HUGE: Lai from Tainan to the EY

A pink triceratops in front of a mall in Taichung, with massive books displaying other cute pink things. Yes, Taiwan's ability to generate kitsch exceeds all possibility of imagination. 

The news broke this morning that Lai Chin-de (William Lai), the Mayor of Tainan, is getting a promotion out of his city (Chinese, Chinese, English) and into the Executive Yuan. Premier Lin Chuan has resigned and Lai is taking over his position. The Sec-General and the Vice Premier are also stepping down tomorrow, Tuesday.

As many of us have expected, DPP President Tsai Ing-wen is moving out the technocrats and bringing in the politicians who can get things done ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. This gives Lai a chance to get national name recognition and give him central government experience. It also gives him a chance to show his face in the north.

Note that this gets him out of Tainan in a way that prevents it from looking like he is ignoring Tainan to run for the New Taipei City mayorship -- it would be a bit awkward if he were campaigning in Yungho or Chungho while still technically the mayor of Tainan. It seems obvious to me that eventually Lai will be begged to run,  in fine Taiwan style, for New Taipei City mayor in the 2018 election. And in fine Taiwan style, he will reluctantly accept.

If Lai is a success as premier, it will enhance his prospects for succeeding Tsai in 2024. Note that even if he is not a success, it may not affect his career at all. Quick, name the last five premiers.

Reuters celebrated Lai's replacement of Lin Chuan with another hit piece on Tsai -- Lin Chuan's resignation and Lai's ascension was about shoring up Tsai's "fading popularity". With quotes only from pan-Blue supporters, of course, and a cherry-picked poll to boot. I have nothing but contempt for that media organization.

UPDATE: @aaronwytze adds: DPP factions are probably furious about this. Lai could stack New Tide appointees in EY
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Daily Links:

• 600K hacking attempts on the NSB website
• If peaceful reunification takes too long, China might invade, acc'ding to former official in Beijing's Taiwan office.
• The Big International Business of Taiwan phone scammers
• Taiwan's world leading industrial clusters
• China's fishing fleet a flashpoint in the South China Sea

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

The arguably ethnocentric presentation of Taiwanese legislative brawling in the US media

It was hard biking in the midday heat, but even so, we just couldn't figure out why our pace was so slow.

Huffington Post offered this report on the legislative brawling last week:

Brawl Breaks Out In Taiwanese Parliament As Lawmakers Throw Water Balloons And Chairs

Who among us hasn’t gotten in a fistfight over infrastructure development?

The ethnocentricism of the article -- or its fundamental laziness, take your pick -- lies in its total lack of recognition that brawling in the legislature needs an explanation. Why do they do that? It's just what they do. How do we know that? Look at the other examples! At the bottom, the article goes on to list other examples of "brawling".

Recall that the fight involved water balloons, meaning that it was planned (no one carries balloons around on the off chance they may be involved in a water balloon fight). So why no inquiry into that? It's not like there aren't 00s of informed individuals on Taiwan  that Huffpost could have emailed for an explanation. But apparently zero effort went into finding out why people might brawl over an infrastructure bill. That was a thing that didn't need explained, because, you know, it's what they do.

The CNN video similarly lacks any recognition that there are reasons that ordinarily peaceful humans might stage a brawl in the legislature. AP at least gives a few lines of description, which hardly amount to an explanation.

The AFP article, one long attack on the DPP as is normal for AFP, at least gives some explanation via repeating KMT talking points (Channel News Asia's AFP version is slightly different and leads with the DPP view). The Straits Times also took some time to report on it. BBC turned in a long report with background information and even a kind of in-depth explanation. But none of these are American.

This news-as-infotainment-spectacle is why we get lots of videos in the US of legislators brawling but zero explanation as to why. It is very bad for American democracy that our news media is so relentlessly committed to producing an endless flow of spectacle instead of news.

Fortunate indeed is the US, whose legislature remains decorous as it attempts to organize a vote to strip millions of Americans of their healthcare, which will lower their living standards and reduce their lifespans. But those legislators in Taiwan! So uncivilized!
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

LA Times runs hit piece on Tsai Ing-wen

Heading back here soon....

The LA Times ran a hit piece on President Tsai today. How did I know how much it sucked? Three friends whose PHD work is on Taiwan politics issues sent it to me with WTF? texts. If the LA Times is ever puzzled as to why democracy is on the decline in the world or how President Trump got elected, it need merely examine its editorial posture. Why O why don't we have a better media...

After some opening boilerplate, the writer, Ralph Jennings, observes:

Tsai’s approval rating sank to 33% in June, down from just over 39% a month earlier. That puts her in politically dangerous territory, below even the historic low ratings that U.S. polls show for President Trump.

As I pointed out ages ago in my column in Taiwan News, the proper context for assessing Tsai's approval rating is Taiwan and its Presidents. Comparing her to Trump is simply a gratuitous troll which indicates the obvious anti-Tsai slant of the piece. 

I admit it was kind of Jennings to signal his position so early in the text, so that rational readers could leave immediately. After all, we'd already read this a year ago in the South China Morning Post from Lawrence Chung, whose political preferences will be obvious to longtime readers, and don't need the deja vu. Hint: when you're mimicking the pro-Beijing media, there's a problem...

Contextualized properly, Jennings should have asked: what were (previous President) Ma's approval ratings? After the initial euphoria, Ma fell into the low 20s and basically hung there until July of 2009, when he climbed back to the high 30s thanks to a stock market rally and other transient factors. In Aug of that year, readers may recall, Typhoon Morakot visited the island, and Ma wrecked his approval ratings more or less permanently by his incompetent, dilatory, and inane response to it.

"Dangerous territory"? Be serious. Ma got re-elected with much lower approval ratings. Note that Jennings adduces not a single Taiwan-based fact to show that her poll numbers are "dangerous". This is just editorializing disguised as "reporting".

Jennings continues...

Tsai has kept the peace, as promised, but relations with China have been tense, and Beijing has taken steps to undermine its Taiwanese rival. China has claimed sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, but Taiwan — with tacit U.S. support — has resisted unification.

This is actually not a bad version of The Formula even though it does not assign a cause to cross-strait tensions -- those mysterious tensions that are the Augustinian Uncaused Cause of cross-strait cosmology -- and as he usually does, Jennings notes further down that most Taiwanese want independence. Kudos to him for that.

Many Taiwanese see Tsai’s policy as one of inaction, not stability.

“The government has taken a very negative attitude on mainland China policy,” said Ku Chung-hwa, a standing board member with the Taipei-based watchdog group Citizen Congress Watch, which advocates transparency in government. Despite Beijing’s demands to come to the table as a unified China, he said, “Tsai has nothing to say. This stalemate is typical of a cold war.”

