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Exercises heat up cross-strait propaganda war

US-made AH-1W Bell helicopters take off during exercises in late August at the Hsiensieng military base in Taichung County. PHOTO: AP

Jets fire rockets that leave a trail of gray smoke in the sky, and helicopters shower their targets with machine-gun fire. But what matters most in this round of Taiwanese war games are the cameras.

In the perennial shadow boxing between China and Taiwan, the public on both sides has a ringside seat, courtesy of television and newspapers.

The propaganda war has been heating up lately as the Chinese military takes advantage of clear summer weather and stages exercises directly across from Taiwan.

Beijing's leaders hope to convince Taiwan that if it continues to reject offers of eventual reunification, China's growing arsenal of Russian-made destroyers, jets and missiles could come storming across the Taiwan Strait.

The most common vehicle for China's fright show is the Hong Kong press.

The pro-China daily Wen Wei Po (文匯報) has been printing a steady stream of photos and stories about war games China is holding on Dongshan Island (東山島), just 225km from the nearest Taiwan territory.

A graphic covering much of the front page on Aug. 12 showed Taiwan trapped in a full-court Chinese military press.

Submarines and destroyers seal one end of the Taiwan Strait while missiles await launching, warplanes and helicopters control the skies, and satellites direct ground troops from space.

About two years ago, stocks tumbled nearly 4 percent on the Taiwan exchange when the Hong Kong daily Ming Pao (明報) incorrectly reported that China was amassing 100 submarines across from Taiwan.

The market is once again down, but this time the reason seems to be sagging world demand for electronics, a mainstay of Taiwan's economy, rather than China's war games.

"We've already been numbed by all this stuff. We hear about these reports every three days or so," said Wang Tsai-ming, a retired builder dressed in shorts and sandals as he checked on his stocks at a brokerage.

He said he drew reassurance from the front page of a Taiwanese daily newspaper that showed Taiwanese pilots racing to a line of Super Cobra attack helicopters.

That photo, printed by most of the nation's newspapers, was the product of a Taiwanese military spokesman's office.

Every month, the military takes Taiwanese and foreign journalists on two or three-day trips to air bases, warships and firing ranges. Soldiers scale walls in urban warfare drills, helicopters fire rockets at imaginary invading ships and frogmen paddle rafts in mock night missions.

It's all painstakingly choreographed for television, and has become a lot more sophisticated than in the 1960s and 1970s, when Chinese and Taiwanese artillery would trade salvoes of shells packed with propaganda leaflets.

The elaborate coverage of Taiwanese in mock battle meets a "subconscious need for martial reassurances," said Fu S. Mei　(梅復興), editor-in-chief of the Taiwan Defense Review Web site (台海軍情).

While China clings to its authoritarian ways, Taiwan has evolved from a society under martial law into a democracy with a free media and a legislature that scrutinizes military spending.

China's advantage in the propaganda war is its ability to control what appears in the nation's state-run media. Hong Kong's media aren't controlled, but depend on the Chinese government for photos and video footage of military activity.

A misfired Chinese missile will go unreported. But Taiwanese authorities often permit live coverage of their exercises, and can only pray that nothing goes wrong on camera.

Taiwan has an array of military spokesmen on call.

On a recent trip to the outlying island of Matsu, officers set up tables with computer plug-ins so that reporters could send their stories at the hotel. One officer was even assigned to stay up late in case any journalists had some last-minute questions.

Last year, by contrast, when China's Foreign Ministry invited representatives of various ministries to meet foreign journalists, the military group showed up but immediately walked away without talking to anyone.
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