By and large, Taiwan gets a pretty fair shake in the international press. The occasional error of fact or interpretation may slip in, which is not surprising considering that many of the major media rely on reporting by correspondents stationed in other parts of Asia who may make the trip to Taipei only infrequently. And except during presidential elections, missile crises, and earthquakes, Taiwan is rarely page-one material.
Yet our fellow journalists are generally doing an admirable job in acquainting their readers and viewers with the important issues and trends affecting Taiwan. Through their efforts, the world public is aware of this country's remarkable success in establishing a vibrant democratic political system, supplanting--without recourse to violence--the authoritarian rule of the past. It is also aware of the threat to Taiwan posed by China's missile batteries arrayed along its coast and by Beijing's incessant attempts to squeeze Taipei further into diplomatic isolation. Also fully reported has been this country's development economically into one of the world's most active exporters and a leading production center for computer products.
Despite that overall satisfaction with the way Taiwan is presented in press reports, however, we admit to being nettled by a couple of choices of wording that regularly creep into the coverage. The first is the habit of some journalists to refer to this territory as the "tiny island of Taiwan." The second is the widespread practice of incorporating a particular stock phrase--"Taiwan, which is regarded by Beijing as a renegade province"--into their articles.
Small may be beautiful, but there are several problems with describing Taiwan as a "tiny island." As islands go, Taiwan--measuring 36,000 square kilometers or about the same size as the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined--is rather capacious. Waste the adjective "tiny" in this context and what do you have left to apply to the specks that dot the world's oceans?
Perhaps more significantly, this island is home to some 23 million people--more populated than over two-thirds of the member states of the United Nations. Its economy ranks as the world's seventeenth biggest, with an estimated US$314 billion in gross national product in 2000. Only two other countries hold more foreign exchange reserves than the US$122 billion in the government's coffers as of the end of last year. If Taiwan is thought of as being miniature, the reason is undoubtedly that it is often considered in juxtaposition to China. But how many countries would not be dwarfed when compared with that leviathan?
The danger in exaggerating Taiwan's smallness is that it may serve to discourage others from taking a stand in support of this country's right to a voice in the international community and its even more fundamental right to determine its own fate. The arguments in favor of accommodating China in the name of realpolitik ("how can you think of provoking a nation of more than a billion people?") are already ingrained enough without providing psychological ammunition to bolster them further.
As to describing Taiwan as a renegade province, or alternatively a "breakaway province," the odd thing is that few reporters seem to feel obliged to follow their statement of Beijing's definition of Taiwan's status with a description of how Taiwan views itself. What should ordinarily be a standard journalistic pursuit of balance--outlining how both parties to a dispute view their case--somehow gets ignored.
From Taiwan's perspective, both words in the phrase "renegade province" are fallacious. For the term "renegade" to be applicable, the political system on this island must at one time have been under the authority of the People's Republic of China. That clearly was never the case. As political commentators here are fond of pointing out, the PRC has never collected one cent in taxes in Taiwan or exercised on this territory any of the other rights and obligations that determine effective administrative control.
And rather than regarding their home place as a province, renegade or otherwise, the people and government of Taiwan consider it to be an independent sovereign state known formally as the Republic of China. The citizens of this republic go to the polls every four years to elect a president and vice president--something that no mere province could possibly do. The ROC was established in 1911 and resumed control of Taiwan in 1945 following the end of the fifty-year Japanese occupation of the island. In 1949--the same year that Mao Zedong announced the creation of the PRC--the seat of the ROC government was transferred to Taipei as a result of the civil war with the communists. Two political entities have continued to exist since then within the confines of the divided Chinese nation--the PRC on the mainland and the ROC on Taiwan. Whether they will one day be united will depend on many factors, not least of which will be Beijing's progress in developing democratic institutions.
In the meantime, the sincere hope on this side of the Taiwan Strait is that the two entities will be able to get along amicably, communicating as equals despite the indisputable disparity in size. For one side to relegate the other to the status of a renegade subordinate will not be conducive to reaching a solution. For the sake of better international understanding of this sensitive but complicated issue, it would help if the world's press would provide a bit of its valuable editorial space for a few additional sentences of explanation when dealing with the relationship between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland.