Taiwan is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, technologically advanced, with a relatively stable democratic system of government and a well-educated, peaceful society. Its products are sold in every corner of the world, and it fields world-class talent in almost every realm of human endeavor, from film-making to biomedical research.
But if you have never been to Taiwan, you may not recognize it as the country just described.
This is because Taiwan is largely treated -- if not viewed -- as a backwater by most major international media outlets. People outside of Taiwan only hear of the place watching videos of brawling legislators on "funniest video" shows, or in the context of "Taiwan angered China today by blah blah blah..."
The CIA's World Factbook places Taiwan in the top tenth-percentile of the world's economies by size. It also has a population that places it in the top fifth-percentile of the world's countries.
Many major print and broadcast media outlets maintain only a token presence in Taiwan, and in recent years many publications and news services have even scaled back, preferring instead to cover Taiwan from Hong Kong or even Beijing.
The Asian Wall Street Journal, for example, moved its correspondent out of Taiwan years ago, and now covers Taiwan from China.
CNN does not even bother with that, simply buying video footage from a local cable news station, and then doing studio voice-overs from Hong Kong. Meanwhile, it maintains full bureaus in countries with comparable (or even smaller) economies and populations, such as Belgium or Thailand.
If one looks at the major international news wires on even the busiest news day in Taiwan, there will still be two to three times as many stories about Thailand or the Philippines as about this country.
So why does Taiwan figure so prominently in its obscurity?
An obvious reason is that years of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) propaganda, coupled with international diplomacy by Beijing, make Taiwan synonymous with China the world over.
Even people who are sympathetic to Taiwan because of the liberties and wealth its people enjoy still believe the rubric that "Taiwan is a breakaway province" -- a cheeky, democratic David that dares to tell the evil authoritarian Goliath of China to shove off.
So why not cover Taiwan from China? What's the difference?
This assumption of synonymity frames Taiwan's de facto independence as an aberration, a freak of history -- and what's more, a freak of "Chinese" history. This is why even respected academics and writers regularly refer to Taiwan as the world's first "Chinese democracy" or the "best hope for democratizing the mainland."
None of this is to deny the profound impact of Taiwan's historical interactions with China, which have obviously shaped this society in fundamental ways. But even a superficial knowledge of Taiwan's history shows that the story of this country is much more complicated than a mere "renegade province."
Equating Taiwan with China is no different than equating the Palestinian territories to Israel or Ireland to the UK. It ignores basic realities -- not of principle or of ideology, but of real, on-the-ground, who-stamps-your-passport realities.
The government -- whether it is KMT or Democratic Progressive Party -- cannot change these perceptions overnight. But Taiwan needs to at least make the effort, and that effort begins by engaging foreign media outlets and journalists.
The place to start is reducing the amount of red tape journalists must work through to get access to officials -- think abolishing the useless Government Information Office -- and by increasing the amount of information that is available in English.
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