“It’s interesting to me that the U.S. pressured the former Kuomintang government to make Taiwan a democratic country for decades and that is now seems it does not want Taiwan to be ‘that’ democratic.” - Lo Chih-cheng, a professor at Soochow University [via Bent]
I'm only bringing this up because the title of the only article on my Associated Press feed rang out like a stack of bricks on a glass floor:
Taiwan Leader Riles China, U.S.
Yes, there he goes again, riling. That wacky "leader." Ole' Chen, we call him. He's always doing outlandish things like trying to protect his country -- of which he is the democratically elected "leader," whom we normally call the President -- and citing truisms like Taiwan is not a part of the PRC which makes poppa' bear China all hot and bothered, which, consequently, is Taiwan's fault somehow. You know, like if you get to close to a snake, and it bites you.Well, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, and you can't tell Ole' "Leader" Chen to stop poo-pooing on China's feet.
The article itself is not too bad -- not great, but not too bad. I'm mainly just pointing out the maddening, oft-repeated meme that has been highlighted hundreds of times by Taiwan bloggers. Taiwan's democratically elected "leader" is constantly denigrated and crapped upon when he does the things he was elected to do.
While, across the straight, the unelected figurehead of an authoritarian, murderous regime gets to go by the respectful title of President Hu, not the "China Leader."
I would like to go into the article more, because there's a lot of interesting stuff, but I'm just too tired, and I have another article to translate before bed.
2 comments:
Robo, you wrote:
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The article itself is not too bad -- not great, but not too bad.
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I don't have time for an in-depth analysis at the moment, but it is bad, and it's bad in all kinds of ways, including, but not limited to:
* the fact that Peter "Parachuted-in" Enav wrote it
* the sensationalist intro which is designed to make casual readers think "Taiwan is attacking China!"
* the obfuscation of what CKS was actually referring to in 1949 as the "ROC" and what actually happened in 1971 at the UN
* the call to Shelley Rigger to get a predictable quote about Chen Shui-bian "provoking" China -- which, not surprisingly, matches Yang Yi's quote all too closely
* the omission of the word "Chinese" from "opposition Nationalist Party"
... and much more.
AP pisses me off.
Tim Maddog
Of course, Maddog, you have a point, or several of them, rather.
I wasn't familiar with Peter Enav or Shelley Riggers, but when I read the latter's comment, I knew I needed to do a search on her (which I didn't because I was too tired).
I agree with you on why it's bad, but there were some things it got right that most articles don't seem to get. For one, it talks of CKS fleeing to Taiwan, not seperating from China.
The truth is, I think I've just started to set my standards too low when it comes to the international press. "I've seen worse" I thought, so I thought it wasn't too bad, at the time.