The violent crackdown by Chinese authorities on demonstrations in Tibet significantly raised the profile of Taiwan and the country's presidential election in the US on the eve of the vote, a development that is sure to make average Americans more aware of what is at stake in Taiwan.
The New York Times -- in a rare front-page article on Taiwan on Friday, titled "Chinese Crackdown in Tibet Echoes in Taiwan Before Vote" -- detailed the harm that the events in Lhasa had done to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) chances and signaled that the election had become a major news item for the US media.
"The suppression of Tibet protests by Chinese security forces, as well as missteps by the [Chinese] Nationalist Party, which Beijing favors, have nearly erased what had seemed like an insuperable lead for Ma Ying-jeou," the newspaper reported in a dispatch from Taipei.
Cable TV programs in the US picked up the New York Times story and aired reports based on it throughout the day, reaching many millions of US viewers. This, in turn, prompted local TV news programs throughout the country to run copycat reports.
A similar story appeared in the national newspaper USA Today, while wire services ran stories on similar themes, which were then picked up widely in local news-papers across the country.
The Houston Chronicle referred the repression of Tibet in an editorial on Thursday that supported Taiwan and contrasted its freedoms with the human-rights violations in China.
"In the coming years, the challenge for the United States will be to temper China's animosity to Taiwan, which Beijing has threatened to attack if Taipei moves toward [formal] independence," the editorial said.
"China's bad week could get even worse," the Los Angeles Times led in a report on Friday.
"Beijing's crackdown on protesters in Tibet has given a last-minute boost to the ruling [Democratic Progressive] party it would rather see lose in Taiwan's presidential election Saturday," it said.
Leading newspapers in the US have given wide coverage to the runup to Taiwan's elections, after years in which Taiwan affairs rarely appeared in their pages. The attention reflects the importance of the election and recognition of the strategic position Taiwan plays in the US' strategy in Asia.
Coming on the heels of the US State Department's annual human rights report, which removed China from a list of the world's most malevolent regimes; numerous reports over toxic toys, food and other items from China; negative stories about the choking pollution and bad food that US athletes will have to endure during the Olympic Games; and the economic recession in the US that many blame in part on China, it was only natural that the Taiwanese election would become big news in the US media.
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