This paragraph is one of my favorites in this piece. Jennings sources this quote not from a public pollster, an academic who focuses on public opinion, or someone familiar with conditions island-wide, but from a professional government critic whose specialization is the legislature, not foreign policy. If you need a critical quote, that's the guy to go to. Smart.

You could even reverse the order of nouns in that first sentence: Many Taiwanese see Tsai's policy as one of stability, not inaction. Without a number, "many" could mean anything... and means nothing.

After noting the horrible blow of Panama's defection, LATimes scribes:

The Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation said its surveys show that 58% of respondents are dissatisfied with the president’s handling of China. About 60% want eventual independence. (Although Taiwan is functionally independent from China now, it exists in legal limbo and is recognized by only a few countries.)

(Love that comment in parentheses: no country recognizes Taiwan. They that recognize "Taiwan" all recognize the ROC as the official government of China.)

The major issue here is not the poll numbers (other outfits have similar numbers) but the timing and of course, the major omissions. Yes, of course Tsai's policy is going to be the subject of angst after a diplomatic setback. That's natural. But if you look at the polls prior to that (and I expect after it), support for her cross-strait policies is strong. See this MAC poll, for example, or this poll after the WHA debacle.

Jennings simply timed the piece to take advantage of the angst. Smart.

This is followed by a farrago of bullshit:

Those who prefer dialogue with China believe it could minimize the risk of conflict and extend trade and investment ties that Tsai’s predecessor had facilitated. Trade reached $121 billion in the year just before Tsai took office and tourist arrivals from China numbered a record 3.3 million in 2016.

"Those who prefer dialogue with China..." is just.... twisted. Of course the Tsai Administration wants dialogue with China (and quietly engages in it). Everyone on all sides of the debate wants dialogue with China, everyone on all sides believes dialogue minimizes conflict -- it is Beijing that has consistently refused to talk. Jennings simply fails to properly contextualize: this paragraph actually refers to "those who want dialogue with China at the price of conceding that Taiwan is part of China". The people making these claims are, as polls show, a solid minority: 70% do not want Tsai to recognize the one China principle (59% here in 2016 poll just prior to her inauguration, with same minority). Most of this minority vote KMT, which of course goes unmentioned here. These are not people with sane alternatives: they are the pro-China opposition.

Another misrepresentation is the trade number: Jennings simply puts an isolated number there, and never informs the reader that the Ma Administration killed trade growth with China and flooded the island with imports from China. The $121 billion trade "reached" was not only a decline from the $130 billion peak in 2014 but occurred amidst a collapse in Taiwan's trade surplus with the authoritarian state across the water. The key issue, ECFA's destruction of Taiwan's trade surplus, is never mentioned in the international media. These failed policies of Ma hurt Taiwan and helped put Tsai in power. Last year I noted:

In 2010 Ma Ying-jeou’s government signed the ECFA with China, an agreement promoted and now touted by journalists who largely live outside Taiwan. Almost immediately trade with China began to stagnate. After slumping in 2009, two-way trade recovered to $112 billion in 2010, and then hit $127 billion in 2011. After ECFA? It hovered in the $120 billion range, finally clambering to $130 billion in 2014 before plummeting to $115 billion last year. At present, thanks to China’s slowing economy, trade is now lower than before the “landmark” ECFA agreement came into effect.

Thus, Jennings never reports to his readers that the People Who Want Dialogue With China are people who supported trade and tourism policies that failed to produce meaningful economic gains.

But why report complex and interesting facts, when it is so much easier to produce an anti-Tsai construction?

Finally, buried at the bottom, is the reality. Must have been painful to have been forced to write this:

The president has played up economic policy such as infrastructure spending and time-off requirements for workers. The economy is expected to grow by about 2% this year, up half a percentage point from 2016, and manufacturing output is expected to exceed that.

Trade with China grew to $133 billion from April 2016 to April 2017, mostly under Tsai’s watch.

Oh yeah. Tsai's policies are actually more successful at the moment than Ma's had been just before her. Imagine if this had been located at the beginning of the piece -- it would have been impossible to write it with a strong anti-Tsai slant. Jennings at least wisely concedes that falling poll ratings don't really mean anything for her actual support, but that too is buried at the bottom. Should have been first...

Falling ratings are a structural issue. Here is how I put it last year when her ratings first began to fall....

The key point is this: the slumping ratings mean little by themselves. Instead, they reflect the intersection of Taiwan's identity politics and Taiwan voter expectations. At first happy with the possibility of change, light blue and light green middle of the road voters will gradually ooze into the dissatisfied camp as the pace change slows for the particular issues they are interested in, while iron minorities in the Blue and Green camps stake out positions on either side. It will come as no surprise to this writer if Tsai ends up with 20-30% satisfaction ratings at the end of the first term, essentially the proportion of Green voters who will always be satisfied with Tsai, yet gets re-elected and her party with her. In the TISR polls before the 2012 election Ma Ying-jeou consistently polled under 30% yet comfortably won re-election. It is not difficult to foresee the same pattern with Tsai – a smaller victory, with a few surprising regional defeats. Similarly, the legislature is perennially one of the lowest-rated branches of the government in Taiwan (and in many democracies), but most legislators receive multiple terms. Low ratings appear to be little impairment to re-election, while high ratings guarantee nothing – Chen Shui-bian's ratings as mayor of Taipei were generally excellent, but he was decisively beaten in 1998 by Ma Ying-jeou.

But I guess it is easier to write clickbait articles saying ZOMG TSAI IS GIVING TAIWAN THE SADZ than to rationally interpret the meaning of the ratings. I mean, how can you pitch a piece saying "Tsai's falling ratings are essentially temporary and meaningless and her economic polices are doing well in the current global economic conditions, and she keeps her mouth shut, works closely with Japan, and hasn't pissed off the US"... Nope: reality makes poor clickbait.

Hey thanks, LA Times, for turning the president of an allied democracy into a clickbait prop.

You suck.

ADDED: for contrast, try this piece from Ketagalan from a credentialed scholar on Taiwan politics on Tsai's first year..

UPDATED: I've posted on Tsai's satisfaction ratings in the Taiwan context here.
UPDATED: Taiwan Sentinel also ran a piece on this hit piece.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Reuters is... still Reuters

Rivers in full bore this week.

Salieri: How... Did my work please you?
Mozart: I never knew that music like that was possible!
Salieri: You flatter me.
Mozart: No, no! One hears such sounds, and what can one say but... Salieri!

