Taiwan

Taiwan ranked 28th of 180 countries and territories in the 2026 RSF World Press Freedom Index, with a score of 75.44, falling four positions from 24th and 77.04 in 2025. It remained second in the Asia-Pacific region behind New Zealand at 22nd and the highest-ranked jurisdiction in Asia.

RSF’s assessment was nevertheless critical. At the index launch in Taipei on 30 April 2026, Asia-Pacific Bureau director Cédric Alviani said that the absence of effective government action over the previous decade to strengthen news quality and secure the public’s right to reliable information had become a major problem detrimental to Taiwan’s democratic system. Advocacy manager Aleksandra Bielakowska said Taiwan remained one of the safest media environments even among democracies, with no reports of journalists being detained or harassed by the authorities, while identifying persistent economic pressure including declining advertising revenue and cuts to public-media funding.

State Media Monitor maps three organisations, all classified Independent State Funded and State Managed. Taiwan Broadcasting System brings together Chinese Television System and the public-media services operated by the Public Television Service Foundation, including PTS, Hakka TV and TaiwanPlus. Radio Taiwan International is Taiwan’s international broadcaster, providing services in twenty languages. The Central News Agency is the country’s statutory national news agency. None sits outside the independent family, and none is classified as state-controlled or captured.

The three organisations nevertheless demonstrate different forms of dependence on state institutions. TBS has been unable to constitute the eighth board of the PTS Foundation since the seventh board’s term expired in May 2025. At the first review meeting on 31 December 2025, only four of fourteen director nominees obtained the required support, leaving the new board below the statutory minimum. A second review meeting scheduled for April 2026 failed after eight review committee members recommended by opposition parties collectively resigned.

The Legislative Yuan had meanwhile amended the Public Television Act in January 2026 to remove the provision expressly allowing directors to continue after expiry of their terms until successors took office. The seventh board nevertheless continued functioning throughout the review period. Its legal basis remained disputed: opposition legislators argued that deletion of the holdover provision terminated the authority of chairman Hu Yuan-hui and the expired directors, while the Ministry of Culture maintained that the general Foundations Act allowed them to continue until replacements were appointed.

Funding became directly connected to that governance deadlock during the delayed 2026 budget process. Taiwan’s annual central government budget was not passed until 14 August 2026, the latest an annual central government budget had been passed in the Republic of China’s history. The Ministry of Culture’s proposed TWD 2.12185 billion donation to the PTS Foundation was cut by TWD 21.85 million, and TWD 300 million was frozen. Of that amount, TWD 200 million cannot be released until the eighth board’s chairman takes office and the Ministry reports to the Legislative Yuan’s Education and Culture Committee; another TWD 100 million is subject to a separate reporting requirement.

The separate international digital communications budget financing TaiwanPlus was cut by TWD 210 million, with another TWD 10 million frozen. During parliamentary consideration of substantially larger proposed reductions, Reporters Without Borders and the Public Media Alliance urged legislators to protect PTS and TaiwanPlus funding, warning that the cuts could undermine their public-service role and independence. A public petition opposing the reductions surpassed 150,000 signatures before the final vote.

A rare case of political pressure on public-media content had already exposed another vulnerability. During TaiwanPlus coverage of the 2024 United States presidential election, correspondent Louise Watt referred to Donald Trump as a convicted felon and described the historic choice facing voters as between electing the country’s first female president and its first convicted felon president. Culture Minister Li Yuan publicly described the controversy as very serious and contacted PTS. TaiwanPlus subsequently removed the item and later republished an altered version.

The Ministry of Culture denied directing the removal, however, and PTS maintained that the decision to take down the report was made by the TaiwanPlus editorial team because of concerns about objectivity, fairness and balance. The episode remains exceptional: RSF’s current Taiwan assessment describes it as a rare case of political interference rather than evidence of systematic government control of public-media journalism.

The three organisations differ substantially in their governance safeguards. At TBS, directors of the PTS Foundation are nominated by the Executive Yuan but require approval by a review committee selected by the Legislative Yuan in proportion to party representation, with a two-thirds threshold intended to prevent unilateral political control.

CNA and RTI have no equivalent cross-party approval mechanism. The Premier appoints CNA’s entire board and supervisory board from statutory professional and public-interest categories, subject to a ceiling preventing any single political party from holding more than half of the seats. The Ministry of Culture appoints RTI’s board and supervisory board, also subject to a single-party ceiling; five of RTI’s fifteen current directors are statutory representatives of the ministries or councils responsible for foreign affairs, defence, overseas communities, cross-strait affairs and culture. These arrangements provide the basis for the State Managed element of their classifications.

All three organisations are also predominantly publicly financed. The PTS Foundation derives roughly nine tenths of its recognised income from government donations, public funds and deferred government-financed projects. RTI’s basic government operating subsidy supplied 81.8 per cent of 2024 revenue and accounts for approximately 84 per cent of its planned 2026 income. CNA’s 2025 final accounts show direct government subsidies of 56.7 per cent of total income; including government-commissioned work raises identifiable state-derived income to approximately 70.3 per cent. The evidence therefore supports the State Funded finding for all three organisations.

Public funding and state-managed governance have not, on the evidence available, translated into systematic government control of day-to-day journalism. TBS and PTS have statutory editorial-autonomy safeguards; CNA publishes professional newsroom standards and editorial rules; and RTI’s professional processes received Journalism Trust Initiative certification in 2025. State Media Monitor identified no evidence during the current review period that any of the three organisations was routinely instructed by government authorities on individual editorial decisions. The 2024 TaiwanPlus case demonstrates that political intervention remains possible, however, and the 2026 connection between PTS governance and access to frozen funding creates an additional structural risk.

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