Climate affecting typhoons
After reading the Taipei Times’ reports (“Chaos as Philippine schools fail to reopen after flood,” Oct. 6, page 1, and “Low-carbon future is world’s only option,” Oct. 10, page 9), I have great sympathy for those victims’ ordeal.
Here in Taiwan, we are not exempt from similar disasters. Weather chaos looks like a natural catastrophe, but it is my belief that the main cause of climate change is global warming. A global deal on climate change is urgently needed to safeguard the world.
Global warming is an alarming wake-up call for all. Its consequences could be the destruction of our planet, as has been depicted in The Day after Tomorrow. Unfortunately, we have continued burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests, which increases greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases cause global warming, resulting in the melting of polar ice caps and rising sea levels. Some countries, such as Bangladesh and the Maldives, could be submerged.
In order to prepare for this crisis, the UN has subscribed to the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to control production of greenhouse gases.
Even though the UN initiated the project to protect the planet, it urgently needs the cooperation of all countries. After all, we have only one Earth, and it’s everybody‘s responsibility to save it.
STEVEN CHANG
Sanchong, Taipei County
Obama deserves prize
While many people were shocked by the news that US President Barack Obama was selected as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, I think that Obama has deserved the prize since the first day of his presidency.
When Obama delivered his inauguration speech, he sent messages of love, hope and peace to the world.
In his other speeches, we learned that he resents people who use violence and respects people who care for the welfare of all mankind. He has called for unity and is reluctant to increase troop levels in Afghanistan.
Obama is the first standing US president to deliver a speech in Cairo, and the first to advocate peace and unity in the Muslim world.
One of the most severe critiques is that the nomination came two weeks after Obama became the US president. I think this issue should be measured against the quality of time spent in office rather than the quantity of time.
It is hard for us to deny that “Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics,” as the Nobel Peace Prize committee said.
MANDY CHOU
Taipei
Reading goes digital
With Amazon’s Kindle e-reader soon to become available in Taiwan, and with many other e-readers coming out soon from various firms, I wonder if in the future the English-speaking world might need a new word to differentiate the kind of reading we do on computer or e-reader screens from the kind of reading we do on paper surfaces.
I have heard a few new terms being bandied about on blogs and the Internet: screen-reading, browsing, skimming, scanning, even “diging” (for digital reading).
Reading is “reading,” of course.
However, we might not be “reading” the new-and-improved newspapers and magazines and “books” of the future. We might be “screening” them. Even the Taipei Times.
CELIA BERTIN
Taipei
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
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