MEDIA: Reuters writes of China' Taiwan Affairs Office head speaking in Washington DC....
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, a former head of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, said Tsai's election was a normal political process that did not come as too big a surprise."We do not care that much who is in power in the Taiwan region of China," Wang said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on Thursday, without directly using Tsai's name. His comments were carried on the center's website.Ha! We don't care who is in power in Taiwan -- now there's a slap at the KMT. But of course it's nonsense -- they are quite concerned about the DPP.
"What we care about is, once someone has come into power, how he or she handles the cross-strait relationship, whether he or she will maintain the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, whether he or she will recommit to the political foundation of cross-strait relations, the one China principle," he said.
Wang said he hoped that, before Tsai assumes power in May, she would indicate that she wants to pursue the peaceful development of ties and accept the provision in Taiwan's own constitution that the mainland and Taiwan belong to one China.
The laziness of international media "reporting" is on display here. Reuters simply acts as Wang's stenographer. None of his claims is nuanced, questioned, or even explored. Does the ROC Constitution (not "Taiwan constitution") clearly state that Taiwan is part of the ROC and China? Surely Reuters -- surely reporters, and not stenographers -- might have raised the issue (imagine, by contrast, if Wang had said something about the Spratlys -- Reuters might have included some reference to claims by other nations). But Reuters is too spineless to even do that.
Why O why can't we have a better media?
FocusTaiwan news quoted a DPP legislator who observed that if Wang thinks Taiwan has a Constitution, he is recognizing it is a country. LOL! Note also the desperate try of the KMT news organ to find a claim to Taiwan in the Constitution.
TOURISM: Some news went around in the outside world claiming that China had reduced tourists to Taiwan....
Since the opposition's victory, mainland Chinese authorities have placed quotas on outbound tourists. Before the new rules, an average of 8,000 Chinese tourists visited Taiwan daily, but that number is now down by 40 percent, to about 5,000, Taiwan media reported....has it? Depends who you ask. The article appeared to be based on reporting originally in the pro-KMT China Times which filtered through the pro-DPP Liberty Times, with the numbers as above. But a Chinese spokesman in Xinhua attributed the drop -- note that he admits there's a drop -- to "the market".
An estimated 80 percent of tour packages on offer in the mainland have been suspended, and popular tourist attractions have seen a significant reduction in visitors, posing a major setback for Taiwan's travel industry that has enjoyed a boom since free travel was permitted in 2012.
The KMT news organization said that the Tourism Bureau had indeed found a drop in Chinese tourists...
Chiu Lo-feng, chairwoman of the International Tourist Hotels Association of Taipei (臺北市觀光旅館商業同業公會), stated that the number of Mainland tourists staying in Taipei hotels would decline by 10% in March, and the total number of Mainland tourists would decline by 20% to 25%. Chiu pointed out that even the number of individual Mainland tourists visiting Taiwan would decline.Up to you, dear reader, to decide whether China is being coy about cutting tourists or whether it is the natural result of market forces (Chinese tourists booming elsewhere, I saw zillions in Dubai).
According to an investigation conducted by the Tourism Bureau, the Mainland would reduce the number of Mainland tour groups visiting Taiwan per day by one-third to two-thirds, namely, 1,600 to 3,300 tourists per day, impacting airlines, hotels, restaurants, shops, and tour buses.
Alex Lu (魯孝亞), chairman of the Taipei Tour Bus Association, stated that judging from the reservations for tour buses in February, it was expected that at least 600 tour buses would be left idle, and the situation in April and May was not likely to improve. Lu went on to say that there were 16,000 tour buses in Taiwan, 4,000 of which were used to transport Mainland tourists around the island.
DOWN WITH SUN YAT-SEN PORTRAITS!: Portraits of Sun Yat-sen, the ROC's "founding father", brood over public buildings across the nation. DPP legislators want to put a stop to this. J Michael Cole describes....
