Taipei Hilton

[Mrs. Knight is dear colleague and leading foreign correspondent for Asia with CNN. I saw a lot of her during the war, usually running in or out of this very building, the Taipei Hilton.]

I was covering the elections in Taiwan that January. Both national and local level were in a major state of play. On the national level, the president was the election everyone was watching closely. The “People First Party’(PFP) had been major inroads into the electorate, challenging the Pan-Blue party as Taiwan’s main opposition party, until the scandal broke out three weeks earlier with their party. This had moved all the candidates including the President herself to shift more to the right.

            With our own election back home having been even uglier than the last one four years earlier the vast majority of Americans paid little attention to this small island smaller than Arizona with less than one fourteenth the population of the US. Still as a major trading partner with the US, the people that were aware of it were VERY interested in its outcome. Opinions in Taiwan had become even more polarized than the ones in the United States. While back home we were more concerned with conservative and progressive rivalries, the Taiwanese opinions were polarized between those supporting unification, represented by the Pan-Blue Coalition parties, and those represented by the pan-Green Coalition parties who supported Independence. The pro- independence Greens won a sizable 56% majority in the last election cycle, and with the rise of the People First Party, with an ideology of “Pragmatism” and staunch stance against “Independence” instead of the cautious support of unification of the Blues, had been cutting into the Blues’ base. Then three weeks ago the “foreign investment scandal” broke. The PFP had been caught “Red handed” as their Green opponents liked saying with main land Chinese PRC funding and hacking in support of the PFP. The public back lash against the Blues and the PFP had been intense.

The incumbent President, shrewd woman she is, cashed in on the public furry and campaigned that all foreign agreements trade, social or economic now refer to the island as “Taiwan” instead of “Chinese Taipei” as had been the policy for decades as to not incur the wrath of the main land. The stance had paid off and it looked like the president was heading for a land side re-election.

            I saw one of my counterparts from CCTV, the PRC’s version of CNN, he was leaving the throngs of the foreign journalists watching the election projections in the banquet hall. I wanted to get his take on the election and the PFP scandal. I followed him across the hotel lobby and into its rather sizable bar.

            We greeted each other warmly enough as I sat down on the stool next to him. Before I could even bring up the PFP scandal, he said “Nothing good will come of this.” I reminded him that maybe the PRC should not have tried to interfere with the Island’s election, or at least been more supportive of the Pan Blue cautious slow but steady approach to unification than coming in so heavily of the side of the “Unification Now” bunch in the PFP. 

            He turned and looked me up and down, as many of the men in his organization do. The CCTV was a lot like the old American networks from the last century, very male heavy with a male ‘good old boys’ culture. For a long moment I thought he would just ignore me and my question. I was about to turn and leave to return to the banquet hall with the other journalists when he spoke. He did not turn his head to look me in the face, he just spoke into the air in front of him, and just loud enough for me to hear and know it was me he was talking to.

            “You play Chinese chess or checkers? Any games of strategy at all miss?”

I replied that I played chess with my husband on occasion, the European-Persian version not the Chinese one. He smiled at that, “The actual origin of that version was India. You Americans are always getting the facts wrong. Just like your facts on the PFP. It was our last ditch effort get these people here to accept the inevitable and come to their senses. Now a completely different game will be played. One meant for dragons. You and your ‘cowboys’ would be smart to stay out of it.”

             I tried to get him to elaborate but he spent the next few minutes ignoring me and my questions. Other people in the bar began looking over at me. A loud roar was heard from the banquet hall. My phone then went off. I had a text from my partner back in the hall wondering where I was and to get back in there quick. I left the bar and returned to the other journalists watching the results. Madam President’s election was confirmed with a whopping 76%. I never saw my counterpart at CCTV again, I wonder if he survived the ‘game’ that followed.