The public outrage in Taiwan over an ad that implied Taiwan goods are substandard by the maker of Johnnie Walker whisky, and the passage of a resolution by Taiwan's Legislative Yuan that urged suspension of sales of the whisky for one year as punishment for the ad would seem to suggest that Taiwanese do care about their country's image. But, the overflow of counterfeit goods, which is becoming an increasingly sore spot in Taiwan's relationship with important trade partners such as the US, would seem to suggest the opposite.
In fact, it was revealed this week that pirated DVDs of the latest James Bond movie Die Another Day are already hot-selling items in night markets. Worse yet, reportedly the pirates were so brazen as to run the line "come get me, if you can, [Minister of Justice] Chen Ding-nan (
Surely Taiwanese consumers must know that Taiwan's reputation as a haven for counterfeiting isn't exactly facilitating a positive international image of their country. Yet, counterfeit goods continue to do enormously well.
The reason may be that, as much as Taiwanese care about the image of their country in the international community, any such concern fades in the face of a good bargain. So, money saved from buying pirated CDs and DVDs in night markets at a price less than one-tenth of the sale price of non-pirated copies must mean much more than the international image of Taiwan to many Taiwanese. If that is the case, then the image of this country isn't worth much after all.
Theft of intellectual property is of course not a problem unique to Taiwan. What is unique and almost fascinating about the case, is the way that many purchasers of pirated goods openly claim, in a righteous attitude, that they are doing nothing wrong. During recent negotiations with the Board of Foreign Trade, it must have been an eye-opener for the American side to see so many college students, many of whom were from top universities, protesting against US pressure on the Taiwan government to clean up unauthorized copying of foreign textbooks on campus.
One argument purchasers of pirated goods often raise is that they don't want to pay an arm and a leg for so-so CDs and DVDs, and that it is the movie industry's own fault for not being unable to produce something more marketable. This begs the question, why don't they simply refuse to buy these so-so CDs and DVDs and let the laws of supply and demand work? Their argument falls on its face because top-selling movies and albums on the legal market also happen to be top sellers on the pirated market.
Then there are those who respond by mixing the issues, labeling American pressure to crack down on piracy as foreign oppression, they find justification for refusing to comply with intellectual property rights (IPR) laws.
On Tuesday, during a meeting with US Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., who is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, President Chen Shui-bian (
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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