Four Cheesy Pieces

It's fascinating to compare the differing views of the international media as they bang off Taiwan's many realities.....

From Peter Enav of AP writing in the Bangkok Post:

Tung Chen-yuan, an official in the Mainland Affairs Council, a cabinet-level body responsible for Taiwan's China policy, said the group's polls show that 70 percent of people in Taiwan reject the ''one country, two systems'' formula for Taiwan.

''The Hong Kong experience is a total failure,'' Mr Tung said. ''People on Taiwan know this.''

The same is said by Taiwan's political parties, who rarely agree on anything.

''People in Taiwan have much more freedom and political rights than in Hong Kong,'' said Hsiao Bi-khim, a lawmaker with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

Su Chi, a lawmaker with the Nationalists, the biggest opposition party, agreed. ''Politically we feel that the Hong Kong model is not applicable to Taiwan. Hong Kong was never the master of its own land. It was a British colony. For us, it's a totally different situation.''

But wait. Our democracy is in disarray and people are nostalgic for the good old days of political killings, wholesale looting of the island's financial institutions, and suppression of human rights, according to Julian Buam, formerly of the Far Eastern Economic Review, in an opinion piece for Yahoo News:

Hopes for political and constitutional reform were high in 2000 when the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), led by President Chen Shui-bian, ended the abusive, 55-year rule of the Chinese Nationalist Party. But those hopes have been dashed amid seven years of divided, deadlocked government. Budgets are often delayed or canceled. Almost no bills have passed. Rules are twisted for partisan advantage. Corruption in high places is rampant. The result is a serious crisis of governance that has depressed popular support for representative government and deepened cynicism. Opinion surveys by East Asia Barometer show that the Taiwanese have the lowest level of belief in the superiority of democracy in East Asia and unusually high nostalgia for the efficiency of authoritarian rule.

Authoritarian rule more efficient than democracy? I hope Baum only refers to the alleged beliefs of the local public, and doesn't really believe that nonsense. Check out the East Asia Barometer's scholars here -- if you guessed that they are a bunch of political conservatives, you bet right. He adds that:

Meanwhile, factionalism and lack of commitment to public service have greatly weakened Mr. Chen's administration. The high turnover of cabinet ministers has made continuity in office only a happy memory of the Nationalists' dictatorship.

Yes, once again, the happy memories of Nationalist dictatorship....because you know how committed to public service the KMT leadership was in the good old days. I dream of the op-ed piece that mentions which side is primarily responsible for the lack of governance here -- paralyzing the government is one of the strategies of the pro-China parties. Baum then goes on in the same reality-free style to refer to a paper I reviewed on this blog a while back:

"For the great majority of Taiwan's electorate, the mechanisms of democratic accountability have failed," wrote political scientist Chu Yun-han of Taiwan's Academia Sinica in a recent paper.

He further concluded that the erosion of democratic legitimacy has large implications for China itself, where liberal intellectuals and senior leaders closely follow Taiwan's affairs. If Taiwan's democracy founders, it would discourage reformers in China who look to Taiwan to demonstrate the advantages of an open and competitive political system.

What does reality say? Read my review, but as I noted:

Just last week a prominent Singaporean democracy supporter publicly chastised Ma Ying-jeou for his approving stance on authoritarianism in Singapore, observing:

I am sure that the people of Taiwan cherish their hard-won political freedom and are proud to live in a democratic society, a society that they contribute towards and continue to shape. In fact, in many ways democracy advocates in Singapore draw inspiration from Taiwan in its transformation from martial law to a bona fide democracy.

If Taiwan's messy democracy is a failure, then the news has failed to reach those Chinese societies that Chu alleges would be most put off by it.

Chu's piece is poor, and it is sad to see Baum recycling it. Meanwhile Peter Enav observes:

Although many Hong Kongers envy the Taiwanese voters' freedom to choose their own leaders, they're also dismayed by the often messy and chaotic young democracy. Fistfights are common in Taiwan's legislature, and each election involves allegations of rampant vote-buying and ballot fraud.

