I ask the question in the clickbait title of this post almost seriously, because the FAIL is strong with CNN. Last week CNN published an "explainer" which of course, like so many other explainers, got key information grossly wrong. To wit:
Washington officially sticks to a "one China" policy, acknowledging Taiwan being part of China and the People's Republic's status as the sole legitimate government of China.US policy is that Taiwan's status is undetermined. Washington's one China policy doesn't include Taiwan. All of us who track Taiwan policy know that. This information is freely available on the internet. Why doesn't CNN know it?
....
In 1979, the US acknowledged the People's Republic of China's claim that there is one China and that Taiwan is part of China, when Washington severed ties with Taipei to recognize Beijing.
Despite repeated attempts to contact the authors by email and twitter, only silence was received, and the misleading presentation/error remains. The piece also claims, wrongly, that Beijing and Taipei "reached an agreement" in the 1990s. No agreement was reached in the 1990s. It also refers to the "own interpretation" part of the "1992 Consensus" though Beijing has never accepted that codocil.
The reason I ask the question above is that not only is there this false presentation of US China policy in the "explainer", but CNN presenters routinely say that the US says Taiwan is part of China. When CNN's Fredricka Whitfield interviewed Gerrit van der Wees of FAPA in early Dec, she began her first question by stating: "The U.S. does not formally recognize Taiwan as an independent state and backs Beijing's claim that Taiwan is a part of China." van der Wees corrected her, but the error is frequent on CNN and subsequently both Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper have made it.
And check out this short video from CNN, which appears to refer to the "1993" Consensus.
Somewhere, someone is misleading CNN. It needs to stop.
_______________________
[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!
JUDY WOODRUFF: Hours earlier, President Trump spoke by phone for the first time with China’s President Xi Jinping. During the call, Trump retreated from earlier talk of disregarding the one China policy, which officially treats Taiwan as part of China.
ReplyDeletePBS, Reuters, WSJ and most news media are the same as CNN.
You should just list the ones that report the truth if you can find any.
Most of these journalists don't know anything about the topic at hand and are comfortable repeating the echo chamber that is the US media. That's why they'll repeat that "Taiwan is a part of China" trope until the end of time.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately CNN hasn't improved much on checking the facts. I just hope that its viewers won't believe every things it says without some doubts in their minds. (the statement does not really make sense if u think about it)
ReplyDelete