Kwok Wai Fung (郭偉峰), or “Guo Weifeng,” president of Hong Kong’s China Review News Agency (CRNTT) — which long advertised itself as “the first digital network news agency in the greater China region” — died May 29 in Hong Kong at age 68. Kwok’s passing prompted condolences from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), which took the opportunity to promote the journalist as an exemplary advocate of closer engagement between China and Taiwan. Kwok was among the first mainland journalists to visit Taiwan for reporting in 1991, arriving at Taoyuan Airport on August 12 with Xinhua reporter Fan Liying (範麗青) after 42 years of cross-strait separation.
The TAO praised Kwok’s work establishing China Review (中國評論) magazine in Hong Kong in 1998. During the recent Cross-Strait Media Summit in Beijing, an official event led by the government-run Xinhua News Agency and China Daily, CRNTT promoted new media as a platform for youth dialogue across the strait, with Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭), a member of the Central Advisory Committee of Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party and an advisor to Meihua Media Group (梅花媒體集團), advocating for such digital exchanges — which have been seen in Taiwan as divisive and potentially harmful. (Stay tuned to Lingua Sinica for more on the Meihua Media Group).
In praising Kwok, the TAO was in fact praising one of its own. According to company registration files in Hong Kong, China Review News Agency Limited remained 50 percent held by Kwok at its latest annual filing in February this year. The remaining shares were held by Wang Ping (王平), the deputy director of CRNTT. Despite this apparent private status, however, CRNTT has direct links to the Chinese government. The agency was founded in 1997 under the direction of Wang Daohan (汪道涵), a former Shanghai mayor who at that time was president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) — an ostensible social organization directly under the management of the Taiwan Affairs Office.
