Comparing Taiwan and the U.S.’s media of the overall reporting perspectives on Taiwan’s presidential election

March 22, 2008, the historical moment for Taiwanese to practice the democracy again by voting for the next president. Ma Ying-Jeou, the candidate of Nationalist’s Party, was elected in the forth direct presidential election in Taiwan. It is quite interesting to look at this event through the reports from different countries, especially form local, and the U.S perspectives.

From the U.S. media, such as the New York Times, we can see more descriptions about Ma Ying-Jeou himself, and his family, emphasizing he is a Harvard-educated elite. It is a fair treatment because most Americans are not familiar with the candidates, not to mention the domestic issues in Taiwan. But interestingly enough, when it comes to Taiwan’s standpoint to Chinese Government, the New York Times reporter said the two parties provide “slightly different” approaches to maintain a relationship with China, while Taiwan’s media often use more strong adjectives such as “opposing viewpoints”, “strongly disagree to each other’s opinions ”, or “condemn the counterparts’ attitude on the issue across the Taiwan Strait” to illustrate two election campaigns’ very different standpoints. Another article on the New York Times indicates that the result of this election is positive news for the U.S., and this article also points out that since Taiwan elects a supporter of closer Mainland ties, Washington will be relieved that at least the relationships among the U.S., China and Taiwan could be more stable than past few years. The application to join the U.N under the name of Taiwan and the referendum provoked a lot of issues between supporters and opponents in Taiwan, in China, as well as the White House. And it seems that most people in the U.S who follow the presidential election in Taiwan are optimistic about the results.

Nationalist’s Party and Democratic Progress Party (DPP) are two major political parties in Taiwan, and the biggest difference between these two is their attitude toward Mainland China. Nationalist Party holds a view that “One China” is negotiable and seeks for closer relations with China. While DPP, a relatively young party established in 1986, insists that Taiwan is an independent entity and should has a self- government. Therefore, what happened in Tibet few weeks ago has been a big surprise during this election, and Chinese government’s suppression on Tibet raised an intense debate. Since Tibet is unrest, it has quickly became a domestic issue in Taiwan’s presidential election and both parties showed that they’re going to be tougher now when facing Chinese government. In Taiwan, the bleeding rebellion became the headline news on prime-time newscasts and the No.1 issue discussed in several famous talk shows. Besides showing sympathy about Tibetan, somehow I think the two election campaigns, and the news programs were both overdone with the Tibetan rebellion during the election period, repeating day after day for the similar speeches from two presidential candidates, and many Taiwanese people were upset with the situation in Taiwan and worried about being the next victim under the threaten of Chinese government, which I think is an unnecessary and imbalanced comparison.

But anyway, I am so glad to see that the presidential election in Taiwan finished peacefully. One should never forget the fundamental obligation of being a leader of a country is to build up a harmonious society first, than he or she is qualified to lead the country to a prosperous, promising future. Democracy is either a tool for politicians to fool people around or a slogan for citizens to be proud of. Rather, it is only through reasonable practices that could manifest the value of democracy. President-elect Ma, Ying-Jeou is going to become the new president of Taiwan after the inauguration on May 20. It is time for him and his team to demonstrate their abilities to people in this island as well as people around the world that if they are qualified to lead this country. Time will tell, and people will use their ballots to make a choice.



Sources:

The New York Times:
http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/for-the-us-positive-news/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/world/asia/24taiwan.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


News form Taiwan:
http://www.cna.com.tw/2008PresidentialElection/ShowTopicNews.aspx?TopicNo=0463&NewsID=200803210129&strType=&PageNo=1

http://www.worldjournal.com/pr/taiwanvote/twv_news.php?nt_seq_id=1688626&sc_seq_id=3825

http://udn.com/NEWS/NATIONAL/NATS1/4265334.shtml

http://times.hinet.net/SpecialTopic/2008_vote/news.jsp?id=1421220