Japan: Proximity rears its head

The leading article in the Asahi Weekly for March 31, 2008 is titled "Asia: Taiwan 'spy' finally freed after 11-year term in Chinese prison." According to the article, a Taiwanese professor was recently released after being imprisoned for 11 years as an accused spy. The now 58 year-old Mr. Lin-Cheng Cheng was arrested under claims that he had passed on Chinese Missile data he had gleaned from a Chinese Engineer that he had met while studying in Japan to the Taiwanese Kuomingdang (KMT) - Taiwanese Nationalist Party. Lin told the Asahi reporter that he had been arrested. beatened, and interogatted by the Chinese police after being arrested while attending an academic conference in Beijing in 1997. The article continues with a brief description of Lin's history or lack thereof with the Chinese Engineer. When Lin told the Chinese that he was being unlawfully detained as a Taiwanese and for something he did ten years earlier in Japan, they continues to beat him and told him not to say that since he was "Chinese." Lin was placed in solitary confinement for two months and then held for two years before seeing trial where he was sentanced in a single day to a fifteen year term. Lin says there was no help from the Taiwanese government. The article concludes with a description of how Taiwan had stopped spying on China in the 1990s and a quotation from Lin saying, "The Kuomintang used me and then discarded me. China detained a political prisoner like me in an unjustifiable manner. Both of these acts are unforgivable. I was a victim of the conflict between China and Taiwan."

As we spoke about in class, proximity is one of the key factors in the reporting of international news. Obviously, not only is Taiwan and China geographically near Japan, but there is also a political, social, historical, and cultural connection between the countries. Politically, Japan is a main player in the balance of maintaining the current status quo of cross strait relations. China continues to claim Taiwan as a renegade province and Taiwan claims to be a sovereign country, a theme of the article. Japan has also backed the US in saying that they will interfere if China makes any moves militarily to force Taiwan under its control. Socially, the Japanese favor the Taiwanese, which is quite apparent in article as it sheds a rather negative light on the Chinese for beating Lin and making him wait two years before an implied dubious trial. Moreover, all three countries are tied culturally and historically. Again, however, the Japanese are probably more biased in favor of the Taiwanese because they exchanged many cultural aspects during the fifty year period where Japan occupied Taiwan before and during World War II. Many Japanese entertainers are very popular in Taiwan and vice versa.