The strongest spring rains in decades have caused agricultural losses over $2 million US, with thousands of households affected by flooding and water shortages. Unfortunately that is not enough, human scum are preying on the unsuspecting with a new variation on an old scam. Scammers are calling people, telling them their houses have been destroyed in a flood, and then demanding they deposit money in a certain account. My family members and friends have been trawled for cash this way. The scammers are hoping that they can take advantage of panic to extract some cash. These people are vermin. I hope they all end up doing time in Chinese jails...

The mention of scams, of course, leads me to contemplate the beauty of Reuters this week. As usual, Reuters inserts anti-Taiwan editorializing into its "reporting", and then appears to deliberately mistranslate China's response to President Tsai this week, so that the reader misses its import, and omits the amused reaction in Taiwan which properly contextualized the Chinese spokesman's remarks.

First, the Reuters "report" of Tsai's remarks:

Tsai said that the biggest gap between Taiwan and China was democracy and freedom, needling Beijing at a time when relations between China and the self-ruled island are at a low point.

"For democracy: some are early, others are late, but we all get there in the end," Tsai said, writing in Chinese on her Facebook page and tweeting some of her comments in English on Twitter.

"Borrowing on Taiwan's experience, I believe that China can shorten the pain of democratic reform."

Reuters childishly characterized Tsai's remarks as "needling" Beijing and then added a particular context: relations are "at a low point".

This structure is built out of three common media tropes: (1) that Taiwan "provokes" Beijing; (2) that tensions occur mysteriously for no reason, and are never assigned an identifiable cause; and (3) Taiwan's pro-democracy side is always interrogated, deconstructed, and negatively presented.

First, let's reimagine Reuters' editorializing as an actual, neutral news report:

Tsai said that the biggest gap between Taiwan and China was democracy and freedom, an argument made by many analysts of the differing cultures of the two sides. Since Tsai became president, Beijing has chilled relations between China and Taiwan.

The failure of the western establishment media to simply report, never mind resolutely protect democratic values and democratic governance, is one of the great failures of our age.

The next paragraph then gives the Beijing-centric view of things:

Beijing distrusts Tsai and her ruling Democratic Progressive Party because it traditionally advocates independence for Taiwan. Beijing says the island is part of China and has never renounced the use of force to bring it under its control.

Another common trope, in which Beijing's expansionist POV is presented with no mention of what Taiwan thinks. Why not add that polls show the majority of Taiwanese do not want to be part of China? Why not say, equally truthfully, that based on history, the majority of Taiwanese "distrust" Beijing?

Note that the word "distrust" is used to characterize Beijing. Seriously: is there anything that Beijing trusts? The word is simply an editorial insertion intended to create more negativity around the idea of independence and the DPP.

But that was only the beginning for Reuters this week. It then (apparently deliberately) mistranslated the response of China's Taiwan Affairs Office to Tsai...

China's Taiwan Affairs Office said only mainland Chinese had the right to speak on mainland affairs, while suggesting Tsai could better spend her time reflecting on "the widespread discontent" in Taiwan and the "reasons behind why cross-strait relations had reached an impasse".

However, "only Mainland Chinese" was not what the TAO official actually said, and Reuters must know this, which is why they have paraphrased, and not directly quoted that particular section of the officials remarks. The original remarks caused hilarity in Taiwan....

中國國台辦發言人馬曉光表示，「只有中國人民最有發言權」，並指讓兩岸關係陷入僵局的台灣當局和民進黨，應該進行深刻的反思。

The bolded part is the actual remark: "only Chinese people have the right to speak". The term "mainland" was nowhere used. Taiwanese were ROFL when they heard these remarks, reading them to unconsciously reveal the feeling that Tsai herself pointed to in her speech the previous day: that Taiwanese are different from Chinese. A connection Reuters could have made...

Speaking of revealing, how about yet another hidden slant? Chinese officials are quoted in the two Reuters reports:

On Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China had long ago reached a conclusion about June 4.

"I hope you can pay more attention to the positive changes happening in all levels of Chinese society," she said without elaborating.

China's Taiwan Affairs Office said only mainland Chinese had the right to speak on mainland affairs, while suggesting Tsai could better spend her time reflecting on "the widespread discontent" in Taiwan and the "reasons behind why cross-strait relations had reached an impasse".

"We are closer than any other point in history to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people," office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang said in a statement sent to Reuters.

"(Taiwan authorities) should not divert attention and shirk responsibility while further inflaming cross-strait antagonism."

Note that while Tsai is described as "needling" Beijing, no Beijing official is described in a similar way. The TAO official "suggests" even though he is obviously abusing Tsai. Neutral language such as the word said is used to describe statements by Beijing's blowhards, which are not contextualized in any negative way -- they are not said to occur during a period of low relations between the two sides.

Tsai is thus a victim of a third common media trope, in which statements from Taiwan (run by a pro-democracy party allied to the west!) are constantly interrogated, deconstructed, and negatively contextualized, while statements from Beijing are presented without comment.

The anti-Taiwan slant is painfully obvious. And painfully sad.

Meanwhile, with lips firmly curled in a patronizing upper class sneer, the Economist discussed Tsai's economic policies this week.

...Less noticed is that Ms Tsai has, for now, won over one important group: investors. Cash inflows from abroad have made Taiwan’s stockmarket and currency among Asia’s best performers. Foreign direct investment in the electronics industry has also surged.

The Economist was obviously hoping to gleefully report that Tsai had ruined the economy, since it had spent so many years cheerleading for Ma Ying-jeou (who did vast harm to the economy and Taiwan, all unreported by the Economist). It must have been painful to them to contemplate LSE graduate and neoliberal Tsai doing well, so they hurriedly added:

The government, to be sure, cannot take too much credit...

But then, with patrician fairness, they conceded...

Nevertheless, without a deft touch from Ms Tsai, things could have been worse. It is easy to forget that, a year ago, the odds seemed stacked against Taiwan’s economy. Falling exports had tipped it into a recession. Slowing smartphone sales pointed to little relief ahead. Most worrying was the political backdrop, with Ms Tsai caught between her supporters, many of whom crave independence, and China, which demands that she acknowledge Taiwan to be part of “one China”.

Ms Tsai has, so far at least, steered a middle course, neither ceding ground to China nor taking actions that might provoke a harsh response. Investors, judging that cross-strait relations are frosty but generally stable, have felt confident enough to scoop up Taiwanese assets. The $8.3bn in foreign direct investment in Taiwan last year was more than triple the 2015 amount and the highest on record. If exports remain strong, the economy has a good chance of beating the government’s forecast of 2% growth this year.

They then discuss the good news from the economy, and close with editorializing reporting:

Ms Tsai’s economic strategy has three main prongs. First is an NT$882.4bn ($29.3bn) infrastructure stimulus, covering projects from the railways to renewable energy. Second, she wants to lessen Taiwan’s reliance on China with a “New Southbound Policy”, of closer ties with countries in South-East and South Asia. Finally, Ms Tsai is crafting an industrial policy to promote innovation, talking, for instance, about creating an “Asian Silicon Valley”.

