Mad Chen Is In The House!

ULCA journalism professor Tom Plate's newest piece on Chen Shui-ban shows, once again, how westerners writing on Taiwan simply do not get it with an appallingly slanted, fact-free discussion of Chen Shui-bian and Taiwan. Plate's article is an excellent illustration of how Beijing's propaganda lines have become the basis of Establishment media discourse on Taiwan. No wonder President Chen gets so exasperated with the media.

Los Angeles --- Seven years ago the man was elected handily by the people and became the first member of his party to become president -- and only the second truly elected president in Taiwan's short history as a democracy.

Elected handily: substantively misrepresents events. Chen won a plurality of 39%, not "handily". He was elected only because the pro-China side split its forces. He won with a thin majority in the second election.

But somewhere in the dank confusion and disarray of his second term, Chen Shui-bian -- no longer the charmer of the Democratic Progressive Party -- woke up one morning and discovered he had been transformed into something like a political insect.

How else to describe a man whose political approval ratings now barely notch up into double figures, whose wife is on trial for corruption and whose son-in-law also stands accused of corruption? One prosecutor has said publicly that Chen himself is protected from indictment only because of the office he holds.

political insect: people complain about Chen. But he campaigned in Kaohsiung for DPP candidate Chen Chu, who won, having no discernible negative effect on the outcome. It's important to realize in Taiwan the disjunct between what people say and how they behave is vast. UPDATE: I've removed some comments as it seems I missed Plate's attempt at a Kafka comparison.

son-in-law accused of corruption: once again, the foreign media seems unable to discover relevant facts about Taiwan. Chen's son-in-law Chao Chien-ming got six years for insider trading in December. It's no longer an accusation.

political approval ratings now barely notch up into double figures: Plate seems blissfully unaware of the routine misrepresentations of reality in Taiwan's media. Anyone who followed the last election, where the Chinese-owned TVBS had Chen Chu losing in Kaohsiung by 20 points, knows perfectly well how hopeless the local media polls are. Here are the numbers from the recent mayoral election in Kaohsiung:

Liberty Times (12/5): Huang Jun-yin (34.38%) versus Chen Chu (34.09%)
China Times (12/4): Huang Jun-yin (43%) versus Chen Chu (29%)
TVBS (12/3-12/4): Huang Jun-yin (51%) versus Chen Chu (31%)
United Daily News (12/2): Huang Jun-yin (39%) versus Chen Chu (27%)
Era TV (11/26-11/27): Huang Jun-yin (41%) versus Chen Chu (26%)
ETTV (11/24): Huang Jun-yin (41%) versus Chen Chu (29%)

In other words, the Blue polls all had the KMT candidate winning massively -- but in reality, he lost by a point. It may come as a shock, but no methodologically sound, nuetral poll exists to tell us how far support for Chen has plummented, or even whether it has fallen at all. Recall that in the most recent practical demonstration of support for the DPP, the DPP won in Kaohsiung, and performed much higher than expected in Taipei. In short, people in Taiwan may well take into account the fact that the prosecutions of the Chen Familiy are entirely political in nature -- that Chen's accusers are themselves hugely corrupt.

Consider, as the China Post reported the other day, the very legislators kvetching about Chen made millions on sweetheart deals with major corporations, using methods that were less than kosher....

At its inception in May 2000, Asia Pacific Broadband Wireless was named Eastern Broadband.

The Wang family issued stock slips, instead of formal securities certificates, at a selling price of NT$10 per share to raise fund.

Between 60 and 90 percent of legislators of all political parties had snapped up the stock slips at various costs depending on each lawmaker's financial standing and political clout.

Many lawmakers used their influence to raise loans from financial institutions to purchase the slips for quick profits.

Market prices of the slips once rose to NT$16 or NT$17 per share and some even to more than NT$20 a share.

Most members of the Legislative Yuan, their assistants, and even some reporters covering the parliament were believed to have built up their hoarding of the share slips.

Some more financially savvy legislators managed to sell off their holdings for quick profits.

But many others suffered heavy losses because they continued building up their holdings in anticipation of the advent of the new 3G telecom era.

But we can't expect the foreign media to present any of this stuff -- that requires knowledge of the terrain, some sensivity to the complexity of the issues, willingness to inform readers that it isn't easy to understand, and so on.

