Taiwan's relationship to the international news media outlets that write about it is that of an island to a mainland. The island, of course, is Taiwan, and the mainland is the news media. They control the news, they define the words, they print the print.
Most news outlets around the world continue to play the game of appeasing China by pretending that Taiwan is a mere island and not a nation, and they routinely send out news bulletins, editorials and multipage feature articles referring to this bustling nation as a mere "island." From the Associated Press to Reuters, from the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times, from BBC to Le Monde, Taiwan is just an island, and never a country.
When asked why, a high-placed editor in New York once told this writer: "We must remain neutral and not take sides."
But one must counter that argument with this question: Just how does referring to Taiwan as an island and not as a nation in print make an international news agency "neutral"?
Every once in a while, however, small victories for Taiwan's nationhood pop up in the international press, and it happened again just the other day in that now-famous profile of New York Yankees star pitcher Wang Chien-ming (王建民) that made headlines around the world.
The reporter, Tyler Kepner, an American staff writer at the New York Times, did an end-run around his copy desk masters in Manhattan and was able to call Taiwan a "country" in the published article, writing: "At 26, [Wang] is a national hero in his home country."
The Times reporter did not say "home island" or "home province," as the propaganda ministers in China would have preferred. Kepner called Taiwan a country in the prestigious pages of the New York Times. Score another victory for Taiwan as it advances its agenda on the world scene. A minor victory, an almost invisible victory, and one that no doubt will be met by complaints and an angry letter to the Times' editors from China's ambassador to the UN in New York, but a victory nevertheless.
According to the copy desk at the New York Times in Manhattan, Taiwan is not to be referred to as a country or a nation or even an island nation, except in a quoted comment by a person being interviewed. The Times' reporters themselves are commanded to refer to Taiwan in every instance as an island and never a country. It is a written rule of the newsroom, re-examined every few years, but never changed.
Kepner, in his insightful profile of Wang, didn't follow the rules of the newsroom and managed to get in that one small reference to Taiwan as a "country."
Imagine, Wang actually comes from a country, a real nation, not some imaginary island province off the coast of some equally imaginary "mainland."
Sports has often served to further the agenda of freedom and liberty in the international community, and the recent New York Times article pushed the heavy stone of Taiwan's profile up the hill just a few inches, and those inches count. Thank you, Tyler Kepner.
Dan Bloom is a freelance writer in Chiayi.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS