MEDIA REACTION: CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS

UNCLAS AIT TAIPEI 000735 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR INR/R/MR, EAP/TC, EAP/PA, EAP/PD - LLOYD NEIGHBORS DEPARTMENT PASS AIT/WASHINGTON E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: OPRC KMDR KPAO TW SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS Summary: Taiwan's major Chinese-language dailies continued to give significant coverage March 30 to the arrest of a wanted criminal, who recently appeared in a TVBS broadcast threatening to murder a rival, and to the controversial role of TVBS, a famous cable television network in Taiwan. News coverage also focused on a recent large-scale reshuffle of top prosecutors and on the 2008 presidential elections. In terms of editorials and commentaries, an editorial in the pro-independence "Liberty Times" commented on Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng's planned visit to China. The article said Wang's visit will certainly be exaggerated by China, and Wang will become a tool of China's united front tactics used against Taiwan. End summary. "Speaker Wang: Do You Recognize the 1992 Consensus and Do You Oppose Taiwan Independence?" The pro-independence "Liberty Times" [circulation: 500,000] editorialized (3/30): "... To discuss it fairly, Legislative Speaker Wang's planned trip to China, based on the four conditions he previously raised, is completely different in nature from Lien Chan's and James Soong's trips to China to curry favor with Beijing. ... But no matter what their purposes are, the visits by Taiwan's political figures to China themselves will be used by Beijing as propaganda material for its united-front tactics. In particular, Speaker Wang, though a KMT member, is generally viewed as a leader of his party's nativist faction; his political vision is more tilted toward identifying with Taiwan, which represents a line poles apart from the line adopted by the party's pro-unification faction, which upholds ultimate unification with, and tilt toward, China. The presence of such a nativist line in the KMT has all the more highlighted the fact that the claim by those who advocate ultimate unification that they are closely associated with Taiwan is nothing but a hoax, and they can never deceive the Taiwan people. Therefore, if Wang does visit China, his publicity value will definitely be much greater than that of those pro-unification KMT members. The Beijing authorities will surely feel that they have acquired a rare treasure, and until then, even if Wang does not want to be used, his trip will still be greatly exaggerated by China, and he will passively become a tool of China's united-front tactics to be used against Taiwan. ..." WANG