All sensible enough, but each prong, on closer inspection, looks flimsy. The stimulus will be spread over eight years, providing a smaller boost than advertised. Variations of the southbound policy have been tried for decades: the smaller economies of South-East Asia are no substitute for the Chinese giant next door. And just about every country aspires to foster innovation; few succeed.

Note that none of the second paragraph is supported by any evidence, fact, or argument. It is pure negativity. One could just as well as have editorialized:

All sensible enough, and each prong, on closer inspection, looks intelligent. The stimulus will be spread over eight years, offering a steady boost to local governments and local economies, as well as re-orienting local patronage networks on the DPP. Variations of the southbound policy have been tried for decades: the smaller economies of South-East Asia have in recent years been better trade partners for Taiwan than the Chinese giant next door, And just about every country aspires to foster innovation; yet Taiwan has a track record of successful innovation in firms of all sizes.

But just to be certain that the reader is left with a negative feeling, the Economist concludes with a decontextualized negative quote from Gordon Sun, and then negatively again, with the worry that things might not work out. Because god forbid the western media say something positive about hoi polloi from the democracy side in Taiwan's politics. My god, do those people even know how to use a salad fork?

Oh yeah, about that Southbound policy? Taiwan News reported on the flimsy-looking Southbound policy this week:

Citing statistics compiled by the Ministry of Finance, the DGBAS said exports to the regions totaled US$21.14 billion between January and April for a gain of 15.6 percent, compared to the 13.6-percent increase in the nation’s global exports over the same period.

It's too early to say anything for certain, and the Economist could have taken that uncertain, more neutral position.

But didn't.
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Daily Links:

• SUPER IMPORTANT: China is expanding its ownership of Australian officials: (1) article on Andrew Robb, minister for trade who is now getting Chinese money and apparently got it in office; (2) The Age's main report on the issue; (3) commentary on the issue; (4) ABC report and (5) another long one. This is already happening in Taiwan and will begin happening in the US soon. I expect sooner or later it will happen in Europe and the UK as well. 
• Chinese boats bully Phils fisherman out of catches in Phils territory.
• Police tear down aboriginal land protest site in Taipei
• Taiwan Foundation for Democracy on enabling civic society organizations in East Asia
• As humans heat the earth, typhoon intensity appears to be increasing over time. But who cares if we wreck human civilization, what's important is that value is created for fossil fuel firm shareholders.
• DON'T MISS: A good piece by Chieh-ting Yeh on what Taiwan independence is.
• DON'T MISS: Excellent Japan Times piece on gay marriage in Taiwan and in Asia cites the brilliant William Yang and Gwen Wang. Also me. 

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

With Reuters on the job, who needs Xinhua?

Just a lovely day in the hills around Taichung

Jenna ripped Reuters this week for publishing another hallucinogenic article on Taiwan. Jenna nailed two common problems...

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen is signaling she needs more give and take from China to rein in hardliners on an island China considers its own, officials say, but Beijing is unlikely to budge months before its five-yearly Communist Party Congress.

"Hardliners"?

Wanting your country which is already independent to continue to be that way without the threat of war is not a hard-line stance. Not that many of us want a formal declaration of independence right now (well, I do, but I know I can't have it and I've made my peace with that). We know it's impossible for the time being, but are working toward it happening, peacefully, someday. How does this equate to being a 'hardliner'?

It's amazing, as I often note, that you can lock up dissidents, implement massive national surveillance, carry out campaigns of terror and murder in occupied areas, threaten the nations around you with war and expand into their territories, but if you oppose that and want to live in a peaceful democracy... you're a hardliner. The real hardliners live in Beijing and threaten to plunge the region into war.

Jenna also puts her finger on another problem: the constant interrogation of and deconstruction of pro-Taiwan, pro-democracy language and positions, while nothing similar occurs with Chinese claims:

A spokesman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office said last week everything wrong with the current relations could be blamed on the DPP and its refusal to accept "one China".

"No matter what new flowery language the DPP comes up with, it can't shift its responsibility for this reality," spokesman An Fengshan said.

No attempt to critique this? None? Not even a few words to deconstruct what An Fengshan is saying? Tearing apart pro-Taiwan semtiment but silently accepting Chinese annexationism?

There's more to say, and Jenna says it (Go thou and read!) but I'd like to point out one additional thing: Reuters' "interpretation" of Tsai's posture is very close to a flat out lie -- indeed, the only thing that saves it from becoming a lie is that it is an interpretation. What did they say?

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen is signaling she needs more give and take from China to rein in hardliners on an island China considers its own, officials say, but Beijing is unlikely to budge months before its five-yearly Communist Party Congress.

As she marks one year in office on Saturday, Tsai, leader of the ruling independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is facing a surge in anti-China[sic, should be pro-Taiwan] sentiment amid pressure from Beijing on the proudly democratic island to bow to its "one China" policy.

It is becoming more difficult to hold the line against independence-minded constituents and even tougher for Tsai to offer concessions to Beijing, one senior government official told Reuters on the condition of anonymity.

This is simply rank nonsense, from an anonymous source, of course. We will pass another year, and another, and the "hardliners" (pro-Taiwan types) will be fine. The idea that Tsai is bargaining with Beijing to "hold the line" against "hardline" independence types is pure fantasy. They are not a majority either in Taiwan or even within the DPP. Rather, as the AP article correctly notes, Tsai is focusing on domestic reforms, where she is receiving immense pressure.

Yet, the island's first female president seems focused on policy initiatives at home as well as maintaining robust relations with the United States, Taiwan's most important source of arms and political support.

Compare Reuters' nutcase description of Tsai's position with this great piece at Ketagalen Media on Tsai's difficult balancing act. (Note also that the AP piece forthrightly assigns to Beijing the blame for cutting off relations). Brookings also has a one-year review. The deeper reviews all missed Tsai begging for help with hardliners... how could have happened?

As for the "Tsai wants Beijing to help her with hardliners" interpretation of Reuters... lets see. I think everyone else reporting on this missed it...

• Is that in the government media's report of Tsai's speech (FocusTw)? Nope. That's domestic focus. 
• In the domestic private English language media (Taiwan News). Nope, again, the focus is on domestic issues. 
• Is it in the longer and very good AP report on the speech? Nope -- in fact that clearly states "The only serious political pressure Tsai faces comes from the opposition Nationalist Party..." 
• How about Bloomberg? Surely they would have noticed Tsai begging Beijing for help. Nope, lots of data, but apparently they missed Tsai begging Beijing for help with the hardliners pressuring her from below. 
• Over at the European Council on Foreign Relations, they somehow missed Tsai begging Xi for help.
• Taipei Times also fails to discover that Tsai is frantically signaling Xi

Wow... so brilliant of Reuters to notice what everyone else missed, eh? Not!

