They did it again. For the whole world to see: an image of a Taiwan flag crushed by an industrial press, and the horrifying warning that “it’s closer than you think.” All with the seal of authenticity that only a reputable international media outlet can give. The Economist turned what looks like a pastiche of a poster for a grim horror movie into a truth everyone can digest, accept, and use to support exactly the opinion China wants you to have: It is over and done, Taiwan is doomed.
Four years after inaccurately naming Taiwan the most dangerous place on Earth (I was just back from the Democratic Republic of the Congo — imagine my reaction), this time The Economist warns people, accurately, about the importance of “gray zone” warfare around Taiwan. Yet they fail to realize the irony: They are helping China in this warfare by using their platform to propagate the exact kind of defeatist narrative Beijing wants the world to swallow.
The Economist is late to the party. The importance of “gray zone” warfare has been amply discussed and documented in Taiwanese and international media for a long time — without parroting China’s fearmongering. It would be sinister if they did it on purpose; it is no less worrying if they are simply Beijing’s useful idiots, ensconced in a sensationalist quest and cynical enough to use our poor little country to go viral.
Across four features, The Economist fails to convince readers that Taiwan is indeed in such a desperate situation — and sometimes even contradicts itself, but who cares? For every person who reads the article, a thousand would just glance at the cover image, the headline and the byline. Even if the features were saying something else, the damage is done.
Basing their entire argument on the effects of policies of US President Donald Trump on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) decisions, The Economist struggles to justify its conclusion.
For a start, The Economist is consistently guilty of overusing the conditional voice — a convenient tactic that allows journalists to be right if their fortune-telling happens, but not wrong if it does not. Although the title asserts that “a superpower crunch over Taiwan is coming,” across their main features the magazine uses a total of 46 instances of the words “may,” “could,” “might,” or “likely.” In short: They are not sure of anything.
It is not a good sign when a publication uses the word “may” more often than Star Wars fans.
Even when the story is good, the editors cannot help but turn it into Taiwanophobic background noise. The fifth article — Alice Su’s (蘇奕安) vivid, well-documented investigation into how dissidents were monitored during martial law — is an excellent read, but it lies behind a paywall and would only reach a fraction of the people who saw its byline: “The revelations inside could tear society apart.” With yet another “could,” The Economist manufactures a crisis where there is none. The story is interesting, but it is not part of a public debate, and it does not endanger Taiwan’s social fabric in the way the headline suggests.
In another article, although the headline is about the dangers of a blockade, buried in the text is an accurate quote from respected analyst Bonnie Glaser saying what most in Taiwan already know: A full blockade is less likely than a form of quarantine. Then why trumpet China’s preferred narrative of a coming blockade in your much more visible headline? Should Glaser’s assessment not carry more weight than a discredited theory pulled from propaganda?
Even worse, The Economist repeats pro-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) narratives about the ongoing recall campaign, falsely asserting that there is “a domestic political crisis, with the president and the leaders of the legislature trying to undermine one another.” Not only are a legal recall and a hung parliament completely normal features of a democracy, but anyone who has reported from the field knows this is a grassroots movement that took the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) by surprise. There is no conclusive evidence that it was initiated by President William Lai (賴清德) — because, well, it was not.
So too with the baseless claim that “Mr Lai’s efforts to crack down on Chinese infiltration have backfired, amplifying polarization,” or the outdated notion that the Taiwan People’s Party is “a new third party backed by young Taiwanese disillusioned with the DPP” — a claim that ignores post-election demographic shifts due to the party’s parliamentary behavior and the legal troubles of its leader, none of which The Economist bothers to mention.
The magazine also cites a joke from a museum guide that the antique collections held in Taipei would not be bombed by China, because Beijing covets them — and claims this “captures a growing sense of foreboding.” The writer fails to note that this joke has been told since, well, 1949. This “growing sense” is manufactured out of an old anecdote.
In the end, The Economist has acted as a pro-CCP psyop agent and helped Beijing score a win in the battle of narratives. Taiwan deserves better coverage — with field research at the center and without clickbait headlines designed to scare rather than inform. If The Economist cannot or will not provide it, others will have to.
Julien Oeuillet is an independent journalist in Kaohsiung. He produces programs for Radio Taiwan International and TaiwanPlus, and writes for several English-language publications globally.
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