聯合晚報的報導只擷取TIME前半段對於台灣報導相關事情的陳述，但是對於肯定與為陳水扁抱屈以及呼籲應該給予阿扁機會的結論完全不談。

TIME其中文章更強調陳水扁的當選化解了省籍衝突，其中也談到國會多數黨的國民黨將黨的利益凌駕在國家利益之上等等，但是聯合晚報對於這些重點完全不提。

聯合晚報惡意斷章取義，意圖製造貶扁的新聞，居心叵測，實在令人不齒。

以下為原文及翻譯和網友轉載的聯晚報導

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TIME 原文:

TIME (OCTOBER 30, 2000 VOL. 156 NO. 17 )

Give This Guy a Break!
Critics have been too hasty in declaring Chen Shui-bian's tenure a
failure

By SIN-MING SHAW

Chinese premier Zhu Rongji once called Chen Shui-bian's presidency a
"joke." Outside China, conventional wisdom increasingly seems to agree.
Since Chen's election in March,
Taiwan's stock market has plunged by more than 30%, a slide that pundits
say represents a vote of "no confidence" in the President's abilities.
Chen's approval rating, meanwhile, has fallen to less than 40%, from a
high of 77%. His Premier, Tang Fei, resigned after less than half a year
in office.

Chen is taking heat for everything. The economy is in the
doldrums. A banking crisis is looming as problem loans pile up.
The delicate relationship with Beijing has stalled, and no one
can control the Vice President, Annette Lu, who pokes China in
the eye at every opportunity. (In an official report, Beijing
recently called the Taiwan situation "grim.") All of this adds up
to a sense that Chen has squandered the promise of his election,
an opinion shared, apparently, by his close adviser, Lee
Yuan-tseh. A Nobel laureate, Lee said recently that the
President "talked too much without giving the people a clear
direction where he was going."

So is Chen toast? Is his presidency a disaster? Not at all. The
slump in Taiwan stocks has more to do with global worries over
the declining earnings of semiconductor companies than with
Chen. Taiwan's stock-market index is packed with technology
stocks; so is NASDAQ in the U.S., which has also dramatically
declined since March. The market is simply saying that if
Silicon Valley isn't doing well, neither should Taiwan's tech
stocks.

On the political front, it's true that Chen's minority Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) has been slow to get up to speed. One
reason for that is the Kuomintang (KMT), the DPP's rival, which
dominates the legislature and has tended to put partisan interests
above those of the nation. But the DPP's emergence as Taiwan's
ruling party has already helped heal the most divisive social and
political wound on the island: the rift between
Fujian-dialect-speaking locals and the Mandarin-speaking
mainlanders who have dominated local politics for a
half-century. The topic of schism is no longer in prominent in
public discourse.

As for the economy, Taiwan does indeed face serious problems.
But Chen hasn't been idle. In a departure from past KMT
policies, Chen is promoting bank mergers to help shore up the
weakest institutions. And he says he will lift many restrictions
on foreign banks wishing to compete in Taiwan. Although
capital is still over-regulated, the question is no longer whether
financial reforms will come, but when and to what degree.

Chen is waffling on some economic issues. But his hesitance is
often understandable. Taiwan, like many other places, is
grappling with a dual economy: one part is old, inward-looking
and inefficient; the other is new, know-ledge-intensive and
globally competitive. By letting the New Taiwan dollar find its
own, lower level and by lifting regulations governing capital
lows to China, Chen could encourage Old Economy
companies to revive themselves by relocating to the mainland.
But China isn't making it easy. Beijing recently said it would
take stock of the political views of potential investors from
Taiwan, particularly their level of support for Chen's DPP. The
threat was later quietly dropped, but a sense of uncertainty had
been sown. The reality is that both sides need each other. It is
China, not Taiwan, that could face devastating unemployment
after joining the World Trade Organization.

Is Chen handling the cross-Strait relationship well? Beijing
clearly does not think so. But by now, even the mainland's most
stubborn hawks must know that war against Taiwan is a
non-starter: it's impossible to define victory in any way that
makes sense.

Chen said recently he was proud to be a Chinese, a signal to
Beijing that he is willing to be conciliatory. The communists,
however, apparently want him to genuflect more
unambiguously. China should know that putting a timetable on
reunification is unwise as long as Taiwan's people are not ready
for it. Chen knows his constituency better than Beijing and is
calculating that he needs to proceed slowly. Chen can do better
at his job, yes, but during his first six months in office he has
not done badly. In the U.S., Bill Clinton didn't exactly light up
the scoreboard in his first two years, but his performance
improved considerably. Give Chen a chance. The conventional
view about him is simply unfair.

Sin-ming Shaw is a visiting scholar at the Fairbank
Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University

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感謝網友cpchuu協助翻譯，以及網友kika協助訂正。

TIME 原文中文翻譯:

中國總理朱鎔基曾稱陳水扁當選總統為兒戲。在中國境外，傳統的觀點似乎逐漸認同這句話。因為自從陳在三月選上後，股市跌了30%，自認權威的人說這樣的（股市）跌幅代表了人民對陳水扁的能力投下不信任票。對陳總統的信任度調查也從77%掉到40%，他的行政院長唐飛在任職不到半年就辭職了。

陳的所做所為已逐漸引遭人垢病，經濟低靡不振，有問題的貸款愈來愈多使銀行可能逐漸產生極大的問題。

和北京的微妙關係變得進退維谷，而無時無刻不在刺痛中國的副總統呂秀蓮也沒人能駕馭得了。北京最近一份正式的報告稱台灣的現況為"令人十分不悅的"，這一切得到的結論是陳浪費了他和諾貝爾獎得主李遠哲共同給的選舉承諾。李遠哲最近說總統話講得太多，卻沒有給人民一個清楚的方向他要往哪裡走。

