories which it covers but in which it does not have an office. Alviani has taken
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multiple trips to Hong Kong since the Taipei office’s inception to meet with journalists there and take part in events relating to press freedom. Alviani and the Taiwanese employee took trips to South Korea and Japan to hold discussions with journalists and meet with politicians to promote media freedom. They traveled to Seoul to hold a press conference and release the 2018 press freedom index. Also in 2018, they traveled to Tokyo to take part in an open discussion with journalists there regarding sexual misconduct that female journalists often face.
In some cases, RSF’s Taipei office takes steps to reward defenders of freedom of information in East Asia who have faced dangerous situations. For example, after Liu Xia, the wife of Liu Xiaobo, went to Germany in exile in 2018, RSF’s Taipei office took steps to fly an acquaintance of hers to Germany to present her with an RSF prize that the NGO had awarded to her late husband.
Employees at RSF’s Taipei office sometimes help the Paris headquarters fill out petitions to the United Nations regarding journalists in East Asia receiving mistreatment at the hands of authorities. As will be discussed in detail in the following section, staffers at the Taipei office sometimes procure documentation of human rights abuses against journalists in China. The RSF Paris headquarters then uses this documentation to petition the United Nations to take action against Chinese authorities.
The Taipei office is also supposed to raise money through soliciting philanthropic donations. The Paris headquarters wishes the Taipei bureau to eventually become economically self-sustaining. But this effort is still in its early stages.
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Networking is another function of the office. Employees at the Taipei office commonly go to functions to broaden their base of contacts in the media, government, civil, and private sectors.
Alviani told me he would like to expand the Taipei office in both size and scope.
But because funds and bureaucratic approval is limited at this time, the office seems likely to only have two full-time staffers for some time.