If you are using Reuters as an information source on Taiwan, you are being misled. Badly.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

=UPDATED= MEDIAFAIL: Reuters Plays the Leaders of Two Democracies for Clickbait headlines

A golden dragon phoenix turkey thing.

NOPE: Reuters is still running the story as if it hadn't been outed for lying about it and as if there were no controversy.

UPDATE: Reuters has apologized for playing the President for clickbait. Just a 'misunderstanding'. Yes of course it was a set up:

In response to media queries, Lee said Reuters had submitted a list of questions in advance, but the one about a possible repeat of the telephone call between Tsai and Trump was not on the list.

...did Reuters mess with the US-Taiwan relationship? You bet....

He said Washington was concerned over Tsai’s comment about the possibility of calling Trump until the ministry provided them with a full transcript of the interview.

...luckily plenty of people in Washington saw what was going on. ....on to the original post...

++++++

Wow. Reuters one-two punched President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan and President Trump of the US, harmed Taiwan, possibly impacted US policy, possibly encouraged Xi of China to move whatever invasion plans he has forward... the ramifications of Reuters' creation of a sensationalist story are endless, and entirely negative.

Check out the clickbait title of the first half of this setup garbage:

Exclusive: Taiwan president says phone call with Trump can take place again

What did Tsai say? Reuters quotes her correctly in the full text of the article.

"We have the opportunity to communicate more directly with the U.S. government," Tsai told Reuters in an exclusive interview on Thursday.

"We don't exclude the opportunity to call President Trump himself, but it depends on the needs of the situation and the U.S. government's consideration of regional affairs."

The question of another call was a hypothetical from Reuters, not Tsai, and obviously intended to elicit a sensational answer that Reuters could sex up, as it actually did. Tsai could hardly answer this any other way. She could not have said "No, no, we won't accept another call opportunity" since she could not justify that either domestically or snub the US that way. So she carefully said: "It depends," the correct, polite, human answer.

Of course, she wasn't talking to people dealing in the same good faith she was.

Consider the other possibilities for a headline. Based on that exact same quote, Reuters could with the same logic have written:

Tsai may refuse to take another call from Trump

What a clickbait headline that would have made! Reuters really missed an opportunity there. Or

Possible second Trump-Tsai call depends on regional situation

....which is a precis of what Tsai said and would have been fairer reporting.

Despite its vile purpose, the Reuters piece did contain some hilarious moments:

The call angered Beijing because it fears contacts between Taiwan and government leaders would confer sovereignty on the island. Democratic Taiwan, self-ruled since 1949, has no interest in being ruled by autocratic China.

....if only contacts with US leaders could confer sovereignty! Many commenters on this Reuters piece missed the part at the bottom:

She tweeted congratulations to Trump minutes after he took office in January, and when asked if she might tweet him again, Tsai said: "Might not be a bad idea. I'll give some thought to it."

Reuters was at it again subtly trolling her with another Trump-related hypothetical, apparently hoping that a tweet from her would send Trump into another frenzy of clickbait newsy tweets. She should refrain from further tweets about/to Trump. And further interviews with Reuters.

I guess in this age of shrinking news staffs, it is cheaper for news organizations to manufacture news than to go through the arduous and costly process of reporting it.

But withal, Reuters was really not interested in embarrassing Tsai, she was just the collateral damage of their set up of Trump, who got the same hypothetical question in his interview. In framing Trump's words, Reuters straight-up lied about what was said:

Trump, sipping a Coke delivered by an aide after the president ordered it by pressing a button on his desk, rebuffed an overture from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who told Reuters a direct phone call with Trump could take place again after their first conversation in early December angered Beijing.

China considers neighboring Taiwan to be a renegade province.

"My problem is that I have established a very good personal relationship with President Xi," said Trump. "I really feel that he is doing everything in his power to help us with a big situation. So I wouldn’t want to be causing difficulty right now for him.

"So I would certainly want to speak to him first."

The part in blue was what everyone reacted to, and it certainly would be a departure from previous US policy, if Trump ever did what he said he would do.  Emily Rauhala at WaPo said the same thing:

As is often the case with the U.S. president, it is not clear whether Thursday’s comments amount to a change in policy or are just another off-the-cuff remark.

But even as he was speaking, US officials were in Taiwan (below) talking to officials there entirely without consulting with Xi. Many observers pointed out that Trump was referring to the N Korean crisis -- note the words "right now" and not foreclosing the possibility or indicating that at all future points, Xi would be consulted. Overreading Trump's remarks for clickbait is irresistable.

No, the part of the Reuters interview that is vile is bolded in red above. Read Tsai's comments, and then ask yourself: can the reader honestly say that Tsai "made an overture"? No reasonable person could say that Tsai "made an overture". Indeed, she went out of her way not to. Remember, Tsai was not actively bringing up the subject, but responding to a hypothetical.

Reuters simply sexed it up, and that action of sexing it up is strong evidence that Reuters paired these interviews on successive days to generate just such a situation, taking advantage of Trump's mouth. At what possible costs to the situation in E Asia, no one can say at the moment.

Reuters even timed it so the news would come out on Friday, meaning that there could be no State Department/Administration response and it would dominate the news cycle over the weekend. Brilliant.

(Why report that Trump was sipping a Coke he got via a button? Why is that worth mentioning? Is that news? It's just a gratuitous hack at Trump, noise whose only purpose is to register the reporter's contempt.)

It's not that Trump says stupid things. That's a given, he's been doing it since day 1 and no one ever expected different. Note that US policy remains largely unchanged: working around the edges to give Taiwan as much space as it can. This week AIT head James Moriarty was in town to talk about getting Taiwan more space in international organizations... and Adm Harry Harris of PACOM said before the House Armed Services Committee that any attempt by China to use force to annex Taiwan would be unacceptable (Chinese)(Video of his testimony). It's important to separate what Trump says from what is happening...

No, the problem is that behind Trump there is no team to issue clarifications, keep policy on track, manage Trump, and calm everyone down. WaPo's Josh R reports that Trump's Asia team has not been put in place.

But none of Trump’s top officials had deep Asia experience before joining the administration, and inside their departments nearly all of the Asia-related political-appointee positions remain unfilled or staffed by temporary civil servants. There is no appointed assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, no assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs and zero Trump ambassadors to Asia are in place. Only one, nominee for Beijing Terry Branstad, has even been submitted for consideration to the Senate.

This is an unmitigated disaster, and things are only going to get worse.