I threw all this at Taiwan's embattled president the other night as he was passing through Los Angeles International Airport on his way back to Taipei. We sat in a small conference room with a few of his aides and a small group of scholars. The conversation flowed surprisingly easily. Chen had made a special effort to meet with us and if it had not been for the need to jump back on the charter flight home, he might have stayed much longer. It seemed as if there were a few things he really wanted to get off his chest.

In fact, Chen took a strikingly aggressive approach to the cascade of attacks on him, whether coming from within Taiwan or abroad. He quickly dismissed his domestic critics with a scoffing hand wave, calling them all politically motivated; but when the subject came up of Taiwan's fiercely commercial -- and partisan -- news media, Taiwan's president turns into a veritable scorpion of rage.

scorpion of rage: What can one say? Why the need to call the president an insect and a scorpion? Sure the President is enraged. The venality and unscrupulousness of Taiwan's media is regularly discussed throughout the island and abroad -- including in the pages of Asia Media.

calling them all politically motivated: Is Plate seriously thinking that Chen's critics are not politically motivated? Chen's attackers are largely the people who have been hacking on him throughout his long career as a human rights lawyer, legislator, mayor, and now President. They consist largely of pro-China politicians and their lackeys and fellow travelers, plus a few dupes.

Chen charged that the Taiwan media fakes public-opinion poll results, misleads the outside world about Taiwan and poisons the national atmosphere. "Even our judiciary is led astray by our media," he charged, adding: "Our media consists of reporters without borders!"

Such media overkill plays into the hands of the enemies of an independent Taiwan, the president argued, which includes, to be sure, China: "Eventual unification can't be the only conclusion, it can't be the only option for us. Unlike our opponents [the Kuomintang, or KMT], we do not say, there is a certain outcome..."

But the issue is emphatically raised of whether Chen's outspoken advocacy of a political future for Taiwan pointedly that excludes the mainland may unintentionally put his island of 23 million in harm's way. After all, China, with 1.3 billion people and a growing military, has repeatedly and consistently claimed that it would be an act of war were Taipei to declare formal state independence that would effectively preclude eventual mainland integration.

Chen charged that the Taiwan media fakes public-opinion poll results: No need to write "charged" here. Media polling results in Taiwan are substantively bogus -- in fact, the Gallup Poll in Taiwan is a fraudulent poll -- Gallup withdrew the rights to that name 5 years ago but the old owner continued to use it. It's redundant to point out that Plate could at least have acknowledged the reality of fraudulent polls in Taiwan.

Chen's outspoken advocacy of a political future for Taiwan pointedly that excludes the mainland : in an article full of silliness, this one stands out. China (not "the mainland") is not "excluded" from Taiwan's future. It merely will not be able to rule the island. But Chinese will certainly visit, conduct business, and otherwise have all the normal possibilities for involvement that any two sovereign nations enjoy. The idea that independence "excludes" Beijing is pure pro-Chinese propaganda -- while at the same time, validates the historically unsupportable claim that China should have some say in Taiwan's affairs. It's sad to see the way Beijing-think shapes discourse about the island of Taiwan.

Further, Plate's positioning of Chen makes it appear that independence is almost all Chen's idea, as if Chen's advocacy of independence were somehow unusual. But Chen reflects widespread public opinion in support eventual independence in Taiwan (latest polling is showing majority support for it). If Tom Plate would come live here for a while, he would soon find that there are numerous locals who excoriate Chen because he is too moderate on independence, including an entire political party, the TSU.

What's really going is still more Beijing-think infecting the political discourse, through the well known vehicle of Mad Chen ^(TM), "he's so crazed, he could declare independence at any time!" That is the Chinese party line on Chen. The reality is that Chen is a moderate whom the less moderate accuse of merely using independence as a tactic to get votes.

"Sovereignty and the issue of independence belong to the people of Taiwan," he replied, "and is not subject to the jurisdiction of China." Chen adds that his position on the issue of Taiwan's future is actually an advocacy of the status quo. In fact, as he says, Taiwan right now is a de facto state, recognized as such by 20 or so other nations and boasting something like the world's 19th largest economy. The island's average annual income is not far from a comparatively healthy US$30,000 per person, and the measured level of people living in poverty is said to be less than 1 percent. Why would the people of Taiwan want to merge with the mainland if it is doing so well on its own?

That's a fair point, of course, and the answer involves an unpleasant thought. It is that China might well take the question of Taiwan's destiny into its own hands and, one way or the other, seek to force the island to rejoin the mainland in the manner of Hong Kong. The sovereignty of the latter now officially resides in Beijing after the formal handover from London in 1997. The former British colony is now officially termed Hong Kong SAR -- for Special Administrative Region.

