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Pro-Beijing media is pro-blue

Like its fickle weather, Beijing varies in its judgment on and response to Taiwan's recent presidential election. Before the election, Chinese media acted like the pan-blue camp's cheerleaders. Yet, upon the declaration of the election result, China's Taiwan Affairs Office warned that it would not stand idly by if the violence in Taiwan got out of control.

When countries such as the US and Japan congratulated President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on his re-election following the proclamation of the Central Election Commission of his victory, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs protested, stressing to the US that Taiwan is part of China and Washington should stay away from its domestic politics.

Two programs in China that routinely report on Taiwan's political development are Across the Taiwan Strait on the Chinese Cultural Television (CCTV) and Taipei on Air on Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV and both gave a lot of air time to the election.

Across the Taiwan Strait is similar in format to Taiwan's political talk shows. Heated discussion among guests is rare. They all share the same enemies -- from former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) to Chen. They also hoped for a pan-blue victory -- in the belief that if that were to happen, China and Taiwan would get along better and direct links would be more likely to materialize. Experts and academics invited to the show even offered advice to the pan-blue camp as if they were its campaign chiefs in Beijing.

Phoenix TV is an important channel through which Chinese intellectuals can gain an understanding of Taiwan. Despite its location in Hong Kong, the station seldom touches upon matters in the territory; it tends to focus on the political situation in China and Taiwan.

Although its ideology shares similarities with Beijing's, it sometimes deviates and then suffers from being jammed. It is by no means an open-minded media corporation. Intellectuals like it simply because it provides ample information and the way it presents views on Taiwan is somewhat different from Beijing's official version. Many of its staff are from Taiwan, including anchor Angela Chou (周瑛琦) and commentator Juan Tsi-shan (阮次山).

Phoenix TV has probably offered the most coverage and commentary on the election. Early on, Juan predicted the pan-blue camp would win. His reason was simple -- the pan-greens have never won an election when the pan-blues were united. He obviously overlooked Lee's influence and a rising Taiwanese awareness, which is rewriting the map of national identity.

When the ballot-counting was almost complete on March 20, a Chinese commentator, unhappy to see the pan-blue ticket lagging behind, described the election as a battle between intellectuals of the modern north and localization activists of the underdeveloped south. He contended that Chen, with support from the south, would not be able to link Taiwan with the international community.

This ridiculous and seriously biased point was, however, echoed by a Taiwanese journalist, a pan-blue supporter. Seated with commentators of the "same side," she dull-wittedly offered two more peculiar perspectives. She said that with a higher living standard, pan-blues, unlike the pan-greens, who only focus on localization, have more experience in travelling abroad and interacting with Chinese. She thus believed that they are more likely to support cross-strait talks. The other peculiar reasoning she put forward was that since all her friends were pan-blue supporters, the only explanation for Chen's re-election was vote rigging.

Other than these absurd comments, the station ingeniously downgraded the Presidential Office to "Chen Shui-bian's office" during the March 27 rally.

Among for the print media, Cankaoxiaoxi is worth monitoring, even though it mainly translates wire stories. When China was closed to the outside world, only its leadership had access to the paper. The paper thus became a window to the world for the Chinese leadership; yet, it also followed their views on international affairs. During the election, Cankaoxiaoxi appeared to be a co-effort of the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party. It simply reprinted the stories in the KMT's Central Daily News, from white-collar fugitive Chen Yu-hao's (陳由豪) accusation that Chen had taken bribes to doubts over the pan-green camp's vote rigging.

A majority of the Chinese media, in fact, cheered for the pan-blue camp. The official Xinhua news agency's subsidiary, Globe magazine, even published a special edition with the picture of KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) on its cover before the election.

It is noteworthy that the pessimistic views about Taiwan in big newspapers like the Nanfang Daily are actually submitted under pseudonyms by people working in the Taiwanese media. Is that what the pan-blue camp calls cross-strait exchange?

China's media is likely to unleash even fiercer propaganda attacks on Chen and Taiwan. This will not surprise the Taiwanese. What bewilders and surprises them is the participation of other Taiwanese in these operations.

Hsu Tung-ming is a freelance writer based in Beijing.

Translated by Jennie Shih
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