Aaarrgh! to the Sydney Morning Herald

Sydney Morning Herald reporter Mary-Anne Toy just got back from a Taiwan government-supported trip to Taiwan and produced a very uneven article that at times offers an excellent review of affairs, but at others, remains within the conventions that govern journalistic writing on Taiwan. Consider this:

Beijing has claimed sovereignty over the island democracy since their split in 1949 at the end of the Chinese civil war. It has threatened to use the 1000 or so missiles aimed at the island if Taiwan tries to formalise its de facto independence by, for example, calling a referendum on the subject, as Taiwan's retiring President, Chen Shui-bian, has threatened. So behind the razzamatazz in April when China unveiled the route for the torch relay for next year's Beijing Olympics was yet another chapter in the continuing war.

It's wonderful that Toy refers to the missiles, as many commentators are wont to ignore them, but at the same time she repeats the formula that China and Taiwan split in 1949. But in 1949 sovereignty over Taiwan belonged to Japan, and it was the KMT and the CCP that split, not China and Taiwan.

More fundamentally, she regards the Torch issue and the Panda issue as battlegrounds in a "proxy war" between China and Taiwan. In fact the real battle ground is the media. China's "anger" is something that takes place only in the media reality -- it almost never intrudes on our reality. Despite "anger" the flow of Taiwanese money, businessmen, and tourists continues unabated, and China never makes a move against Taiwan that results in concrete costs for its side, the way Russia signaled its displeasure with US policy in the Balkans by tearing up a treaty, or the UK recently signaled "anger" at Russia by expelling its diplomats. The debate is largely symbolic, and aimed at the media. Thus, Toy's presentation on the "proxy war" misses the point that she herself is the object of the campaign.

Taiwan is not the first time Beijing has used such tactics. During the return of Hong Kong there was a steady drumbeat of attacks on Chris Patten, the last governor, so vitriolic that UK commentators frequently admonished Patten out of fear that Beijing would restrict the UK's trade with China. Naturally, nothing ever happened. Beijing was simply attempting to use the UK media to control Patten, transferring the cost of control to the UK rather than itself, just as it does today with the Taiwan case.

In addition to remaining with the parameters of Beijing's use of the media to advance its cause, Toy also makes other errors. She writes:

Taiwan and China's influence-buying in the region can undermine governance and encourage corruption and instability. Australia and New Zealand have told the rivals to stop the chequebook diplomacy to buy the allegiance of countries. Rioting in the Solomon Islands last year, which sparked Australia's billion-dollar RAMSI intervention, was blamed on Taiwan and China backing rival political factions in a tussle over whether the tiny nation continued to recognise Taiwan or to switch allegiance to China.

I've written before on the hypocrisy of the New Zealand and Australian positions, kowtowing to Beijing and then demanding that Taipei stop its diplomatic struggle to survive -- if democracies like New Zealand and Australia supported Taiwan, Taiwan wouldn't have to buy support elsewhere. But more importantly, Toy didn't do her homework, and simply repeats a factually incorrect slur about the riots. As the China Post reported earlier this year, the Solomons Riots had nothing to do with Taiwan or China:

The commission, headed by former Papua New Guinea judge Brian Brunton, said that while there was animosity toward Chinese in the community, it was not the cause of the riots.

"The assertions that the riot was a spontaneous outburst because of the corruption of the previous government and its links with the Chinese ... does not ring true," he said in the report.

"The evidence suggests that a group of persons planned events and decided that if their candidate was not elected prime minister ... they would cause such trouble so as to force a regime-change," he said.

He did not name any suspected orchestrators of the violence.

The report said police should have known tensions would be high during the "king-making period" immediately after the elections, when the government would be formed through intense political horse trading.

But police were caught off guard and had no plan to deal with a riot.

"The Solomon Islands Police Force were, in effect, unprepared without riot gear, or a riot trained capability on that morning," the report said.

The report said local police were at the time effectively under the control of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands, the Australia led force deployed to the country in 2003 to quell a long-running tribal conflict.

Toy's article also regards China's drive to annex the island as "taking it back" although the PRC has never ruled Taiwan, nor did any previous government of China ever control the whole island.
It's not a bad article in many ways, but it reflects, rather than reflects on, the media's presentation of the Taiwan-China issue.

[Taiwan] [China] [Australia]