Good Reporting on Taiwan (for a change)

After reading Kathrin Hille's ludicrously pro-KMT piece in the Financial Times last week, it is a pleasure to get three relatively balanced and objective views of President Chen's recent remarks on the Cross-Strait situation from Reuters, AP, and the NY Times:

Alice Hung in Rueters

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian signaled a tightening stance toward China on Sunday as he warned his people of investment risks in the mainland and growing military ambition by the island's political foe. Defying expectations that he would take a more conciliatory approach to mend ties, Chen said the government would assume the role of a gatekeeper to guard Taiwan's economic security.

The NY Times' Keith Bradsher in Hong Kong (in the International Herald Tribune):

But Mr. Chen made clear in his annual New Year's Day address that there had been no fundamental change in Taiwanese policy. He used a series of politically charged phrases that appeal to independence advocates in Taiwan but are likely to offend mainland China.

He also urged the Legislature to approve his long-stalled plan to buy more weapons from the United States, and again raised the possibility of a referendum to rewrite the constitution, two steps strongly opposed by Beijing.

He was particularly emphatic in warning of the risk posed by the rapid modernization of the People's Liberation Army on the mainland, especially its heavy investments in missiles that can reach Taiwan. "In the face of such imminent and obvious threat, Taiwan must not rest its faith on chance or harbor any illusions," he said.

There was no immediate reaction from Beijing. China's chief negotiator on Taiwan issues for many years, Wang Daohan, died on Dec. 24 at the age of 90, and political analysts have suggested that his death may make the mainland less likely to change policies toward the island soon.

Now that's reporting. Note how reasonable and nuanced the NYT identification of the political slant of its sources is, information that the Hille article withheld from the reader:

Lai I-chung, the international affairs director at the Taiwan Thinktank, a research group in Taipei that is independent of the Democratic Progressive Party but politically aligned with it, said that President Chen's hard line showed that he had concluded his party's internal divisions contributed more to its defeat in the municipal elections than the Nationalist Party's overtures to Beijing.(emphasis mine)

That is probably entirely correct. And unlike the Hille piece, which simply blamed Chen in the best pan-Blue style, the NYT piece refrained from doing that. The DPP's internal divisions reflect many things -- local politics, faction politics, genuine differences of policy, political rivalry -- and few of them are Chen-driven, though everyone seems to find the President a convenient whipping boy.

And Annie Huang for AP:

Following his Democratic Progressive Party's election defeat, Chen was widely expected to take a conciliatory stance toward China. But Chen indicated he would not be pressured to remove barriers on trade and investment with China.

"No matter how cross-strait relations develop, we will adhere to ... sovereignty, democracy, peace and parity," he said.

"While Taiwan would never close itself to the world, we shall also not lock our economic lifeline ... in China," Chen said, adding that Taiwan's "long-term development" takes a priority over business interests.

Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party, which won last month's municipal elections, favors eventual reunification with China.

Despite the political tensions, trade has boomed between the two sides. Taiwanese businesses have poured more than $100 billion into China and they want Taipei to end a ban on direct transportation links with the mainland.

Look how much quoting of Chen she offers us. It is possible to produce reasonably balanced stuff on Taiwan, so why can't the Financial Times do it?

I also wanted to point out that the Hung article (the first one) also provides a nice bonus, for she alone connected the Chen remarks to President Hu's New Year's Eve speech that once again warned that Beijing was willing to kill and maim Taiwanese to attain its goal of annexing the island.

In a move sure to anger Beijing, Chen said the island could hold a referendum on the new constitution by 2007 if conditions become mature. Beijing sees Chen's constitutional re-engineering project as a provocative step toward formal statehood.

In his New Year's Eve speech, Chinese President Hu Jintao vowed China would not tolerate Taiwan independence.

Good work, guys. Now if you people would only get more pictures of spiders in there....

UPDATE: Peking Duck wishes for a more reasonable Chen. The KMT responds here.

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