The proposal, initiated by DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬), wants the requirement that Sun’s portraits be installed in every public building be dropped and for Sun to no longer be referred to as the nation’s “founding father.”Actually, the argument at the bottom was going around the net today, with many people noting publicly and privately that this was the goal of the move: to energize the Bitter Enders in the KMT so that they all go out to vote for reactionary Chair candidate Hung Hsiu-chu instead of her rival Huang Min-hui, a Taiwanese faction politician from Chiayi, in the KMT Chairmanship election next month. Aware of this, both Hung and Huang blasted the proposal. Whether or not that was the real goal of the factions pushing this move, it is likely to have that effect, which means that it is a very good thing.
.....
Despite the validity of Gao’s proposal (and similar ones were made before), the timing isn’t ideal. Much more pressing matters that will directly affect the wellbeing of the people in Taiwan ought to be addressed in the new legislature. Whether Sun continues to stare down at government officials or remains the object of Nazi-style salutes isn’t one of those. Moreover, by making it this so soon after the DPP victory in the January elections, the proposal smacks of triumphalism. Not only does this go against what president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has sought to prioritize, it empowers the more radical elements within the KMT who will seize every opportunity to attack the DPP, while weakening the more moderate voices in the party.
Why? In a few months as presidential candidate, Hung had the Taiwanese wing of the KMT leaving in droves. Imagine the effect she could have as the Chairman until the end of next summer. Gao is making the right move, politically. Getting rid of the symbols of authoritarian power and personality cults is a good thing for democracy in Taiwan, but just as important is detaching the Taiwanese compradore politicians from the KMT.
Now if we could work on that eyesore memorial in central Taipei...
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Daily Links:
- Nippon.com: how to read Taiwan's elections
- Cold weather to linger through Saturday
- CFR paper arguing that China's ailing economic will make it more likely to engage in nationalistic adventuring.
- Ketagalan hosts a review of Stephane Corcuff's new book on Taiwan history and identity.
- Oh, and this excellent personal story of the KMT's pro-China hypocrisy from the Taipei Times
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!
3 comments:
The main tourist operators to Taiwan are owned by the Chinese, so Taiwan won't feel the loss of business in this case. Some hotels might suffer, but the people who will really feel the pinch have been feeling it from the start: underpaid bus drivers and tour guides. The KMT government allowed more than 10,000 people to get tour guide license - a scandalous money-making operation which required people to pay for expensive training, pay for the license and membership to the tour guide association, and prevents them from going solo and working independently. And of course, Taiwan never needed 10,000 tour guides.
With regard to the decrease in tourist arrivals, it could be that China is actually targeting the KMT - a gentle nudge to remind them that as they flirt with the process of rebranding that Beijing will not tolerate any changes to the nationalist script.
Chinese tourists are down in both Hong Kong and Macau. It has been the subject of much hand-wringing among the Hong Kong tourism industry representatives, who were scandalized that visitor arrivals fell by 2.5 percent last year on the back of a significant decline in mainland visitor arrivals. As much as the industry loves to point to the Mong Kok riots and Occupy Central, no hard evidence has ever been procured that such events are responsible. More likely contributors, acknowledged equally by most industry representatives, include the relative strength of the HK dollar vs other currencies in the region, the slowing Chinese economy and its impact on outbound departures, China's anti-corruption campaign and its impact on big spenders, and the fact that Chinese tourists are wanting new experiences.
Taiwan does not face the same currency problem as HK does (HK dollar pegged to US dollar), but the other issues would still apply. It is possible that even Taiwan is not exotic enough for some Chinese tourists these days, for example. "Oh, you are heading to Taiwan? Heh. We went there last year."
The interesting thing is that almost nobody outside of the hospitality/tourism industry and the government laments the loss of the tourists and the negative impact on the economy. And many commentators have even blamed the industry's troubles on the industry itself. Many industry leaders were acting for years as if the numbers would only go up, so they never did anything innovative. Their business model was based on quantity rather than quality or efficiency.
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