When CNN reporter Anjali Rao interviewed President Chen Shui-bian (
While the 30-minute interview was a success and gave Chen an important forum to make his views known to the international community, the Hong Kong-born and London-educated Rao didn't treat Taiwan with as much respect as she should have.
First, she (or to be fair, her editors in the CNN control booth) printed Chen's name in English incorrectly -- it's "Chen Shui-bian," not "Chen Shiu Bian" -- and then she referred to China as "the mainland" in one of her questions.
In another question, Rao referred to Vice President Annette Lu (
These might seem like small quibbles, and are perhaps not big gaffes.
But would Rao refer to US Vice President Dick Cheney as President George W. Bush's "deputy"?
And there is no country called "The Mainland." China is officially called the People's Republic of China and informally referred to as China.
There is no need for CNN to refer to China as "the mainland." It is nobody's mainland, except for the residents of China's islands.
Lastly, CNN would never write the name of China's president, Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), as "Hu Jin Tao."
If CNN had done its homework, these gaffes would not have occurred.
But they did occur, and did so on a TV show broadcast around the world.
Rao, who is a seasoned journalist and who asked insightful questions during her interview with Chen, simply was not truly prepared for her meeting with Chen and it seems that her editors did not prepare her in advance, either.
According to a CNN transcript of the program posted on the Internet, this is how Rao began her program with Chen as guest: "Hello I'm Anjali Rao in Taipei. My guest this week is Taiwan's President Chen Shui Bian. This is Talk Asia! Chen Shui Bian is a man in a tough spot. While determined to secure Taiwan's independence from mainland China, he knows what it could mean for the island he's led for seven years."
Later in the interview, Rao says to Chen: "President, recent reports from the Pentagon say China has 900 missiles pointed at this island; do you think that China will attack Taiwan?"
Would Rao refer on air to Japan or Britain or Australia as an "island"?
I have one final question about the CNN interview with Chen.
Was the interview broadcast within China, or was the show blocked from airing on CNN International, which normally can be seen on TV screens in Beijing and Shanghai?
CNN has some serious soul-searching that it needs to do in its newsroom when it reports on current events in Taiwan.
Dan Bloom is freelance writer in Taiwan.
A Chinese diplomat’s violent threat against Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi following her remarks on defending Taiwan marks a dangerous escalation in East Asian tensions, revealing Beijing’s growing intolerance for dissent and the fragility of regional diplomacy. Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday posted a chilling message on X: “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off,” in reference to Takaichi’s remark to Japanese lawmakers that an attack on Taiwan could threaten Japan’s survival. The post, which was later deleted, was not an isolated outburst. Xue has also amplified other incendiary messages, including one suggesting
Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday last week shared a news article on social media about Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan, adding that “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off.” The previous day in the Japanese House of Representatives, Takaichi said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute “a situation threatening Japan’s survival,” a reference to a legal legal term introduced in 2015 that allows the prime minister to deploy the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The violent nature of Xue’s comments is notable in that it came from a diplomat,
Before 1945, the most widely spoken language in Taiwan was Tai-gi (also known as Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hoklo). However, due to almost a century of language repression policies, many Taiwanese believe that Tai-gi is at risk of disappearing. To understand this crisis, I interviewed academics and activists about Taiwan’s history of language repression, the major challenges of revitalizing Tai-gi and their policy recommendations. Although Taiwanese were pressured to speak Japanese when Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, most managed to keep their heritage languages alive in their homes. However, starting in 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enacted martial law
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
RSS