Note: Nelson Report commentary below....
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Daily Links:

• Migrant workers in Taiwan say no to brokers and call for government run system. Recall that last time someone introduced legislation to alter this system, they were threatened by gangsters. There's tons of money in human trafficking. 
• Gazillionaire Terry Gou of Honhai visits the White House, fueling speculation that he might run on the KMT ticket in 2020. The reason his name has been floated is simple: the KMT might not have the money to fund the kind of campaigns they've run in the past -- but Gou does.
• Good news for English teachers: the legislature is hearing calls to make English the official second language.
• The new infrastructure bill will go back for another round of meetings. The KMT is well aware of how much its local clout depends on feeding and watering its patronage networks with infrastructure money, and will fight to the death.
• Beijing takes aim at Taiwanese young. I hope they study in China, it will teach them how un-Chinese they are. As a sharp observer pointed out on Twitter, there is nothing new here in these supposed new policies. 
• Memory chip exports up. 
• Meteor shower peaks May 6

Nelson Report commentary on this is below. Click READ MORE:

MEDIAFAIL: Taiwanese are not "ethnic Chinese"

Housing for aboriginal people.

One of the ways the foreign media serves Beijing is by recapitulating its propaganda frameworks -- in this case, that the Taiwanese are "Chinese" and there is no such thing as "Taiwanese". This claim is a standard claim of those who would annex Taiwan to China. Indeed, China's claim on Arunachal Pradesh in India is supported by official claims that the area's Tibetan people are "Chinese" and thus the region is "China".

Local media worker Ralph Jennings is one of the chief purveyors of this nonsense. See for example, this transcendentally stupid article on Chinese tourists,

Tourists from China eagerly report that strangers politely stop to give directions and shopkeepers respond professionally to inquiries. This treatment compares to China where an annoying number of strangers are surly or vague when interrupted by a question. The level of courtesy found in Taiwan fosters an appreciation of the location itself as well as a reminder that ethnic Chinese on either side easily have it in them to be polite.

.... "ethnic Chinese on either side" is a pro-China frame, reductive and wrong. There are many other examples: here, here, here, and here.

Reuters seems to have picked this up as well. In an article on how Taiwan's economic policies are its own worst enemy, it claims....

The capital of Taipei shows what an advanced ethnically Chinese economy can achieve under a democracy: a comfortable, low-key lifestyle.

This may come as a shock to the media, but Taiwan does not exist so the media can make smug contrasts between democracy in "ethnic Chinese" cultures. We have democracy here in Taiwan precisely because locals resisted the Chinese culture brought over by the KMT, with its authoritarianism and authority-based values, fake family values, empty democratic values, Confucianism bereft of humanity, and violent suppression of dissent.

The basis of their resistance was, of course, Taiwaneseness.

This "culture iceberg" is a common image, with many variations. But note that when people talk about "culture" they are usually referring to the parts that are easy to see: language, food, holidays, dress (though even in Taiwan they are different). The parts that are below are difficult for the untrained to see or think about and so are never referenced in discussions like those in the media. Wouldn't it be awesome if the media consulted anthropologists the way they consult financiers?

For Taiwan, for example, one might add...

• the experience of Dutch, Qing, Japanese, and KMT colonization, the experience of being settlers, being a settler region, and interactions with and resistance to the distant, different state
• the existence of the frontier and the Other in the interactions between aboriginal peoples and the incoming Hoklo and Hakka settlers, and its shaping of culture, building forms, and landscapes in Taiwan, and the continued existence of aborigines as distinct Other in the present day
• the ideal of democracy and its application in resistance to Japan and the KMT. Remember the first elections were held under the Japanese.
• democratization and the lived experience of democracy
• steady and rapid long-term capitalist economic growth and relative affluence
• Pervasive Japanese influences in food, hygiene, expectations of social progress and order, and so forth
• Pervasive US influence via increasing globalization and close economic, social, political, and military ties.
• the experience of China's desire to annex Taiwan and suppress local identity via both KMT colonization and PRC aggression

...that is only a small sample of the vastness of the differences in Taiwan experience. I haven't even addressed defining "ethnic Chinese" since the constructs we generally use to discuss "Chineseness" are themselves the result of Beijing's propaganda as the Imperial Capital struggles to suppress local cultures and languages across its vast empire via the creation of a common "culture".

Hence, the categories ordinary people use to think about and define "what's Chinese?" are usually categories constructed by expansionist politicians in Beijing. While it might be entertaining to imagine international media workers struggling to define "ethnic Chinese", it would not be very enlightening (it is never defined in the text, of course).

The short form of this is: Taiwanese are "ethnic Chinese" to the extent that Americans are "ethnic United Kingdomers".

But another way to think about it is provided by Geert Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions, widely used in business and other research as a shorthand for describing cultural patterns. Hofstede has surveyed the world's nations to develop a crude way to compare them on several dimensions of deeper behavioral attitudes. Anthropologists laugh, but it is a useful shorthand for twenty years of fieldwork and does enable comparisons, since the surveys are the same for all people surveyed.

I compared China and Taiwan using his tool. Note the blindingly obvious differences in everything except "long term orientation" (definitions are onsite).

You want to claim Taiwanese are "ethnic Chinese?" Evidence please. Otherwise, stop saying what isn't true.

UPDATE: An anthropologist observed to me:

The idea that "Taiwan proves Chinese people can be X" (polite/democratic/etc.) is just racist. The use of the term "ethnic" in there just serves to hide the implicit racism.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

MEDIA: Watch how BBC Sexes up tensions in its pro-China reporting

Alas, my Canon body died last year and I haven't bought a new one. So no chance to shoot bugs in ages.

First, the excellent news that Reporters without Borders has decided to open its Asia Bureau in Taipei rather than Hong Kong, testimony to the shifting fortunes of the two cities.

“The choice of Taiwan was made not only with regards to its central geographic location and ease of operating logistics, but also considering its status of being the freest place in Asia in our annual Press Freedom Index ranking," said Deloire.

Longtime commentator J Michael Cole and other local media figures played a small role in getting them to locate here, good work, Michael.

Meanwhile, there's @BBCHua. 

Note the headline first:

Taiwan announces submarine building ahead of Trump-Xi summit

The headline suggests to the reader, falsely, that there is some connection between the Xi-Trump summit and Taiwan's submarine program. The text then reinforces that.

Taiwan has announced plans for eight new submarines, a senior Taiwanese navy official confirmed on Wednesday.

The new vessels will be Taiwanese-made, unlike its current fleet of four, which were bought from overseas decades ago.

The announcement comes the day before Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump meet in Florida.

The text then omits all the relevant information the reader needs to make a decision about what this might mean. Let's check the Straits Times out of Singapore, a paper no one could accuse of being pro-Taiwan:

Taiwan plans to build eight submarines to bolster its current fleet of four ageing vessels, its navy chief said yesterday.

