US embassy cable - 05TAIPEI1725

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 001725 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR INR/R/MR, EAP/RSP/TC, EAP/PA, EAP/PD - 
ROBERT PALLADINO 
DEPARTMENT PASS AIT/WASHINGTON 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OPRC, KMDR, KPAO, TW, Cross Strait Politics 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: CROSS-STRAIT MEDIA EXCHANGES, 
JAPANESE HISTORY TEXTBOOK CONTROVERSY 
 
1. Summary: Most major Taipei dailies started covering 
April 11 a Mainland Affairs Council's (MAC) 
announcement made the previous day that Taiwan would 
temporary ban China's Xinhua News Agency and the 
People's Daily from sending journalists to Taiwan.  The 
pro-unification "United Daily News" was the only one 
that reported the news Sunday (4/10), and it did so on 
its second page.  Reactions of the major Chinese- 
language newspapers in Taiwan to the MAC's announcement 
can be generally divided into two distinct groups.  The 
pro-independence newspapers support the MAC's move by 
criticizing the distorted reports issued by the Chinese 
media outlets since they were permitted to send 
reporters to Taiwan in 2001; the pro-unification and 
centrist newspapers are against the move and call it a 
cheap policy ploy and a step moving backwards in terms 
of cross-Strait media exchanges. 
 
2. Taipei dailies did not spend many pages covering the 
anti-Japanese protests in mainland China and South 
Korea against Japan's history textbooks that justify 
Japan's aggression during World War II.  The limited- 
circulation, pro-unification, English-language "China 
Post" was the only newspaper to comment on the issue, 
and it said Japan's repeated refusal to face its 
wartime history and to atone for its past may cost it 
dearly.  End summary. 
 
1. Cross-Strait Media Exchanges 
 
A) "[Chinese Media Outlets'] Reports Distort the Truth 
and Harm Taiwan.  How Can [Taiwan] Not Ban [Chinese 
Journalists]?" 
 
Journalist Wang Ping-yu noted in the pro-independence 
"Liberty Times" [circulation: 800,000] (4/11): 
 
". If the Chinese people's understanding of Taiwan is 
based on the wrong information and reports provided by 
Chinese media outlets such as the Xinhua News Agency, 
the constant quotes of Taiwan's scholars, groups or 
even Taiwan's legislators or political figures are, 
without doubt, the best accomplices assisting in 
strengthening these misreporting.  After all, is there 
any other tool in the world that can be more convincing 
than [the strategy] of `attacking someone by exploiting 
his weakness? .' 
 
"The media exchanges across the Taiwan Strait have been 
bumping [along the] wrong direction.  How can [Taiwan] 
not put the brakes [on such exchanges], or should it 
simply ignore the harm [the Chinese media outlets] have 
done to Taiwan? ." 
 
B) "Punishing the Media Outlets Is a Cheap Policy Ploy" 
 
Journalist Wang Ming-yi commented in a news analysis of 
the centrist, pro-status quo "China Times" 
[circulation: 600,000] (4/11): 
 
". At [China's] passage of the Anti-Secession Law, the 
[Taiwan] government immediately announced that it 
wanted to `conduct an overall review' of [cross-Strait] 
exchanges policies.  But the government merely talked 
about it without really taking any actual action 
because the established economic and trade exchanges 
across the Taiwan Strait are already an irreversible 
trend.  But to express its `rage,' the DPP government 
needs to take a political posture, and as a result, the 
`unilateral' authority to censure and rectify coverage 
by [Chinese] journalists has become the cheapest policy 
means that the DPP government can adopt. 
 
"To open media exchanges [across the Taiwan Strait] was 
originally a policy of the DPP government to 
demonstrate its confidence as a ruling party and to 
highlight that Taiwan is a democratic and diversified 
society.  But in an attempt to counteract the Anti- 
Secession Law, the government has decided to ban two of 
China's biggest state-run media outlets from sending 
journalists to Taiwan even at the risk of violating the 
freedom of press.  Such a move demonstrates that the 
government's counteraction lacks comprehensive advanced 
planning in advance. ." 
 
C) "The Counteraction against Mainland China's Media 
Outlets Is a Step Backwards" 
 
Journalist Wang Yu-yen noted in the conservative, pro- 
unification "United Daily News" [circulation: 600,000] 
(4/10): 
 
". [MAC's] indefinite ban on allowing China's Xinhua 
News Agency and the People's Daily to send journalists 
to Taiwan is the severest move adopted by the Taiwan 
side in the history of media exchanges across the 
Taiwan Strait.  Even during the cross-Strait tensions 
in 1996, the advocacy of the `special nation-to-nation 
relationship' doctrine in 1998, [and] President Chen 
Shui-bian's talk about `one country on each side of the 
Taiwan Strait,' Beijing has never banned Taiwan's media 
outlets from covering news on the mainland.  Taiwan 
itself enjoys freedom of the press, but MAC's move to 
[block] mainland Chinese media outlets is in fact a 
step backwards and it will become a joke in the 
international community. 
"The 10-point consensus reached between [KMT Vice 
Chairman] P.K. Chiang and Beijing's Taiwan Affairs 
Office mentions that through negotiations between 
appropriate private channels, Beijing is willing to 
push for long-term exchanges of journalists from either 
side of the Taiwan Strait.  Now Taiwan has temporarily 
banned some of the Chinese media outlets from sending 
journalists to Taiwan.  Does the move also hint that 
Taiwan media outlets must not send journalists to 
station on the mainland for a long time without first 
obtaining approval from the government or they will be 
punished, too?  If this is the case, [our] government's 
mainland policy is merely aimed at containment.  If the 
government does not know how to improve [cross-Strait 
relations] or change its attitude from being passive to 
pro-active, there is no need to talk about using 
Taiwan's democracy to influence mainland China!" 
 
2. Japanese History Textbook Controversy 
 
"Threshold for Japan's U.S. Bid Raised by Beijing" 
 
The conservative, pro-unification, English-language 
"China Post" [circulation: 30,000] editorialized (4/9): 
 
". Japan's repeated refusal to face its war-time 
history and to atone for its past may cost it dearly 
this time.  At risk is the country's dream of becoming 
a permanent member of the United Nations Security 
Council.  That dream could come true as early as the 
coming September if not for the text book flap that has 
infuriated millions of Chinese and Koreans. . 
 
"But [U.N. Secretary-General Kofi] Annan is correct to 
argue that the Council needs reform as the world today 
is vastly different from what it was 60 years ago.  And 
Japan is a qualified candidate in terms of its economic 
clout and the role it plays in aiding the Third World. 
But these factors are hardly enough.  A country that 
justifies aggression and remains callous to the 
suffering it inflicted on its neighbors does not 
deserve the exalted membership of the Council, which 
aims to safeguard the preserve peace." 
 
PAAL