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中國致函聯合國祕書長安南,譴責台灣威脅兩岸和平穩定
路透社
2004-8-16 14:20

[路透北京電]中國寫了一封罕見的信給聯合國祕書長安南(KofiAnnan)，譴責台灣最近一次嘗試加入聯合國的舉措，並力促安南將這封信作為正式文件讓聯合國成員傳閱。

台灣本月第12度向聯合國叩關，敦促這個世界組織結束其「政治隔離狀態」，但這項提議再度激怒北京。

中國駐聯合國大使張義山在信中對安南表示，「台灣當局將兩岸關係推向危險邊緣，並嚴重威脅海峽兩岸與亞太地區的和平穩定。」

台灣今年嘗試加入聯合國的議案是由其15個盟友所提出，這些友邦大多為拉丁美洲、非洲與太平洋的小國。聯合國大會一委員會將在9月15日審議台灣的申請。

張義山譴責台灣友邦的作法「嚴重干涉中國內政」，並浪費聯合國資源。(完)

--編譯施佩君;審校楊幼蘭
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China says Taiwan is a threat to peace
Mon 16 August, 2004 05:45

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has written a rare letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, condemning Taiwans most recent bid to join the world body and urging him to circulate it as a formal document among United Nations members.

Taiwan launched its 12th annual bid to join the United Nations this month, urging an end to its political apartheid in a proposal that has yet again angered Beijing, which has claimed sovereignty over the island since their split in 1949.

The Taiwan authorities...are pushing cross-Strait ties to the brink of danger and seriously threatening peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the Asia-Pacific region, Zhang Yishan, Chinas envoy to the United Nations, told Annan in the letter.

Zhang urged Annan to circulate his letter as a formal document among U.N. members, according to the letter, which available on Monday on the Chinese Foreign Ministrys Web site.

Tension has been simmering since the re-election of Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian in March. China is convinced he will push for formal independence during his second four-year term and Chinas 2.5-million-strong Peoples Liberation Army is readying for a possible showdown.

Beijing, which considers Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be returned to the fold, by force if necessary, sits on the five-member U.N. Security Council with veto power and has many more diplomatic allies than Taiwans paltry 26.

Taipei insists it is a sovereign state.

Taiwans bid this year to join the United Nations was brought by 15 of its allies, mostly small and poorer states in Latin America, Africa and the Pacific. A General Assembly committee is scheduled to review Taiwans application bid on September 15.

Zhang condemned Taiwans allies for grossly interfering in Chinas internal affair and wasting U.N. resources.

As a part of China, Taiwan is fundamentally not qualified to participate in the United Nations and its organisations under any name or pretext, Zhang said.

Some security analysts see the Taiwan Strait as the most dangerous flashpoint in Asia.

Zhang said China was committed to peaceful unification with Taiwan but would never tolerate the island formally declaring itself independent.

The question of U.N. membership has raged since 1949, when Chiang Kai-sheks Nationalist government lost a civil war to the communists on mainland China and fled to Taiwan, taking with him the Republic of China government.

Chiang held on to Chinas U.N. seat until 1971, when the General Assembly expelled Taipei and gave the seat to Beijing.

By Mac William Bishop

Wednesday, Dec 08, 2004,Page 9

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On an otherwise beautiful day not long ago, I stood in a parking lot in Kinmen watching with despair as I was forced to make a decision: side with the BBC and my integrity, or with the Government Information Office (GIO) and my career.

The immediate cause of my Faustian choice was a set of defunct speakers that had once been used to broadcast propaganda to China.

We want to film the speakers. You said we could, the BBC producer said.

Oh. Okay. Anyway, lets go look at a knife factory, a government official replied.

The debate quickly degenerated into a shouting match, and to be frank, I was loath to intervene. I had, after all, come to Kinmen specifically to lend what small assistance I could to the BBC film crew.

But they were leaving the next day. I live in Taipei, and must work with government officials regularly. It wasnt in my best interest to damage the relationships I had built up in the course of my stay over 30 seconds of footage in a TV documentary.

Soon, both parties boarded separate vans, and I stood in the middle as each side watched to see who I would choose.

`There has to be a better way for Taiwan to get its voice heard than through the incredibly restrictive processes that the GIO employs.

In the end, I got in the van with the BBC team, knowing that it would take an excruciating night of KTV and drinking gaoliang to mollify the government folk.

The point of this tale is that none of this is particularly surprising to anyone who works with the creaking, outdated monstrosity that is Taiwans official propaganda ministry: the GIO.

