Pop-aganda Battle Notes

Chinese pop singers coming to Taiwan can now give press conferences as long as the content is "reasonable," announced the Mainland Affairs Council yesterday. Until this decision, Taiwan's pop music policies were actually less liberal than China's. Now they're probably about the same.

In February, mainlander entertainer Zhang Guoli (張國立) was refused permission to come to Taiwan to promote a children's program that had was allowed to air on Taiwanese TV, according to ETtoday (Chinese). And a plan to bring Super Girl Lee Yuchun (李宇春) to film a program was also nixed because the submitted plan didn't match the activities.

Now the bureaucracy here is slightly confusing. This recent news all derives from statements made by Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chair Johnnason Liu (劉德勳), but the permission-giving body is the Government Information Office.

A pending case (Chinese) involves an application by Mainland film director Yin Li to make a movie called Yun Shui Yao (雲水謠) (literally: "Cloud Water Ballad"), which interprets the 228 incident. MAC Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) has said the film's script "distorts history" and comes from the perspective of "Taiwanese tongbao yearning for the motherland." Sounds like it's gonna get the
axe.