Navy chief Lee Tsung-hsiao yesterday confirmed that Taiwan aimed to build eight of such vessels, after President Tsai Ing-wen announced two weeks ago that it will develop its own submarines.

Note the language in the BBC piece: it wrote "confirmed" as well for the announcement. The writer appears to have known perfectly well that the announcement of submarines did not occur the day before the Xi-Trump Summit, but had occurred weeks before and that the Navy Chief was reiterating old news. The writer even refers to President Tsai's wish for undersea capability, without mentioning any prior announcement of the program (!). Nevertheless, the writer connected it to the Xi-Trump summit and omitted the fact that the program had been public for months.

Sexing up the news to create tension and links where none exist is a vile, shameless ethical violation, but we all know who BBC roots for. Really, I have no idea why BBC bothers to spend money on reporting news out here when it could simply buy news directly from Xinhua, offer the same information, and save a ton of money.

How long has this been known? Again, the Straits Times:

A total of NT$2.9 billion (S$133.7 million) will be set aside from last December to December 2020 for the design of the submarines. The eight locally made submarines will replace Taiwan's four foreign-built underwater vessels. Two of these were built in the United States during World War II, while the other two are Dutch-built submarines, commissioned in the late 1980s.

That's right. The money was publicly budgeted 5 months ago. There have been media reports since then, like this one from March 22 in the Taipei Times ("Homegrown Submarine Plan Launched"). A week earlier this piece on the Quadrennial Defense Review mentioned the indigenous sub program. A week before that the subs were discussed. Oh, and here's one from January. In fact you can go back to the fall: in November the program went out to tender. In October a new commission on shipbuilding to oversee the submarine and other efforts is discussed.

There is no way a thinking ethical human can create a link to the Xi-Trump Summit. The submarine news is not related to it, but has been in the news for months. Either the writer of the BBC piece was an idiot who doesn't know how to use Google, or simply lied to make a more interesting story. Note, for example, that the Straits Times piece did not connect the announcement to the Xi-Trump summit.

Sexing up things to create tensions where there aren't any isn't even the worst thing this piece did. Check out this completely slanted comment:

Taiwan's defence minister has accused China of having more than 1,000 missiles pointed at the island.

BBC presents the well-known fact of missiles aimed at Taiwan as if it were a mere accusation of the Defence Minister rather than a fact in the world. But why stop there, BBC? Do it right:

Taiwan's defence minister has accused China of having armed forces.

The piece ends with the by-now standard erroneous claim that the TRA obligates the US to defend Taiwan (the TRA obligates the US to nothing, it is specifically written that way).

The US is obligated under its own laws (the Taiwan Relations Act) to help Taiwan defend itself.

I specifically discussed this error with a BBC rep before in relation to this post in which BBC adopted a few corrections to its once insanely pro-China China-Taiwan backgrounder. We'll see this error in the future, sadly.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

MEDIAFAIL: it is CNN policy to lie about the US one China policy?

Riding off to the east coast from Fangliao in Pingtung.

I ask the question in the clickbait title of this post almost seriously, because the FAIL is strong with CNN. Last week CNN published an "explainer" which of course, like so many other explainers, got key information grossly wrong. To wit:

Washington officially sticks to a "one China" policy, acknowledging Taiwan being part of China and the People's Republic's status as the sole legitimate government of China.

....

In 1979, the US acknowledged the People's Republic of China's claim that there is one China and that Taiwan is part of China, when Washington severed ties with Taipei to recognize Beijing.

US policy is that Taiwan's status is undetermined. Washington's one China policy doesn't include Taiwan. All of us who track Taiwan policy know that. This information is freely available on the internet. Why doesn't CNN know it?

Despite repeated attempts to contact the authors by email and twitter, only silence was received, and the misleading presentation/error remains. The piece also claims, wrongly, that Beijing and Taipei "reached an agreement" in the 1990s. No agreement was reached in the 1990s. It also refers to the "own interpretation" part of the "1992 Consensus" though Beijing has never accepted that codocil.

The reason I ask the question above is that not only is there this false presentation of US China policy in the "explainer", but CNN presenters routinely say that the US says Taiwan is part of China. When CNN's Fredricka Whitfield interviewed Gerrit van der Wees of FAPA in early Dec, she began her first question by stating: "The U.S. does not formally recognize Taiwan as an independent state and backs Beijing's claim that Taiwan is a part of China." van der Wees corrected her, but the error is frequent on CNN and subsequently both Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper have made it.

And check out this short video from CNN, which appears to refer to the "1993" Consensus.

Somewhere, someone is misleading CNN. It needs to stop.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Trump's People are Obviously Clueless. Just ask the Media.

Bugs at rest.

One of the things I complained about last week was the way the media and commentators have criticized Trump's advisors but never bothered to read what they said. Bloomberg provided an excellent example this week of how the major media dismissively discuss Trump's team using language they would never use with Obama's, even though many individuals on Obama's team come directly out of firms doing business with China, or revolved out to such firms -- all without bothering to find out what Trump's people have actually said. Bloomberg criticized Trump's recent words...

Trump’s threats might be more credible if there were any indication he or his team had thought through these possibilities.

Yeah... let's take a look at what Bloomberg says and compare it to what Trump's people have said. I simply and easily located discussions from Trump people. After you scan this, it will be obvious which of these two sides is the clueless, shallow one that hasn't thought through the possibilities:

A Hotel Occupancy Carol

Slurping down slushies at one of the mountain bed and breakfasts where no tourists are going now.

I was going through a long dark night, listening to James Brown and Aretha Franklin in the bowels of my study. My second bottle of Laphroig had reached the halfway mark and I was despoiling my cupboard in search of a third bottle when I heard the faint scritch-scritch of scrawling on a notepad.

"Who is there?" I called, turning halfway.

A transparent figure appeared, filling my study with the stink of cheap beer and testosterone. It looked up from his notepad, and tucked in its shirt. A bottle of San Miguel slid down its trouser leg, and rolled out onto the floor, spilling beer everywhere. It peered balefully but uncertainly at the enormous collection of Taiwan history books and articles in my library, obviously unfamiliar objects to it. Then its horrible haunted face turned to me.

"I am the ghost of international journalists long gone!" it moaned, its eyes afire as it glared at me. "Tonight you will be visited by three ghosts! Pay attention and learrrrn, or you are dooooommmmeed!"

Then it vanished in a haze of sulfurous smoke.

