MEDIA REACTION: U.S.-CHINA-TAIWAN RELATIONS

UNCLAS AIT TAIPEI 000932 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR INR/R/MR, EAP/TC, EAP/P, EAP/PD - NIDA EMMONS DEPARTMENT PASS AIT/WASHINGTON E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: OPRC KMDR KPAO TW SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: U.S.-CHINA-TAIWAN RELATIONS Summary: Taiwan's major Chinese-language dailies focused news coverage August 4 on Minister of Health Yeh Ching-chuan, who announced his resignation Monday so he can run in the KMT primary for the year-end Hualien County magistrate election; and on other local political issues. The KMT-leaning "China Times" ran on the front-page the results of its latest opinion survey, which showed that 47 percent of those polled said they welcome a meeting between Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou and Chinese President Hu Jintao. In terms of editorials and commentaries, an editorial in the pro-independence, English-language "Taiwan News" discussed the recently-concluded U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. The article said the fact that Taiwan was not mentioned in the dialogue "constitutes an alarming sign that Washington no longer sees Taiwan as 'an issue'" following what the paper believes to be President Ma Ying-jeou's "reconciliation with the PRC's Chinese Communist Party regime." End summary. "U.S.-PRC Dialogue Has Warning for Taiwan" The pro-independence, English-language "Taiwan News" [circulation: 20,000] editorialized (8/4): "Taiwan politicians and pundits have paid little attention to the recent Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) between Beijing and the new Democratic Party administration of President Barack Hussein Obama held last week in Washington, D.C. This first formal dialogue between the PRC and the U.S. since Obama took office on a wide range of issues concerning bilateral relations, but the fact that Taiwan was not even discussed constitutes backhanded confirmation of concerns that the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) administration of President Ma Ying-jeou is tilting too far and too fast toward the authoritarian PRC. ... "Obama's statements reflected his administration's intention to continue to effort to turn the PRC into a 'responsible stakeholder' in the world system through prudent engagement, but also exposed his lack of an effective 'risk hedging' strategy. In concrete terms, the dialogue showed that Washington's unification of the strategic and economic dialogue tracks did not entirely realize its goal of avoiding divergent opinions within the U.S. government on China policy as individual agencies still maintain their own China-oriented programs. ... The fact that Taiwan was not mentioned at all in the dialogue constitutes an alarming sign that Washington no longer sees Taiwan as 'an issue' in the wake of the Ma's 'reconciliation' with the PRC's Chinese Communist Party regime. This development heightens the urgency for Taiwan-centric political leaders to develop a strategy to remind Washington that the 'black-box' process of renewed KMT-CCP cooperation is both subverting Taiwan's hard won democracy and actually fostering new dangers to peace and stability and U.S. interests in Taiwan Strait." WANG