Cablegate: Media Reaction: Cross-Strait Relations

VZCZCXYZ0014
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHIN #0735 0890900
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 300900Z MAR 07
FM AIT TAIPEI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4689
INFO RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 6553
RUEHHK/AMCONSUL HONG KONG 7799

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

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