When thinking about international competitiveness, one needs to bear in mind that history can only be written once.
In the coming year, Taiwan needs to speed up. Change needs to be pursued and precise and detailed information that can create a positive force is needed. Change must be diverse.
First, let us consider international relations.
As former Japanese prime minsiter Hirubumi Ito said: “When two nations are equally strong, diplomacy is strength, but when two nations differ widely in strength, strength is diplomacy.”
When assessing individual strength, neither constructive nor destructive strength can be overlooked. When it comes to collective strength, there is strength upon strength, and no strength can be ignored, however small. A group’s strength depends on organized communication, otherwise it will not easily effect change. This brings to mind the example of the Central News Agency (CNA).
The CNA was established on April 1, 1924. The Ministry of Culture provides an annual subsidy of about NT$3 million (US$9.6 million) and it employs about 300 people.
With the high and broad vision of a national news agency, let us consider how the Japanese government communicates with its diplomatic and trade partners around the world, including Taiwan.
The Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association, formerly known as the Interchange Association, Japan, publishes a regular 10-to-20-page business and economic newsletter in Chinese. The newsletter reports on Japanese economic trends, such as the end to licenses for new brick factories in Japan in the next five years.
The original newsletter is published in Japanese. Japan’s overseas offices give it to cooperating public relations and advertising firms so that they can translate it into the language of their respective countries. They even choose the most suitable content and distribute it.
In Taiwan, about 800 copies are distributed. Cooperating partners also regularly collect similar information from newspapers and magazines and deliver it to the association, making this a regular two-way interactive arrangement.
The CNA could play a similar role by regularly providing diplomatic offices with brief and succinct information so they can pass it on to interested parties.
Leaving the CNA’s internal management issues aside, in terms of its professional purpose, what should the CNA do to cope with rapidly changing information? Should it not develop with an aim to make the nation more competitive? If so, it needs to undergo at least two kinds of renewal.
First, regarding its core organization, it would be a good idea to divide it into breaking-news and long-term, expert analysis departments. It should differentiate itself from other media and position itself on the level of national competitiveness. It should forecast what is going to happen over the next 12 months.
Long-term, the CNA should provide practical and scientific information with universal values and righteous purposes, from the information input end — international news gathering — and the information output end — publication in Taiwan — and give equal emphasis to elementary, intermediate and advanced levels.
The word that Taiwanese chose to sum up last year was “tough,” but hopefully people can maintain their aspirations even in hard times, because times are what one’s strength makes them.
Let us hope that the CNA can become an important force for national competitiveness.
Wu Chin-sheng is a director of the Northern Taiwan Society and publisher of Brain magazine.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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