Chen's critics worry that by pushing the envelope, the embattled president might just push the mainland into rolling out and revving up the invasion boats. Better to low-key the independence drum-roll if the people of Taiwan want to sleep better at night: At any time Beijing's war of words could turn into a different kind of war altogether.

Better to low-key the independence drum-roll if the people of Taiwan want to sleep better at night: The reason it is so easy to skewer the Establishment media is that the party line never changes, and it always supports Beijing. This claim -- that Mad Chen will doom us all! -- has been the pro forma accusation against Chen since he began to run for President in the 2000 election. It was an important plank in the KMT platform, although it remains a pro-forma claim for the KMT, it is actually the foreign media that is more enthusiastic about the Mad Chen Whose Craziness Will Doom Us All. Apparently they haven't noticed that there hasn't been a war here for the last seven years. Not even close. And do foreign correspondents actually imagine that Chen Shui-bian is unaware of the possibility of Chinese attack?

Ponder an alternate universe, where the interviewer actually asks questions based on knowledge of the island, all the other questions that could have been asked.

He could have mentioned Taiwan's disproportionate contribution to global warming and asked President Chen what Taipei was going to do about it....he could have discussed water policy, foreign labor, the 40% cap on mainland investments, Chen's alleged damage to US-Taiwan relations, Taiwan's growing relations with Japan, China's territorial claims on Taiwan's neighbors and how Taipei plans to exploit them, the recent moves by Vatican to re-enter China....

....etc. There's a lot of questions out there. Instead, Plate regurgitates pro-Beijing propaganda to ask Chen a question that has already been asked a million times before, and for which the answer is already scripted and rehearsed. Not to mention, of course, that merely asking the question serves to reinforce the (pro-Beijing) idea that Chen is unthinkingly radical. Sometimes I wish Chen would answer thusly:

"Mr, President, do you think China might blast Taiwan off the map if you are too radical in your question for independence?"
"Why no, Tom, I've never even thought about it. Thank you and the other foreign correspondents for pointing that out! Whew, that was close! Why, I might have declared independence without even thinking about China! I...I...I... must be mad!"

rejoin mainland in the manner of Hong Kong: The usual errors -- Taiwan was never part of any Chinese state, so it cannot "rejoin" China. May as well claim that it can "rejoin" Holland or Spain....the use of terms like "rejoin" demonstrate clearly how well Beijing controls the discourse on Taiwan. Other correspondents seem to have no trouble finding ways to express China's desire to annex Taiwan without implying that it is a "return." Edward Cody once used the term "absorb" which is marvelously apt, I think.

Bottom line: Taiwan is not "returning" to China because it was never part of China. I know that foreign reporters cannot use the term "annex" but at least they could go for "absorb" or similar.

But the president was completely unmoved by this line of argument. "If I cannot defend the dignity and safety of this country," he replied, "I'm not worthy of holding this job."

was completely unmoved by this line of argument: Hey no kidding, because it's been seven years now and still no Chinese attack. Could it be that China's desire to annex Taiwan has nothing to do either way with Chen's pro-independence propagandizing, and everything to do with waiting for its military to mature and the US position to further weaken both relatively and absolutely.

With impeachment cries seemingly on the wane, that job is presumably his until sometime next year, when his second term formally runs out. That year also headlines Beijing's vaunted Summer Olympics. Once that spectacular is over and Beijing has time to take a good long look across the Taiwan Strait at what it regards as a "rogue state" and "breakaway province," Chen will no longer be in office.

The question, however, is whether the independence web spun by Chen over the last eight years will be too tensile for anyone on the island to take down easily.

independence web spun by Chen:Yes, that's right, it's all Chen. The people of Taiwan are simply passive recipients of the nefarious Mad Chen's independence drive, incapable of their decisions or identities. They never even thought about independence until Chen was elected President. Note also the continuing critter metaphor -- having been presented as an insect and a scorpion, Chen is now a spider spinning webs of independence...

The real question is, whether democracy on the island will be able to consolidate itself, to grow, and to permit the people of the island to choose the kind of future they want -- and of course, whether foreign correspondents will ever acquire the ability to present Taiwan without adopting the language and postures of Beijing, and from a point of view that is infused with some knowledge of the island and its affairs.

A sad piece, especially given the excellent one he wrote on Chen's stopover in LA.

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