Taiwan Matters!: Independence formulations, formulated independently

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Independence formulations, formulated independently

Didn't this guy get China's memo/bribe/threat?

ESPN senior sports writer Jim Caple, writing from Beijing, turns the usual meme about Taiwan ("which China claims...") on its flat-topped head:

On the field next door, communist China was playing Taipei, the democratic capital on the Taiwan island just miles off its coast whose independence is disputed by the mainland government.

Got that? Taiwan's existing independence is the given, and it's disputed by authoritarian China.

Reporters with brains and/or a conscience, can you do any better?

Kudos to Jim Caple.

Differential equations: Taiwan, 台灣, Taiwan Independence, 台灣獨立, Taidu, 台獨, media, 媒體, memes, 大腦模仿病毒, Jim Caple

Cross-posted at It's Not Democracy, It's A Conspiracy!

Labels: Jim Caple, media, memes, Taidu, Taiwan, Taiwan independence, Tim Maddog, 台灣, 台灣獨立, 台獨, 大腦模仿病毒, 媒體

3 Comments:

At 4:40 PM, skiingkow said...: .
.
.
Yeah, but he says it is "disputed by the MAINLAND government". And he made it sound like they were playing the city of Taipei.

NBC had a better piece with better wording about the game.

Here's an excerpt...

When Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist Party lost the civil war against Mao Zedong and his Communist Party in 1949, they fled to Taiwan and established their government there – thus creating the schism between island and mainland that persists to this day.

How the country is recognized in the international venue of the Olympics has been an issue ever since. During the Cold War, China’s Communist leaders demanded that the International Olympic Committee banish Taiwan from competition. But when the IOC refused, partly due to strong backing of Taiwan from the United States, China withdrew from the committee in 1958 and stopped participating in subsequent Olympic Games.

China’s self-imposed exile lasted until 1979, at which point all parties agreed on the terminology for Taiwan during the Olympics: Chinese Taipei. They also designated a special Olympic flag that Chinese Taipei could fly during the games.

They lost it a bit when talking about PandaMa and warmer relations, but overall it was quite good.

TAIWAN RIVALRY TAKES TO THE BASEBALL FIELD
.
.
.
At 6:12 PM, Tim Maddog said...: Thanks for that one. Yes, "mainland" is evil when referring to Taiwan and China as an "island/mainland" dichotomy.

I considered specifically pointing out the aforementioned word as used in Caple's piece, but I was more interested in what a non-politics writer had done that others can't or won't: make independence the "given." Note my challenge to those other reporters -- the ones who are supposed to be experts in the area they're covering.

BTW, the word "mainland" appears at the end of the first sentence of that excerpt, too. ;-) In fact, the article behind that link uses the contextually-evil word six times.

Tim Maddog
At 1:54 AM, skiingkow said...: .
.
.
Lol! Tim, in my affection for the writer referring to Taiwan as a "nation", etc. (note: the author does not say, "what they consider to be a nation") -- I completely missed that fact that "mainland" was used in the article I provided as well (even in my excerpt). It IS used too many times, but in some instances, it is distinguishing the mainland from regions such as "Hong Kong".

May I point out that your reference includes the word "government" which is, I think, more sinful. "Mainland government" suggests that Taiwan is a region of China, IMHO.
.
.
.