I shrugged, and sat, addressing the bottle of whiskey once more. The clock on the wall would have ticked, but it was digital, so I was sitting in silence undisturbed when suddenly they were there, a horde of ghosts crowding into my study. Dressed in colorful shirts with flowers, baggy pants, and cheap black shoes that were little more than slippers, they flooded into my study, accompanied by the unmistakable smell of diesel fuel. Coins clanked in their pockets.

In an instant the room was full. I watched in horror as they scrawled their names on my paintings, urinated on my couch, defecated in my sink, and cut the leaves of my potted plants into the shape of the South China Sea. As they clustered around my chair, I realized they were trying to communicate with me. They made a eerily familiar noise, like someone trying to speak Chinese and swallow marbles at the same time. Finally, after loud argument and much gesticulation, they located a ghost who could speak English.

"Who are you!" I challenged.

"Weee are the ghoosts of Chinese Tour Groups paassssttt," the ghost hissed back.

"Why have you come to disturb my repose?" demanded I.

"To tell you of what has gone beforrre." He crooked a long-nailed pinky at me. "Tonight you will learn the errrrror of your wayssss, Obserrrrve the efffffect of our disssssappearance on your puny economy!"

Suddenly I was transported into a dark hallway. The pale shapes of bureaucrats wound their way past me in the halflight, knives sticking from their backs. Next to me the tour group ghosts pushed their way up to the front of the lines, their coins clanking loudly, moaning about the service. Statistics of monthly report of operations of tourist hotels flared before my eyes, from January of 2016:

			Taiwan Total		Scenic Areas
num of rooms occupied			553,869		45,977
occupancy rate			64.89%		58.39%
avg room rate			3760		5087
room revenue			2,082,643,603		233,894,481
F and B revenue			2,885,652,411		132,676,771
Total			5,574,301,748		400,903,796

"Remember! You will be visssssited by another beforrrre the clock sssstrikesss thirrrteeeeeen!!" The ghost warned as he faded. A final moan came from him... "Can't you give me a better deal on this statue of Chiang Kai-shek?" I heard him say.

I threw the empty bottle of whiskey at him as he disappeared.

I returned to my previous task, the ghosts already forgotten. The cupboard had just revealed itself to be bare of whiskey when I heard a giggling sound. I turned.

A girl half my age stood there, blinking in and out of existence. Short, she was dressed in the latest Japanese fashions, an American baseball cap turned backwards on her head, and a red Jack Wolfskin backpack slung over one shoulder. She grinned, revealing perfect white teeth, then strode over and punched me chummily on a bicep.

"Hello there! It's so great to be traveling in China's Taiwan!" she cried. "I am the ghost of Chinese individual travelers present!"

I searched my study for some means of escape, for I did not want to argue with a woman, but she was between me and the door. I noticed with alarm that she was growing visibly in front of me. Already she had reached my chin.

She punched me again, still grinning, and suddenly I found myself in Taipei Main Station. Travelers brushed past me, intent on catching a train. I looked up at the big brown board, and saw the statistics for Aug of 2016:

			Taiwan Total		Scenic Areas
num of rooms occupied			554,578		49,731
occupancy rate			64.44%		58.63%
avg room rate			3875		6411
room revenue			2,148,794,875		318,845,129
F and B revenue			1,853,805,182		138,810,765
Total			4,543,186,674		503,566,089

"See! she cried. "China has punished China's Taiwan province severely! Overall occupancy rates for tourist hotels have plummeted 0.45% in August!" A half a meter taller, she grinned down at me more broadly, continuing. "And in scenic areas occupancy rates have negatively declined compared to January, from 58.39% to 58.63%, with room rates negatively declining from $5087 NT to $6411 NT and revenues falling upward from $400 million to over $500 million!" Now a meter taller, she punched me again. "Can't you feel the pain?" she cried. I rubbed my shoulder, already swelling purple. I nodded, blinking back tears. I could indeed feel the pain.

Her head reached the ceiling, and she vanished. I rubbed the bruise again, then downed the last of the Laphroig, now righteously medicinal.

Suddenly I heard a faint jostling in the air.

"Who is there?" I mumbled.

Faint voices, echoing as if from a vast abyss. "Wee arre the ghosssts of Chinesssse tourrr groups in the futurrre..."

But they never appeared.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Surveying the cratered landscape of Taiwan's tourism industry

My friend Dom peers out over the ruins of bed and breakfasts strewn across the hills of Miaoli

It's said in the media, so it must be true. A recent iteration:

Since the May inauguration of the new president Tsai Ing-wen from the anti-mainland side of Taiwanese politics, China has turned off the tap. Chinese group tours are down 40 per cent, hitting the central and southern regions of the island hard.

Skipping over the extremely stupid formulation "anti-mainland", let's see how hard hit our island has been.

Although they are not used by the international media in reporting on Taiwan tourism, the government does collect piles of stats on what is happening in the industry on the BuTourism website. The Sept tourist arrivals stats are not out yet, but the number of hotels/room data is out. Let's look at the devastation wrought by the loss of the stingiest, most unremunerative, most widely disliked tourists in Taiwan, Chinese group tourists.

The government collects data on legal and illegal hotels and rooms across Taiwan. Yes, that's right, it knows where all the illegal ones are, it just does nothing. Here are the overall data for January of 2016:

	Estblmnts	rooms	operators
Legal	6153	24840	6805
Illegal	428	2499	462
Total	6581	27339	7267

You know what happened, of course. Catastrophe occurred, we know that because the media has assured us. Here are the September numbers:

	Est	Rooms	Operators
Legal	6863	27743	7881
Illegal	440	2531	468
Total	7303	30274	8349

As anyone can see, the total number of establishments plummeted from 6581 to 7303, the total number of rooms collapsed from 27,339 to 30,274, and the total number of operators fell from 7267 to 8349.

O wait, did I write plummeted, collapsed, fell? Sorry, writing under the influence... of the international media.

I meant, grew, increased, rose. These tour establishment operators are so stupid, they didn't even know that they were in a state of alarming decline and expanded their facilities. These Taiwanese, don't they know their own country?

But... but... surely the rate of increase fell off... Total numbers for the same period from 2015:

Jan '15	5722	23814	5897
Sept '15	6263	25997	6787

Yup, the nine month period ending in September, 2016 saw a greater rise in total number of establishments and rooms than did the same period in September, 2015. The devastation was immense, clearly.

But... but... tourist areas were hard hit, right? Nantou, 2016:

	est	rooms	ops
Jan	642	3120	673
Sept	675	3242	728

Nantou, 2015:

	est	rooms	ops
Jan	615	3012	619
Sept	627	3050	648

This is so... heartbreaking. In 2015 in this period, Nantou added 12 establishments and 38 rooms. In 2016 in the same period it added just 33 establishments and 122 rooms. 

Sorry, I have to stop writing now. It's too painful to keep exploring this swath of destruction any further.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!