Whats behind Taiwan media bias?
The increasing connection between big business and media has led to reports favoring the more China-friendly KMT party, writes J. Michael Cole Taipei Times Friday, August 7, 2009 By J. Michael Cole Since President Ma Ying-jeou took office in May last year, financial analysts have shown an alarming tendency to attribute rises on the Taiwanese stock market to “closer relations with China” or the signing of agreements between Taipei and Beijing, while drops on the local bourse have often been blamed on rallies organized by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Those assessments — which are picked up by news wire agencies and newspapers — often ignore macroeconomic variables and regional trends that explain stock fluctuations far better than local political developments. For example, a modest rise on the Taiwanese stock exchange on July 27 was far more likely to have resulted from global optimism about a financial recovery than the “election” the previous day of Ma as chairman of the C