陳真的是一個任意擺布的人嗎？他當總統真的是個大災難嗎？一點也不！台灣股市的下跌與全球半導體公司收入減少的關係遠大於和陳的關係。台灣股市的指標和科技股很有關係，美國的NASDAQ指數也一樣，NASDAQ也一樣跌得驚人。股市的表現只是說明了若矽谷表現並不理想，台灣的股市也不會好到哪去。

就政治來說，陳所代表的少數黨民主進步黨上軌上得很慢，其中一個原因是因為民進黨的競爭者國民黨不但在立法院佔多數，且把黨的利益擺在國家利益之上。

民主進步黨脫穎而出成為執政黨已幫忙治癒了這島上最主要社會的不合和政治的傷口，意即閩南語為母語的本省人和以官方中文為母語的外省人之間的對立。外省人擁有政治主導權長達半世紀，如今(省籍)分化的問題已不再是政治議題的重心。

在經濟上來說，台灣的確驗臨很嚴重的問題。但陳也沒有閒著，與國民黨過去的政策不同，陳答應合併的銀行會協助最弱的機構。他並說他將對想和台灣競爭的外國銀行放寬限制。雖說資金依然被過度控制，但經濟的問題已不是會不會改善，而是何時改善和改善到何種程度。

陳總是閒談一些經濟議題，但他的猶豫不決是可以瞭解的，因為台灣像許多其他地方一樣有兩種經濟在互相競爭，一種是古老的封閉而沒效率的（傳統產業），另一種是新的，有知識性的，有全球競爭力的（高科技產業）。透過讓新台幣找到他該有的低價位和提升對流入中國的資金的控制，陳鼓勵傳統產業藉著轉移到大陸投資而尋回生機。

但中國不會這麼善罷干休，北京近來表示它江對台灣到中國的投資者的政治立場作考量尤其是對陳的民進黨支持的程度，這威脅很快就停止了，但一種不確定感因此散播開來。事情的真相是(中國和台灣)兩邊都需要彼此，加入世界貿易組織(WTO)

，加入後可能面臨高失業率的是中國，而不是台灣。

陳兩岸關係處理得好嗎？很明顯的北京覺得並不好。但現在，即使中國大陸最頑固的鷹派都必需知道對台灣發動戰爭是沒有成功希望的。因為這不論從什麼方面來講都不能定義為勝利。

陳最近說他以身為華人為榮，這是一種向北京表示善意的訊息，但共產黨顯然要他更不模棱兩可地屈膝跪拜。中國應該要知道，在台灣人民還沒準備好接受統一前，就對統一設定時間表是很不智的。陳對他的擁護者瞭解的比北京還多，所以他盤算事情需要慢慢進展。陳當然可以做的更好，但他在他任期最初的六個月表現的也並不差。

科林頓在當美國總統的前兩年表現並不出色，但他的進步是有目共睹的。給陳一個機會吧！以傳統的評價來看陳是不公平的！

作者舒新明(音譯)是哈佛大學Fairbank中心東亞研究的訪問學者

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轉載23日聯合晚報

繼318、520之後，陳水扁總統最近再度成為國際媒體話題人物。

只不過半年前，國際媒體曾爭相以醒目版面報導台灣大選的歷史性結果，例如「台灣之子打敗百年老店」、「2100萬人跨入民主新世紀」……。曾幾何時，阿扁在國際輿論上的評價亦如近幾月來的台股走勢般，開高走低。

包括時代雜誌及遠東經濟評論都對台灣經濟問題、核四、兩岸政策提出疑慮，甚至對陳水扁個人施政風格也提出質疑。

時代雜誌報導，台灣過去也曾面臨政治危機，但這回碰上的挑戰卻截然不同。1949年以來台灣首次政權交替，許多選民寄望陳水扁能帶來新局面，但幾個月過後，扁政權的不確定性、許多開出卻無法兌現的競選支票，及波動不安的金融市場，卻讓民眾及投資人大失所望。

時代雜誌及遠東經濟評論均認為，唐飛下台後台灣政黨合作必然更加困難，要取得中共信任也更為不易。遠東經濟評論說，國會衝突可能每下愈況，直到明年底立委選舉前，情勢都難以好轉此外，新政府除各吹各調、口徑不一外，阿扁八面玲瓏的個人風格也讓整體施政充滿不確定性，予人口惠而實不至之感。

核四續建與否，是國際對台施政信心另一重大指標。時代雜誌引 述知名投資機構摩根添惠報告，阿扁就任以來外資已出走百億美元；未來若核四不建，新政府又提不出具體替代方案、無法保證 2005年後亦不缺電，國際投資人將對扁政府再投不信任票。

經濟問題，是扁政府面臨的另一挑戰。時代雜誌提到，台灣高科 技產業已受國際市場衝擊，傳統產業景氣更不見好轉，高雄地區新成屋空屋率高達90%，產業面危機連帶影響銀行資產品質，金融 機構不良資產是未來經濟發展最大隱憂。

遠東經濟評論更直言，除非阿扁能展現更成熟的領導風範、拋棄 短線政治思考模式，否則台灣經濟優勢很可能在政壇危機中消磨殆盡；原先令人振奮的民主化範例，反成國際笑柄。

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〈進入討論區〉