Chu’s cross-strait newspeak
The dustup over an Associated Press (AP) report on remarks by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) is a good illustration of how the KMT’s policies on cross-strait relations are confused and probably unsustainable (“Chu aims to clarify ‘one China’ remark,” May 6, page 1).
In its original report from Beijing, AP stated the obvious, at least to the live audience of assembled senior officials in China’s Great Hall of the People. According to observers, Chu was spirited and at ease as he conveyed his hopes for ever-deeper cooperation on a path toward unification, the only logical outcome of his “one China” rhetoric for his host, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
Yet the KMT’s new leader protests that he did not exactly say what was the logical implication of his words, perhaps because he knows there is no market for that at home, or even within his own party.
It is now obvious, even to a seasoned reporter like the AP’s Chris Bodeen, that in the shadowy world of cross-strait politics, words on such occasions are moot and stripped of commonly understood meaning.
By insisting that AP “correct” its report, Chu comes off looking much like his predecessor as KMT chairman, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who has protested foreign news reports on several occasions when he was portrayed as endorsing a more engaged China policy than public opinion could accept.
If a “serious mistake” was made, as the KMT claimed, could it be that Taiwan’s ruling party does not want voters at home to understand what they are encouraging leaders in Beijing to think?
With ambiguities so deliberately sown, speechmakers insist that reporters be mere stenographers and aid — rather than clarify — the contrived confusion. Meanwhile, the meaning of it all becomes indecipherable for the general public, especially outside East Asia.
This incident raises many questions. Here are two: If the KMT is in earnest about “one China,” why should we not reasonably conclude that it supports unification, eventual or otherwise? If there actually are “two interpretations” of China, why do we see so little being done in a practical way to promote and defend the one that should matter most to Taiwanese?
Perhaps Chu could use this as a teachable moment to explain these things in language that does not need to be parsed.
Julian Baum
Richmond, Virginia
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