“Men battle to move up, water flows down” is a Chinese maxim that is used to encourage people to improve themselves. But while water flows downwards because of gravity, men have to overcome the forces that hold them back, resist temptation and possess determination to get ahead.
A society can only improve if its members strive for continuous improvement and excellence. The advancement of moral standards, quality of life, personal ability, academic research and scientific breakthroughs — all of these depend on improvement and excellence. If people do not strive for these goals, a society will start to decay.
Taiwan is a small but densely populated nation where people have a tendency to get carried away with the latest ideas put forward by the government. The country therefore needs a government that can oversee and guide the people to ensure that society continues moving forward, instead of backsliding, because of shortsighted ideas. People that keep falling back will only expedite the decay of a society which, unfortunately, is what is happening in Taiwan now.
There used to be a popular saying that pokes fun at the public ideal of education, which loosely translates as: “Study at National Taiwan University and then head off to the US (來來來, 來台大, 去去去, 去美國).”
While it is a somewhat warped view of things, the saying encouraged Taiwanese youth to gain a solid education, make full use of their abilities and seek a better life. However, somewhere along the way, Taiwanese have fallen into the mindset of making money here in Taiwan and spending it in China.
There is a huge difference in the way Taiwanese are regressing while Chinese are moving up in the world. The number of Chinese students studying in the US has increased dramatically, while the number of Taiwanese students has plummeted. More Chinese students are going to the West, while Taiwanese students are heading to China.
Chinese officials and tourists are traveling to developed Western nations, while officials and tourists from Western countries and Taiwan are visiting the backward state of China.
During the colonial period, Taiwan emulated Japan and developed at a much slower pace than Japan, which was learning things directly from Western nations. It was not until the mid-1960s that Taiwan had the chance to learn directly from the West and take on a more vibrant form of development.
When Taiwan’s economy was starting to take off, it had funds and technology from the West and Japan which it was able to utilize to turn the country around. However, Taiwan has failed to expand on these collaborations to continue improving. Taiwanese businesspeople became satisfied with what they had and only developed an interest in using China’s cheap labor and taking advantage of its shoddy legal system and corrupt government to make money.
China spent a long time emulating the Soviet Union, gained nothing positive from doing so and did not wake up until after the Cold War. When China woke up, it started to learn from the West and moved to attract large amounts of investment funds and technology from these countries to modernize itself.
In stark contrast, President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) ideology has bought about a new trend in Taiwan of learning from a backward China. The government is not trying to improve itself, the public is unaware of what is happening and the nation is blindly moving backwards. For Taiwan, this is a tragic state of affairs.
James Wang is a media commentator.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
It is employment pass renewal season in Singapore, and the new regime is dominating the conversation at after-work cocktails on Fridays. From September, overseas employees on a work visa would need to fulfill the city-state’s new points-based system, and earn a minimum salary threshold to stay in their jobs. While this mirrors what happens in other countries, it risks turning foreign companies away, and could tarnish the nation’s image as a global business hub. The program was announced in 2022 in a bid to promote fair hiring practices. Points are awarded for how a candidate’s salary compares with local peers, along
China last month enacted legislation to punish —including with the death penalty — “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists.” The country’s leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), need to be reminded about what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has said and done in the past. They should think about whether those historical figures were also die-hard advocates of Taiwanese independence. The Taiwanese Communist Party was established in the Shanghai French Concession in April 1928, with a political charter that included the slogans “Long live the independence of the Taiwanese people” and “Establish a republic of Taiwan.” The CCP sent a representative, Peng
Japan and the Philippines on Monday signed a defense agreement that would facilitate joint drills between them. The pact was made “as both face an increasingly assertive China,” and is in line with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s “effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea,” The Associated Press (AP) said. The pact also comes on the heels of comments by former US deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, who said at a forum on Tuesday last week that China’s recent aggression toward the Philippines in
The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday announced that the military would hold its annual Han Kuang exercises from July 22 to 26. Military officers said the exercises would feature unscripted war games, and a decentralized command and control structure. This year’s exercises underline the recent reforms in Taiwan’s military as it transitions from a top-down command structure to one where autonomy is pushed down to the front lines to improve decisionmaking and adaptability. Militaries around the world have been observing and studying Russia’s war in Ukraine. They have seen that the Ukrainian military has been much quicker to adapt to