Nothing Personal

None of my complaints are personal: all of the GIO officials with whom I have worked are good people who sincerely do their best in a difficult job. And the BBC team I was working with has experience filming under much more trying conditions than they encountered in Taiwan. The breakdown that occurred was more a question of divergent goals than individual malice.

It is natural for governments to go to great lengths to shape their image in the international media. And any competent media outlet does its best to see behind this veil of government spin.

But there has to be a better way for Taiwan to get its voice heard than through the incredibly restrictive processes that the GIO employs.

Part of the problem is that, although martial law ended in 1987, most Taiwanese politicians and media outlets view news as a partisan affair that must be controlled by the establishment. There is little tradition of what Thomas Carlyle referred to as the Fourth Estate -- media with an independent, objective and supervisory role.

This is why the bulk of domestic news in Taiwan -- in any language -- is driven by press conferences, while the remainder is devoted to sensational fluff such as bus wrecks and domestic arguments. Journalists are encouraged to play the game, join the club and toe the line -- or be left in the cold with no access.

This occurs everywhere. But in Taiwan it is especially pronounced and is reflected in the quality and depth of local news coverage.

However, the problem is much worse than this. The pan-green and the pan-blue camps make little distinction between local and international media. Foreign journalists are viewed as tools to be manipulated for political advantage. The Ministry of Justice even has special agents tasked with determining the political alignment of these journalists.

This provincial view of the international medias role is detrimental to the nations interests.

Since Taiwans future as a de facto independent state relies on an expectation of international assistance if China gets rowdy, it is essential that people outside the country have as nuanced and accurate a view as possible of what is happening here.

This is not accomplished by treating journalists as though they were a tour group, to be shown the sights by an affable guide who will keep them away from anything too controversial.

A Compelling Story

Certainly Taiwan has everything to gain by putting its message out for everyone to see. Most international journalists are sympathetic to Taiwans plight -- it is a compelling story, after all: a small, relatively prosperous democratic state that has overcome a bloody and totalitarian past, whose existence is threatened by an up-and-coming authoritarian giant.

Taiwan should not be afraid of showing the world what it is and how far it has come.

So why doesnt it try harder to tell its story? Why do major news wires such as Reuters run stories with headlines that look as though they were written by the Political Warfare Bureau of the Peoples Liberation Army? For example, the headline of a story Reuters ran on Aug. 4 reads, Can Taiwan Chens provocation of China be stopped?

Presenting such an obvious bias in a news story is the result of shoddy, sensationalistic journalism, as well as carelessness on behalf of the editor. But some of the blame for such material must also be placed on the governments -- the GIOs -- lack of sophistication when it comes to promoting and explaining Taiwans policies. That this kind of bias -- or more charitably, naivete -- proceeds unchallenged indicates a complete misunderstanding of regional events by the people at Reuters.

The Reuters article is hardly an isolated case of Taiwans policies being misrepresented. Last month, on Nov. 22, Agence France-Presse (AFP) ran a story with the following lead:

In a move likely to anger China, Taiwans president has vowed to push through a new constitution describing the island as an independent state and threatened to hold a referendum on Taiwans future.

But President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) did no such thing. Furthermore, he has repeatedly vowed not to do these things. What Chen said was that if China pushes Taiwan too far, he would consider holding a referendum on an issue such as `one country, two systems.

This is a far cry from holding a referendum on independence. And Chen has promised time and time again not to address issues of sovereignty in a new constitution.

Reportedly, the fault in this case was not with the AFP journalist in Taipei but an overzealous editor in Hong Kong. That the editor did not realize how inflammatory his or her misrepresentation of Chens comments was is disheartening.

Finally, take the example of CNN when it was covering the presidential election. On election night, the network spent more time showing man on the street interviews with pedestrians in Beijing talking about Taiwan than it showed of Mike Chinoy, standing in front of the Grand Hotel, explaining that this was Taiwans third democratic election of a head of state.

Accepting Reality

Of course, when it comes to international news about Taiwan, what everyone really cares about is cross-strait relations. People care about Chinas rise far more than they do about Taiwans democratization. That is the reality, and if the GIO will not adapt to that reality, Taiwan is in trouble.

Media outlets, not to mention foreign governments, must understand that Taiwan is not provoking anybody. But they clearly dont, so one can only ask: What use is the GIO at all?

There is no easy solution to Taiwans image problem.

But a good start would be to abolish the GIO, as Chen has repeatedly promised to do in the past, should the pan-greens win a legislative majority.

