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Editorial: President Chen, time to fight back

In a gathering with Democratic Progressive Party supporters in Changhua County last Saturday, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) spoke of recent allegations by pan-blue legislators about his wife Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) and his senior aides. The president said that the various accusations and associated media-fest were part of a pan-blue smear campaign aimed at tarnishing his personal image as well as that of the DPP administration.

Chen's concerns are legitimate. But one question remains: What is the DPP administration doing in response to the pan-blue campaign? Recent events suggest that the government is slowly learning how to deal with it, but the battle is ruthless and ongoing.

Take, for example, Premier Su Tseng-chang's (蘇貞昌) comments on the agreement reached between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at the cross-strait "economic forum" two weeks ago. Su said he would support the package of 15 initiatives announced by Chinese officials at the forum so long as they are beneficial to the Taiwanese people and do not compromise Taiwan's sovereignty.

The pro-China media seized upon Su's statement. Noting that the president had branded the KMT-CCP agreement "sugar-coated poison," several outlets said Su was not on the same page as his boss regarding cross-strait policy. In all the vitriolic excitement, one newspaper even borrowed the term "Russian Revisionism" — "Su Hsiu" (蘇修) in Chinese, also meaning "Su revises" -- to argue its case that "Su changed the president's remarks."

The Presidential Office was quick to rebut the existence of Su xiu and a rift between Su and Chen. Soon after on Tuesday, Su also made it clear that Chen was setting the tone on the nation's major policies. Swiftly and efficiently, the steam was taken out of the pro-China media's latest fixation.

The Presidential Office's quick response prevented this latest supposition from becoming accepted as fact. The repeated dissemination of scuttlebutt as fact is a device that has worked well for the pan-blues -- take the "1992 consensus," which for the past six years has been treated as an indisputable political reality by pan-blue politicians.

It all came to naught a couple of months ago, however, when KMT Legislator Su Chi (蘇起) finally came clean and admitted that he fabricated the term.

And so it goes on. Reporting on Chen's gathering with the party faithful on Saturday, a pro-China newspaper said on Monday that Chen had described the smearing of his family and the DPP administration as a "pan-blue intelligence war."

However, the Presidential Office's response on Monday afternoon said that Chen had never used the term "pan-blue intelligence war." The journalist who filed the report later admitted that he had made it up.

These and other examples well illustrate the extent to which Taiwan's pro-China media are willing to go to undermine the DPP administration and to score points for the pan-blue forces. The gloves are off.

Sometimes members of the DPP administration do or say things that give Chen's political opponents easy ammunition to attack Chen. It's time to get with the program and stay on message. Any hint of internal debate is a gift to the pro-China media and their pan-blue friends.

It is no secret that China wishes Chen's pro-localization regime to come to an end in 2008. The DPP administration can and must safeguard more room to maneuver -- it must strike back when it can, and let the truth be told.
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