Media Management (in)Eptitude

The Taipei Times reported today on another approach in the efforts of the KMT to influence media discourse about Taiwan -- websites offering news about Taiwan in English and Japanese:

Stephen Chen (陳錫蕃), a think tank member and former representative to the US, said there were 258 English articles about party policies, general news, survey results and editorial pieces on the English Web site, and 80 articles on the Japanese site.

"The establishment of the Web sites will help to counter the biased reports of pro-green English [language] newspapers, promote the party and create an international election Web site for our presidential candidate," Chen said.

The sites will offer immediate translation of important events, including the party's major policies and KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) speeches, he said.

It will also provide recent poll results, news analysis from the KMT think tank and selected party news every day, Chen said.

Arguing that English-language newspapers in Taiwan tend to carry negative reports about the KMT and that many foreign correspondents favor the Democratic Progressive Party, Chen said the KMT would take a more aggressive approach to promote itself internationally through the sites.

While expressing support for the party's effort to strengthen its image, KMT Central Standing Committee member Lien Sheng-wen (連勝文) suggested that the two Web sites include "Taiwan" in the Web address, as most foreigners would type the term when searching for Taiwan-related information on the Internet.

KMT Deputy Chairman and Legislator Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) came up with the idea of launching the foreign-language Web sites after visiting Japan last year and being disturbed by the fact that Japanese officials were all reading English-language Taiwanese papers that he felt were biased against the KMT, a party press release said.

The English and Japanese sites can be found on www.kuomintangnews.org, www.taipeinews.org and http://www.kmtnews.net/.

You gotta love the KMT -- so China-centered that they have to be reminded to put "Taiwan" in the website -- or maybe just self-centered. Meanwhile, you can enjoy for one second a display of ineptitude that would be amusing if it weren't so common. As the Taipei Times gleefully observes:

However, the opening page on all three entry sites has the KMT's name misspelled as "Koumintang."

Laughing? Well, let's see how the good guys are doing. David Lu of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECRO) in San Francisco, a branch of Taiwan's officially unofficial representative office in the US, wrote an opinion piece on the exclusion of Taiwan from the UN that appeared in a San Diego paper earlier this week. It's studded with errors of history, language, and style. The lowlights with my comments in red:

Since 1945, the Kuomintang government of the Republic of China has ruled Taiwan until this decade, when the Democratic Progressive Party gained a majority. Regardless of how the Treaty of Peace is interpreted, the fact remains that the People's Republic of China has never ruled Taiwan for even a single day. [MT: love that error -- "Since 1945...until this decade." What, can't find anyone in the office to check the Anglais grammar? No professional rewriters in San Francisco?]

How then can the People's Republic of China lay claim to Taiwan just because the Ching dynasty (Manchurian) ruled Taiwan before? Under this flawed reasoning, the Yuan dynasty (Mongolian Empire) seated at Beijing, which ruled most of Europe once, would be allowed to claim most of Europe. Also, Spain or Mexico could claim California. [MT: In the usual usage it's Manchu, not Manchurian; Mongol, not Mongolian. Did the Mongols rule most of Europe? In my history books they pulled up short in Poland. I suppose if you count everything west of the Urals.....]

Also, the exclusion of Taiwan is against the universal value of self-determination that the U.N. itself has vowed to safeguard. Taiwan and China have developed very differently during the 100-plus years of separation. Taiwan has its own government, territory and people. It has achieved its good standing in the international community based on its own merit and does not deserve to be lumped in with China. [MT: Style issues: the beginning of a paragraph with also is limp. The list in the third sentence lacks a comma after territory. And check this out -- the author takes the position during the 100 years of separation that Taiwan and China are separated. Yech.]

Let's examine the cases of North and South Korea, and East and West Germany. All were separated by World War II, but none of them claimed to represent the other side. The international community did not reject any side from joining the U.N. In both of these cases, both sides were evenly matched, having a similar population and military might. [MT: either side, not any side. Is Taiwan so poor it cannot afford to have this stuff rewritten? Note that the writer's position implies that Taiwan is in fact a split piece of China, since the cases he has chosen represent split nations. Ugh. The writer's position thus contradicts his points about the PRC having never ruled the island, and its false claims to it. The writer also makes a gross historical error -- and I do mean gross -- in all the Cold War cases at least one side, and often both, claimed to be the sole representative of the nation in question. For example, West Germany conducted a bitter campaign during the Cold War to isolate East Germany under the Hallstein doctrine. China's isolation of Taiwan simply follows the policy established by the western powers with respect to the states they supported: isolate the other side. Are there no experts whom these people can turn to for advice? It should be routine to run this stuff past people who know what they are talking about.]

In our case, there is a drastic contrast between Taiwan and the People's Republic of China. China, as a rising power, has continually asserted its power to isolate Taiwan to the point that even the U.N. has strayed from its founding principals.[MT: Founding principals? Well, U Thant was a headmaster.....tit for tat baby -- for the ROC isolated China and kept it out of international organizations for many years.]

Finally, excluding Taiwan from the U.N. is simply unjust. It not only discounts Taiwan's 23 million people from international consideration, but also prevents one of the most able-bodied nations to contribute to the greater good. Instead, Taiwan's exclusion proves that if you are bigger and stronger, you can bully your way into getting what you want. Wasn't that what the U.N. was created to stop?[MT: one of the most-able bodied nations? What a bizarre image that conjures up in the mind! I guess it is no wonder Taiwan is being Shanghai'ed by China, given that we're so able-bodied. Note the basic English error prevents....to contribute....instead of prevents....from contributing. Are there no professionals in San Francisco who can rewrite this? ]

Note how the tone is plaintive and supplicating, instead of assertive and decisive. The sentences lack a clear, crisp flow, there is not a single memorable line -- in other words, no message lingers in the reader's mind -- the lack in fact clearly implying that Taipei does not have a message -- it does not restate its points and finish with a bang .... instead it meanders in fine Chinese style, circling its ideas rather than pouncing on them. That may sell in Beijing or Taipei, but not in Washington.

The lack of professionalism displayed in this piece is terribly disheartening, especially since so much depends on the ability of Taiwan's representatives to clearly communicate the issues. This appears to be the kind of piece whose actual audience is not the readers of the paper, but the superiors of the writer back in their offices in Taipei. See what I've done? it says.

Ya done wrong, is what it actually says.

It's long past time for an injection of professionalism into Taipei's efforts to engage the outside world.

[Taiwan] [media]