The Dalai Lama may give him a run for his money, but few people are as officially despised by the Chinese government as Chen Shui-bian — president of Taiwan, accused ”splittist” and the figure Beijing considers most worthy of the formidable brunt of state-sponsored derision.
State-controlled media — all legally operated media in China — usually are scornful and dismissive when they unleash anti-Chen commentaries. But they have outdone themselves since he called Taiwan a separate nation, weeks after saying it might ”walk down its own Taiwanese road”.
Newspapers and television stations have recruited analysts and economists, the youthful and the aged, street hawkers and college professors — all giving time to a guy who, Beijing insists, holds no legitimate office because Taiwan is part of China. The two sides split in 1949 after a civil war.
As the crescendo rose, it spread from the mainstream papers into everything from the Women’s Daily to the Economic Daily.
The military weighed in with veiled threats. Anti-Chen sniping received five minutes on the nightly state newscast that is broadcast everywhere in this nation of 1,3 billion.
”Chen Shui-bian is thinking himself clever,” one editorial writer, Lan Xin, reproached in People’s Daily, the communist party’s newspaper.
”In desperation, he takes a risk on the happiness of 23 million Taiwanese just for political self-interest. He will pay a terrible price for this gambler’s act.”
On Friday, the government tried a new twist. It dispatched a reporter for its official Xinhua News Agency to the tiny community of Xingdoulou in southeastern China’s Fujian province — a place it said was Chen’s ancestral home.
Released on Xinhua’s service for mainland readers, it went to the trouble of tracking his genealogy – from the original Tang Dynasty ur-Chen to Chen Wu, who relocated to Taiwan in 1737.
Then it described how Chen’s ”undisguised ‘Taiwan independence’ remarks” have upset the less peripatetic Chens of Xingdoulou. ”
Chen Shui-bian is pushing the people of Taiwan to disaster step by step,” Chen Shuigun, leader of Xingdoulou’s Chen family, was quoted as saying.
”His deeds violate the rules of the clan and the teachings of our ancestors.”
Xinhua said all Chens in the vicinity ”advised him to stop before it is too late and not engage in any more deeds that are unworthy of his ancestors and the Chinese nation.”
That is no small criticism in a land where ancestors are worshipped as repositories of wisdom of the ages. Still, why give free publicity to, and throw the entire state propaganda machine at, a man who simply could be ignored?
Part of it is the usual nationalistic pride that wells up when a Taiwan irritant surfaces. China always has been sensitive to perceived threats against its sovereignty and consistently denounces US aid to, or support of, Taipei as violating Beijing’s internal affairs.
What’s more, it is aware Taiwan’s leaders have two things China’s leaders lack – popular legitimacy and a robust democratic system.
China also has demonstrated it prefers verbal confrontation when it comes to Taiwan — perhaps because it feels less sure-footed with other options. A military solution would bring disaster not only to Taiwan but to China as well, both politically and economically.
More immediate, however, is China’s impending leadership change. The Communist Party congress, once expected next month but now reportedly postponed, heralds a generational torch-passing from President Jiang Zemin to new leaders, and the government hardly wants to appear weak after spending so much time whipping up public sentiment and expectations about Taiwan.
Such sentiment is not merely a product of official frenzy, though. Many Chinese believe fervently in their nation’s sovereignty over Taiwan and resent what they consider the insolence of any Taiwanese leader who says otherwise.
”Chen’s independent streak is annoying. Taiwan is part of China. Why would he want to do this?” said one Beijinger, Shi Chang, waiting at a bus stop last week.
Nearby, a man who gave only his surname, Wang, dismissed the Taiwanese leader as ”a clown figure in history.”
And the folks of Chen’s ancestral home? According to Xinhua, they had a message after learning of his ”betrayal”.
”They urged him to do more useful things for peaceful
reunification,” the agency said, ”saying that he should try to hand down a good reputation to 100 future generations and not be cursed for posterity.” – Sapa-AP