Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Washington Times has no Google in its office

A lonely fishing spot. I once wanted to do a whole post of fishing pictures but decided not to, since fishing is the second most boring thing in the world. 

The Washington Times published an official editorial on Taiwan obviously written by someone with little expertise. It's rife with errors:
Eric Chu, a onetime accounting professor and the new nominee, will face Democratic Progressive Party candidate Tsai Ing-wen, who proposes formal independence for Taiwan instead of the current ambiguous de facto autonomy.
Dr. Tsai's position is quite clear: "status quo" not independence. She's said this about 1000 times. The DPP's long-term commitment is to independence. But Tsai will not move in that direction, as many commentators have observed.
The KMT, which once ruled everything on the island with a very firm hand, is trying to recoup its strength after disastrous parliamentary elections a year ago, when it paid a price for several deals it made with mainland China.
The legislative elections are next year. Last year was the local government elections.
However, the mainland meddling in Hong Kong, despite its political autonomy enshrined in the 1997 British agreement to turn the colony back to China, has raised suspicion of Beijing’s good faith elsewhere.
Um. No. Taiwanese have been rejecting annexation to China and One Country Two Systems, since forever, and it was Taiwan's experience of ECFA and other deals that drove anti-CSSTA sentiment, as well as close familiarity with China since a zillion Chinese work there. The editorial actually observes that above this. *sigh*
A study in 2007 by the Rand Corporation questioned whether the United States could — or would — fulfill its treaty obligation to defend Taiwan in event of an all-out attack from the mainland.
The US has no treaty obligation to defend Taiwan. Period. A gross error.

Is there any point in writing them? They won't correct it. The really sad part is that Washington Times has a long history of standing up for Taiwan and many experts on the island nation have published in it. Why wasn't one of them consulted?

Why O why can't we have a better media?
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was going to comment on the WT page, but then I thought, hell, it's the WT; I might as well shout in the wind

Jerome Besson said...

The Washington Times does not know that it is the sense of Congress that PM Shinzo Abe’s Japan replaced Madam Chiang’s Nationalist China as our staunchest ally — some might even think, our Trojan Horse — in the Asia-Pacific region. For a confirmation, open the two topics page below side by side.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/taiwan/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/japan/

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot for uncovering this.
I oppose to leave the story of Washington Post un-commented. They surely have a place where people can comment on articles.
It is yourself who uncovered all the flaws in the article, so you may consider to post a comment there.
Anyway, maybe don't bother too much because this is a US magazine and I guess the majority of the audience of the magazine there can't distinguish between Thailand and Taiwan anyway.

Chaon said...

Guys, The Washington Times:

... is a daily broadsheet published at 3600 New York Avenue NE, Washington, D.C., United States. It was founded in 1982 by the founder of the Unification Church, Sun Myung Moon and was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the church, until 2010 when it was purchased directly by a group led by Moon.