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]
http://www.redkemp.com/?cat=17
ReplyDeleteI stumbled upon this and thought you might find it interesting. Although it's kind of old.
Interesting.
ReplyDeleteCheck out www.ihtreaders.blogspot.com
look at this one:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=a6gh65Tbe6Ow&refer=asia
[Taiwan's economy has lagged behind China's since outgoing President Chen Shui-bian ended 51 years of KMT rule of the island in 2000.]
I think the Bloomberg authors meant 'economic growth', in which Taiwan has lagged behind China since the early 90s. So again, these writers try to mislead the international audience by putting two completely unrelated events in once sentence.
I also read your blog here Michael:
ReplyDelete"Religious Tolerance in Taiwan "
And I actually think you've got it all wrong concerning "religion" and "tolerance"....
For one thing, God is actually very real.
Regarding tolerance:
"One of the biggest battles we face concerns the way we use words. One of the most glaring examples is the word ‘tolerance’. Not long ago, this meant ‘bearing or putting up with someone or something not especially liked’. However, now the word has been redefined to ‘all values, all beliefs, all lifestyles, all truth claims are equal’.
Denying this makes a person ‘intolerant’, and thus worthy of contempt.
Where does this leave Christians?
Jesus said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6).
And the Apostle Peter said, ‘It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead … Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved’ (Acts 4:10–12).
The new definition of ‘tolerance’ makes the Christian claims to exclusivity ‘intolerant’, which supposedly justifies much of the anti-Christianity in the media and the education system.
But this argument is glaringly illogical and self-refuting. That is, if these ‘tolerance’ advocates reject Christianity, then they are not treating this belief as ‘equal’. So, in practice, to paraphrase George Orwell in Animal Farm, all beliefs are equal, but some beliefs are more equal than others. The result is extreme intolerance towards Christianity from people who talk so much about tolerating all views. In short, they are intolerant of intolerance, so logically they should be intolerant of themselves!
Many Christians have fallen for another form of tolerance trap, i.e. that one should not impose one’s religious views on politics or science.
But contrast this with the former head of the HGP, James Watson, and his co-discoverer of the DNA double-helix structure, Francis Crick. They both used the 50th anniversary of their discovery to push their atheistic views. The media had no objection to them mixing their religion with their science and politics! Crick is so desperate to cling to his atheistic ‘faith’ that he even resorts to the idea that earth life was brought here by aliens; anything to avoid God.
Furthermore, evolution is not even real science, it's actually bad science.