The government might even consider hiring two or three public relations firms to do something more substantial than put up posters in Brooklyn bus stops explaining that Taiwan wants to join the UN.

The Chen administration must do better than this, or the message that the world gets is that Taiwan is a wacky little place where legislators assault each other with fried chicken legs, where semiconductors are made and which Beijing views as a renegade province.

It must do better, or people will continue to believe Beijings line that Taiwan is on a wild, drunken quest to provoke a war.

It may seem absurd that a desire for self-determination and a peaceful resolution of cross-strait differences can be cast as villainous, but clearly it can.

Just ask Reuters.

TAIWAN: US scholars cite need to fight foreign medias spin
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=18507
Visiting academics say that it is in Taiwans interests to challenge the interpretations of weekends legislative polls

Taipei Times
Monday, December 13, 2004

By Huang Tai-lin

Stating that many foreign media reports had incorrectly interpreted Saturdays election as a referendum on independence, US academics yesterday said the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government must fight the foreign medias spin on events.

The US scholars made the remark yesterday while visiting with Wu A-ming, Board Chairman of the Liberty Times, a sister newspaper of the Taipei Times.

One thing which I found the western media got wrong, particularly CNN, was that they viewed this election as referendum on independence, said June Dreyer, chair of the Department of Political Science of the University of Miami. But to us, it does not seem that way.

The pan-blue camp, consisting of the pro-unification Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP), retained its legislative majority in Saturdays election, winning a total of 114 seats. The DPP and its small political ally, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), fell short of their goal to gain a majority in the new legislature.

Several foreign media outlets, such as CNN, reported Saturdays electoral result as the people of Taiwan saying no to a new mandate to accelerate President Chen Shui-bians pro-independence policies.

It is very much not in Taiwans interest to allow the foreign spin to prevail. And the foreign spin is -- Chen loses, China won, said Edward Friedman, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin.

Battling spin

I think the most important thing, in terms of Taiwans standing in the world and its relationship to the world, is to fight this battle of `spin.

Friedman said the most frightening thing he found about this the international medias spin on the events was that it is not just CNN, the Asian Wall Street Journal but everyone.

Even an Arab newspaper wrote it the same way, Friedman said, adding that although many foreign press outlets had sent reporters to Taiwan to cover the weekends election, their heads never, somehow, get involved with Taiwans reality.

Friedman attributed it to Chinas power and Chinas ability to define reality.

Another observation the US scholars noted was incorrectly reported in the foreign medias coverage of the election was the mood of the population in the lead-up to the election.

I listen to CNN and I read the western newspapers and I was amazed at how wrong they were, because they were saying in the days before the election, Taiwan was very tense. And we didnt find it tense at all, she said.

Commenting on the electoral result, Dreyer noted some positive elements of the result.

If [US President] George Bush and the American State Department think this is a referendum on independence and it failed ... they will be less nervous and they will not give warnings to Taiwan, will not have [Secretary of State] Colin Powell saying that we are for unification and things like that, Dreyer said.

Breathing space

So this will give Taiwan some breathing space and meanwhile, of course, we all understand that pro-localization continues to take place and the longer it can take place without George Bush or the State Department noticing, the better, she said.

Regarding to issues Chen promoted during the campaign such as rectifying the names of government agencies and state-own enterprises to Taiwan, Dreyer said the administration should do it and do it slowly. It would probably be less upsetting to the American government, she said.

Friedman said the name-change issue was not a new issue.

When Chiang Kai-sheks army came to Taiwan, he felt, after crushing the people, the number one problem was inflation. So they put out money to control it, called what -- the New Taiwan Dollar, Friedman said.

So, in terms of the use of the word Taiwan to establish sovereignty, the truth is it goes back to Chiang Kai-shek.

The process of Taiwanization had been expanding in the 1970s under Chiang, when he allowed more seats for Taiwan in the legislature, and in the 1980s under his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, Friedman said.

Conspiracy

It was an ordinary piece of KMT politics of being on Taiwan, and the name change issue is not a recent conspiracy, it is a piece of the reality of being on Taiwan, he said.

After all, the American office here is the American Institution in Taiwan and the American act is called the Taiwan Relations Act, he said.

Questioned on the US sensitivity over the name-change issue, Friedman attributed it to the rise of Chinese power.

China not wanting to see it happen, and China worrying about Taiwan identification and Taiwan ethnic identification and essentially trying to get the United States to act for China to stop Taiwan ethnic identification, Friedman said.

Friedman thinks the reason the US does this for China relates to the international situation following 911 and the Iraq invasion.

