NA Elections: The China Post gets it so wrong

One of my reasons for starting this site was the lack of decent English reporting on Taiwan (take for example this article, via Michael, which, apart from a mistake in virtually every paragraph, can’t even get the name of the KMT chairman right). However, prize for most incompetent reporting goes to the China Post – one of the two premier English newspapers in Taiwan – which proved in this article that it didn’t know the most basic fact about last Saturday’s elections.

Party delegates are expected to consider a package of constitutional reforms — reducing the legislature from its present 225 members to 113, extending law makers terms from three to four years, amending the electoral system to reduce the number of lawmakers per constituency and enshrining public referenda as the only means for approving constitutional changes.

The reforms will also involve deciding if Taiwan will use a presidential or Cabinet system of government and shrinking the current five branches of government to three.

Other reforms which will be considered by the assembly will be whether to lower the voting age to 18, whether to make military service compulsory, whether an elected president should have an absolute majority or only comparative majority. It will also consider making fundamental labor and human rights a part of the constitution.

The first paragraph is correct (although incomplete). The rest is flat out wrong. As has been known since last August, the National Assembly will vote on one predefined package of constitutional reform – and then disband. Forever. It will not decide to disband some branches of government. It will not consider reforming military service, or how the president is elected. It will not alter human right protection clauses.

How is it possible for a leading newspaper to get such a basic issue so wrong? One of the reasons for the low turnout in this election was confusion as to what the election was about – given that even the newspapers didn’t know, it’s hardly surprising the electorate was confused.

3 thoughts on “NA Elections: The China Post gets it so wrong

  1. Michael Turton

    Good spot. I wsa just collection articles on the way the thing was presented. I wish I had time to dissect the boners in that article and every article.

    In the run-up to the election, the Chinese government had even invited opposition leaders, including the nationalist leader LIEN FENG-CHENG, to historic talks in Beijing with China’s President Hu Jintao in a bid to drum up support for anti-independence parties and generate public interest in the election.

    Maybe Lien has a pen name we don’t know about 🙂

  2. Tim Maddog

    Wow! Looks like copy/paste “reporting” all around!

    “Lien Feng-cheng” is probably some sort of confusion with the KMT’s Secretary-General Lin Feng-cheng (林豐正) , but that’s still messed up.

    As to why the China Post could screw something up so horrendously, I have a few guesses:
    A) on purpose
    B) they copied/pasted more than they meant to
    C) they can’t read/write English
    D) all of the above

    The China Post is a bit, er, lacking in both their logical and language abilities. IF, the topic of military conscription were up for discussion, for example, they’d be deciding whether to make service “voluntary,” as it’s *already* compulsory.

  3. David

    I don’t think you can get it that wrong with cut’n’paste! My vote is squarely on incompetence.

    Actually, I suspect the reporter was listening to someone from the DPP talking about how these reforms could open up the way for further reforms in 2008 (which could include everything in that list), and jumped to the wrong conclusion. An easy mistake to make … if you don’t know what the election was about, haven’t got a clue about the process for constitutional reform and weren’t paying attention at the press conference.

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