Political analyst Courtney Donovan Smith looks at the differences in tone and substance between the New Year addresses given by Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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00:00Donovan, yesterday, President of China Xi Jinping held his New Year's Day speech, while
00:05early this morning, President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan held his New Year's Day speech.
00:10What marked differences in tone did you notice?
00:14I think actually of the two, the one that was a little bit more flowery and positive
00:19sounding at least was Xi Jinping's actually.
00:23He literally started out quite right near the beginning, talking about, you know, we've
00:28seen winds and rain, but we've all seen rainbows.
00:32It was also shorter, which was interesting.
00:35However, a lot of it was just propaganda.
00:37A lot of it was just outright not true.
00:40I think that William Lai's speech did also have some flowery language in it, of course,
00:46but it was a little bit more concrete and down to earth.
00:48It was also considerably longer.
00:52I think that the important part of this speech, and it may go down in history, depending on
00:59how things pan out going forward, in the tussle between the opposition parties and the DPP.
01:08Very specifically, he brought up that he intended to follow the constitution.
01:14He reiterated this in no uncertain terms, which means he's signaling that he's going
01:21to go ahead with the laws passed, although he did specify that he's going to bounce
01:28them back to the legislature to be reconsidered, which is a constitutional right.
01:35I want to go back there to something that you said at the beginning, where you noticed
01:38Xi Jinping used a bit more flowery language.
01:41Do you believe that this is because President Lai Ching-da inside a democratic system and
01:47because of the challenges that he is facing in the legislature right now, has to talk
01:51a bit more frankly and use a bit more substance to reach out to his constituents?
01:58Well, yes.
02:01President Lai is accountable to the public.
02:05He was democratically elected and so therefore is accountable.
02:09I think that it's a little bit more in his interest and for the interest of the country
02:14specifically, is for him to use this platform to talk about issues of substance.
02:23Now, of course, a lot of it is patting himself and his administration on the back, which
02:29you're entitled to do if it's a little self-serving, but he did also bring in some substance, which
02:36is important.
02:38When given a chance, it's good to see the president communicating issues of substance.
02:43One of the cross-state relations matters which President Lai brought up was that he
02:47would like to see more exchanges with China.
02:52What do you think is behind the strategic positioning of this inside his speech and
02:57is he positioning himself where he is offering a position of goodwill?
03:03I think that he wants to position himself as appearing to be conciliatory and as offering
03:10an olive branch.
03:11However, I think he's pretty certain that the Chinese side might accept a little bit
03:22of this.
03:23Now, on the other hand, I do think that that also is in many ways was more of an olive
03:29branch to the KMT and the TPP as well.
03:33I think he was sort of signaling to them that he's not hardline.
03:37He's also signaling to the Americans and also people locally as well as analysts and
03:44journalists that he's not the hardcore, rabid, independence activist that he's been portrayed
03:52as.