Proliferation

With Chinas rise as an economic power and the feeling that you need China for many many things, not just North Korea, proliferation, and Pakistan, but lots of things, China each time would say to the US `but this costs us [domestically] to do this, and what are you going to do for us? he said.

小時後讀過蛆的故事 大意是 滾來滾去亂成一堆也沒用 台灣的媒體就像蛀蟲一樣滾來滾去亂成一堆

所以要主動出擊呀!!!
看看我們的荷蘭朋友Gerrit van der Wees 是多麼的主動出擊 匡正國際視聽!!!

Newswires dont tell the full story
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=19223
The history of the separation between Taiwan and China is inaccurately presented by the media, says Gerrit van der Wees

Taipei Times
Thursday, January 6, 2005

By Gerrit van der Wees

The international newswires generally present the facts as they happen. They pick out the essential news items, describe them in a brief and easy-to-read text, and send them out into the world.

However, every once in a while there is a text that is repeated so often by the newswires that the general public starts to accept it as a fact, whether it is fiction or not.

There is a sentence that reappears in virtually every single article by AP, AFP or Reuters about Taiwan and China, which seems to be accepted as a fact these days. The sentence generally goes as follows: Taiwan split away from China in 1949 after the Chinese Civil War. Beijing still sees the island as part of its territory, to be reunited by force, if necessary.

This sentence conjures up the image that, in the mid-1940s, Taiwan was somehow part of China, and that it left the fold. In this picture, it makes it sound right and reasonable for China to want it back.

The reality is a bit more complex: In 1895 Taiwan was ceded to Japan in perpetuity, and through 1945 it was a Japanese colony. The history before 1895 was even more complex, but suffice it to say that the Chinese emperors never gave Taiwan a thought, and hardly ever had any administrative control over it until 1887, when the Manchus briefly made it a Chinese province, which it was for a mere eight years.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were battling each other in China, and neither cared much about Taiwan, which was under Japanese control. Records show that the CCP, the predecessors of the present authorities in Beijing, supported Taiwans independence from Japan. Mao Zedong even said so himself, to American author Edgar Snow.

The picture started to change in 1942-1943, during the run-up to the Cairo Conference, when Chiang Kai-shek claimed that Taiwan should be returned to his Nationalist regime headquartered in Nanking. Not to be outdone, the CCP began claiming that it should be returned to them.

After the end of the war and the capitulation of Japan, the commander of the Allied forces, General Douglas MacArthur, authorized a temporary occupation of Taiwan by the KMT.

In the meantime, the civil war in China erupted again, in 1949. Chiang and his government and remaining troops had to flee to Taiwan, and the occupation was not so temporary anymore. The facts show that Taiwan did not split off from China, but was occupied by the losing side of the Chinese Civil War -- an essential difference.

It is also essential to point out that Taiwan was never -- even for one day -- in its history a part of the Peoples Republic of China. It is thus fallacious to say that it somehow should be reunified with China.

It is of course common knowledge that the KMT authorities during their 40 odd years of martial law pursued the unification of China under their rule, but as the decades passed, this became less feasible or realistic. Unfortunately, from an international perspective, their pursuit became synonymous with Taiwan, but the difference is essential.

After the Taiwanese people brought about their momentous transition to democracy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the rest of the world should have adjusted its policy towards the nation. The old and anachronistic one China policy was devised in response to a situation in which two governments, the KMT and the CCP, each claimed to represent China.

This has changed: There is indeed one government -- in Beijing -- representing China. But in Taiwan there is no longer a regime claiming to be the legitimate government of China, but a democratic government, representing the people of Taiwan.

An overwhelming majority of the people in Taiwan, whether pan-blue or pan-green, are proud of their country, want to preserve their hard-won freedom and democracy, and would like their country to be accepted as a full and equal member of the international family of nations.

All this is of course a bit long for the newswires to put in their reports. But they could stick a bit closer to the facts by including something along the following lines: Taiwan was a Japanese colony until 1945, after which it was occupied by Chiangs KMT -- the losing side of the Chinese civil war. It made a momentous transition to democracy in the early 1990s.

Beijing sees the democratic nation of 23 million as a part of Chinese territory. The Taiwanese, on the other hand, want to preserve their hard-won freedom and democracy. This is a more complete and accurate picture of Taiwans complex history.

Date Posted: 1/6/2005

介紹Gerrit van der Wees的報導
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=5516
TAIWAN: Dutchmens role in democracy effort recalled
Gerrit van der Wees and his wife published the `Taiwan Communique for more than 24 years, while Coen Blaauw lobbies for Taiwan in the US