Will it always be so?
Thomas Friedman’s piece “Taiwan Exemplifies Resourcefulness” (March 13, page 8) at first sight seems to have been written to please Taiwan. Nonetheless it leaves the reader feeling that the article is vacuous and plays to the gallery, as does much of Friedman’s work.
It is not that his feel-good proclamation that countries should “mine their people” more than their resources is necessarily wrong. Nor is it ust that the majority of the article is a summation of a report by Andreas Schleicher explaining the correlation of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exam and total earnings from natural resources as a percentage of a country’s GDP that offers “proof” to Friedman’s “gut instinct” on Taiwan.
It may not even be that the article may have been edited for publication by the Taipei Times — did not the original piece refer to Taiwan, Ilha Formosa, as a “rock” and not an island in a typhoon-laden sea?
What is more surprising is that Taiwan won Friedman’s heart as his “favorite country other than his own.” Why did not Singapore, Finland, Hong Kong, South Korea or Japan, which also have high PISA scores, win his favor? Could it be that Taiwan’s current government provided Friedman with an all-expenses paid trip to Taiwan to sing its praises? That seems to have been the only time or perhaps one of the very few times Friedman has visited his “favorite country” — but there is more.
One cannot of course be anything but pleased that Friedman more appropriately refers to Taiwan by its name and not the “Republic of China.”
In addition, one cannot but be pleased that he calls it a country, which flies in the face of many other governments and pundits who see Taiwan as part of China.
However, always there at the back of one’s mind is an awareness of Friedman’s proclivity to play both ends against the middle in his writings.
Would he sing the same song about Taiwan being his favorite country if he were invited to speak in China? My gut instinct is that Friedman would sing a totally different tune there and try to find a clever way to disguise it. I hope not, but I am willing to wait for time to reveal the truth.
Jerome Keating
Taipei
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