Typhoon Morakot brought more than 2,000mm of rain in several places and the worst flooding in the south in 50 years. Many roads and bridges were destroyed and houses flooded, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of people.
While the main reason for the disaster was the enormous rainfall, it is clear that government preparations, public construction and emergency response abilities leave much to be desired. This is nothing new. Despite decades of having to deal with typhoons and flooding, it appears the government’s institutional ability to handle such problems is as water-logged as the homes in Pingtung. There are three clear shortcomings that need to be rectified and quickly.
First, the Central Weather Bureau’s (CWB) forecasting must be improved. The bureau issued a warning on Thursday for torrential rain in the areas north of Chiayi. The hardest hit areas, however, turned out to be Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties, while Taipei and Taichung saw just light winds and moderate rainfall. The original estimates said Kaohsiung and Pingtung would receive about 300mm of rain, but as soon as the typhoon reached Taiwan, this was adjusted upward several times, to more than 2,000mm. Nevertheless, southern residents lost precious preparation time.
When the bureau misjudged Typhoon Kalmaegi in July last year, it was criticized by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and received a warning from the Control Yuan. Morakot has highlighted the bureau’s inadequacies once again. However, as Kao Chia-Chuen (高家俊) pointed out in his opinion piece last year (“Accurate forecasting takes money,” July 30, 2008, page 8), budget constraints have left the bureau without any sea-based observation platforms to monitor typhoons. If more money is needed to improve the storm forecasting, the government and the legislature must ensure such monies are found.
The government has initiated several flood prevention projects in the past few years, investing more than NT$80 billion during Frank Hsieh’s (謝長廷) term as premier, and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan’s (劉兆玄) Cabinet approved several bridge maintenance projects in its economic booster scheme.
Morakot’s onslaught, however, highlighted the inefficiency and slow implementation of these projects. The flood-prevention portion of the many river dredging projects in central and southern Taiwan have not gone far enough, the subcontracting process is too slow and quality controls are too lax. It’s not so much that these projects can’t stop flooding, but rather that they were only half finished when the flooding began and then the floodwaters either damaged whatever progress has been made or washed it away.
There have also been serious communication problems. Mobilization and direction was too slow, leaving residents nowhere to turn for help. Although government disaster prevention centers have been established at both the national and local levels, there were many complaints that the centers’ telephone numbers didn’t work. People were forced to rely on TV talk show call-in lines instead of the government’s rescue hotlines.
When the government was asked to deploy disaster relief teams after the typhoon struck, the response was slow; the army was not mobilized until Saturday, thus extending the suffering of many people. The disaster centers’ ability to coordinate resources and manpower showed great shortcomings, and communication between the local and central levels was ineffective, and was subsequently criticized by the premier. For example, in Pingtung County a request for rubber boats was reported as a need for vehicles.
The typhoon season has only just begun, and Morakot has given the government a brusque wake-up call. The disaster prevention system is coming apart at the seams, and if nothing is done quickly, the next typhoon will exact another heavy toll.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has prioritized modernizing the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to rival the US military, with many experts believing he would not act on Taiwan until the PLA is fully prepared to confront US forces. At the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Party Congress in 2022, Xi emphasized accelerating this modernization, setting 2027 — the PLA’s centennial — as the new target, replacing the previous 2035 goal. US intelligence agencies said that Xi has directed the PLA to be ready for a potential invasion of Taiwan by 2027, although no decision on launching an attack had been made. Whether
A chip made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) was found on a Huawei Technologies Co artificial intelligence (AI) processor, indicating a possible breach of US export restrictions that have been in place since 2019 on sensitive tech to the Chinese firm and others. The incident has triggered significant concern in the IT industry, as it appears that proxy buyers are acting on behalf of restricted Chinese companies to bypass the US rules, which are intended to protect its national security. Canada-based research firm TechInsights conducted a die analysis of the Huawei Ascend 910B AI Trainer, releasing its findings on Oct.
In honor of President Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday, my longtime friend and colleague John Tkacik wrote an excellent op-ed reassessing Carter’s derecognition of Taipei. But I would like to add my own thoughts on this often-misunderstood president. During Carter’s single term as president of the United States from 1977 to 1981, despite numerous foreign policy and domestic challenges, he is widely recognized for brokering the historic 1978 Camp David Accords that ended the state of war between Egypt and Israel after more than three decades of hostilities. It is considered one of the most significant diplomatic achievements of the 20th century.
In a recent essay in Foreign Affairs, titled “The Upside on Uncertainty in Taiwan,” Johns Hopkins University professor James B. Steinberg makes the argument that the concept of strategic ambiguity has kept a tenuous peace across the Taiwan Strait. In his piece, Steinberg is primarily countering the arguments of Tufts University professor Sulmaan Wasif Khan, who in his thought-provoking new book The Struggle for Taiwan does some excellent out-of-the-box thinking looking at US policy toward Taiwan from 1943 on, and doing some fascinating “what if?” exercises. Reading through Steinberg’s comments, and just starting to read Khan’s book, we could already sense that
RSS