The island's president, Chen Shui-bian, is also commonly viewed in Hong Kong as being an erratic hothead who unnecessarily provokes Beijing.

Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai, who owns a mass-market newspaper and magazine in Taiwan, said Taiwan was better off than Hong Kong _ even if the Taiwanese president _ who finishes his final term next year _ is a disappointment.

''Taiwan at least has hope for a new leader in 2008,'' Mr Lai said. ''If we had a poor leader today, when will we get a new one?'' AP

Those nutty Hong Kongers, envying our democracy when they should be enjoying the efficiency of authoritarian rule! Silly people....

Meanwhile, in case you haven't noticed, there's an election going on. The International Herald Tribune hosts a rather rambling opinion piece by Philip Bowring on the upcoming elections. Bowring takes the conventional line that Ma is the favorite, but offers some fair analysis of the actual situation:

But it may not be that simple. Hsieh is a canny operator with a reputation for effective administration, and Ma's control of his own party is weak.

In principle, the central divide in Taiwan politics remains attitudes to the mainland, with Chen Shui-bian's Democratic Progressive Party being associated with Taiwan independence and the Kuomintang with eventual reunification with the mainland.

In reality, however, there are several shades of opinion on economic integration that are reflected in both main parties. The electoral battleground is firmly in the center.

Western media reps, working with western ideas of how bodies politic are structured, just don't get what our Center is here. As the election goes along and reaches its climax, both sides will make moves, not to grab the center, but to shore up and expand their base. Meanwhile our public is nostalgic for the good old days of authoritarian rule, according to Julian Baum, but somehow Bowring managed to miss that:

In reality the economy has not performed badly, but could have done much better. It has fallen behind South Korea. There is a perception of stasis, to which Chen has contributed by his obsession with identity issues, and the KMT had added through its obstructionism in the legislature and defense of vested interests. Democracy may be strong, but standards of governance have suffered from political infighting, corruption and indecision.

Baum says our democracy is weak and a bad example to China, Bowring says its strong. Hey, you say tomato, I say fan chieh....and of course, no media opinion piece can be complete with mention of that awful Chen Shui-bian, "obsessed" with identity issues, poor guy [insert doleful shake of head here]. In this media world it could never be imagined that Chen is often viewed by independence supporters as cynically manipulating the issue for his own political gain -- never mind that identity is even more crucial for maintenance of the KMT's core base. I yearn for the media writer who understands that the idealized Chinese identity of the KMT is even more a construction than the Taiwanese one of the DPP.

But don't be too discouraged. At least some in the foreign media are willing to print criticisms of themselves. An AsiaMedia opinion piece records:

Wu, in his public talk, said that some of Taiwan's problems are related to the foreign media which tends to portray Taiwan as unstable, a place where brawls occur within its parliament. "The international press does not cover the more positive aspects of Taiwan," he said.

There may be some truth to this, but it is also true that many reporters and others in the West have a soft spot for Taiwan and want to support the underdog in its David versus Goliath struggle with China. But they also recognize the realities of power politics and the dangers of pursing a confrontational strategy.

Focus on the negative might also reflect genuine problems in Taiwan: corruption and slowing rates of economic growth in recent years, to name two.

The KMT has been very successful in getting foreign media reps to write, as if by free association, the term corruption whenever they write about the current situation in Taiwan. There's certainly plenty of corruption to go around but.... I don't want to make anyone's head explode, but lots of media reps out there need reminding that the current government is by far the cleanest in the island's history. I used to think that goes without saying which party is blocking the proposals on sunshine laws, and cleaning up the farm associations, and....but I think it needs to be said more and more, until someone out there actually listens.

[Taiwan] [KMT] [Singapore] [Ma Ying-jeou] [democracy] [China] [media]