More Establishment Dreck from IHT: A Time for Moderation

Longtime China commentator Andrew Nathan and Yun-han Chu had an editorial in the International Herald Tribune on the upcoming election in Taiwan, under the now-familiar Establishment rubric of "moderation." Although writing like this is perfectly awful, it achieves its air of insight through deployment of restrained language that creates a moral equivalence between China and Taiwan. To wit:

Yet the most important result of the elections is all but predetermined: Taiwan's next president will be a relative moderate on cross-strait issues.

The key to this surprising development is a shift in the mood of Taiwan voters. Chen's efforts over the past eight years to open up more international space for Taiwan hardened Beijing's position while producing a loss of support for Taiwan in Washington. The economy went through a recession in 2001 and has not strongly recovered. A stream of corruption scandals engulfed high-ranking officials of the governing Democratic Progressive Party and the presidential family.

Note the pro-KMT slant of the opening frame -- Chen caused Washington to curb its support for Taipei -- even though, as former Cheney advisor pointed out here a few weeks ago, it is Washington's obsession with its defeat in Iraq that actually led to the fall-off in support for Taipei. Note also that it is Chen Shui-bian that caused Beijing's position to "harden" even though it was Beijing that refused to negotiate from the start -- even though the DPP has wanted negotiations for eight years. The article even echoes the KMT propaganda claim that the economy is bad, even though we have been growing strongly in recent years and are now the #2 exporter to China. In other words, this is a farrago of nonsense. I suppose it is pointless to observe that Chen was widely hailed as pragmatic and conciliatory when he came to power in 2000 and has remained a "moderate" -- only in the Cloud Cuckoo-land of writing on cross strait relations can a lifelong moderate who advocates peaceful democratic change like Chen Shui-bian be portrayed as a "radical." But heck -- why refer to the complexities of history when you can source ideas from the KMT so much more easily?

The article then presents the cross-strait policies of the two candidates Frank Hsieh and Ma Ying-jeou. Next, it opines:

Taiwan's shift toward moderation remains fragile. The next president will have to deal with a divided legislature and a politicized media. Consolidating the shift will require results early in the new term.

It's amazing that anyone could write "Taiwan's shift toward moderation remains fragile." Taiwan threatens no one. It carries out policy by peaceful means. It has done so since anyone can remember. And yet, pundits can write that our moderation is "fragile." At any moment, we could break out into.....what? A public referendum? An attempt to enter the WHO? The mind reels. For crissake we're a frickin' democracy here! We're moderate by definition.

Chu and Nathan finally point out that China is a problem too...in a whole entire sentence....

The last mainland-Taiwan accord was a 2006 agreement to allow certain kinds of charter flights to fly directly between the two sides, which sidestepped sovereignty issues by putting forward the two sides' airline associations as signers. Many similar ideas are on the shelf and afford opportunities to create momentum: ideas for scheduled direct flights, exchange of tourists, currency exchange, and direct cargo transfer through islands near to China that belong to Taiwan. Stronger gestures by Beijing could include a relaxation of its full-court press on the few remaining countries that still recognize Taipei; relaxation of opposition to Taiwanese membership in the World Health Assembly (associated with the WHO), relaxation of the ban on high-level Taiwan participation in APEC, and a slowdown or even freeze on the deployment of medium-range missiles pointed at Taiwan.

Such steps could begin to reverse a legacy of mistrust on all sides. Beijing and Washington must not waste this opportunity to put the triangular Taiwan Strait relationship on a path of declining tension.

Nathan and Chu's point of view shows the same relentless lack of imagination and understanding that haunts Establishment commentary on Taiwan. No recognition anywhere in this article that the major problem is not the lack of moderation in Taipei but the threats of aggression emanating from Beijing. Note that their radical plan for building trust is to "slowdown or even freeze" the missiles pointed at Taiwan -- not a condemnation of the threat of force followed by a call for their reduction and elimination. What -- we're supposed to build trust with a nation that is threatening us more slowly?

Finally, observe how the restrained language, as Orwell noted in his masterful essay on Politics and the English Language, serves as a kind of euphemism that covers up the deeply unethical position of Nathan and Chu (who lack even the moral cojones to call for the removal of the missiles threatening Taiwan). According to Chu and Nathan, there's a "legacy of mistrust" which exists "on all sides." Although it sounds balanced, it actually once again creates moral equivalence between perpetrator and victim. Mistrust exists because China wants to annex Taiwan and Taiwan does not want to be annexed, simple as that. If China did not threaten Taiwan there would be no issue; the two sides would be as friendly as Canada and the US. There is no "legacy of mistrust" "on all sides", because there are not two morally equivalent sides here.

UPDATE: I've roasted Chu's misleading, pro-KMT writing before on this blog. As blogger Feiren pointed out in a private email, Taiwan is not the problem in the negotiations -- Nathan and Chu fail to point out that it is China that has refused to do further negotiations on charter flights and tourism using non-official negotiating teams.

[Taiwan]