Why Aborigines support KMT
Many outsiders coming to Taiwan find Aboriginal support for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hard to understand. Given the suppression of their cultures, languages and even their names during the five decades of one-party rule, one might imagine their disenchantment with the organ of that rule would be as great or greater than that of the Hoklo Taiwanese, and that Aborigines would be staunch supporters, and even leaders, of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Reading the smug post-election “victory” analysis by Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) of the DPP-allied New Society for Taiwan (“Has Ma done anything right yet?,” Dec.13, page 8), helps to explain why Aborigines do not trust the opposition:
“In Taitung County, the DPP closed the gap from 20,000 votes in 2005 to around 5,000 this time. If we subtract the votes of the county’s Aborigines, who are mostly loyal Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) voters, the DPP would have won in Taitung. This result shows how angry people in Taitung are about the performance of outgoing county commissioner Kuang Li-chen (鄺麗貞), who used to enjoy Ma’s strong support.”
Why not go the whole hog and argue that Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) election as president should not stand because of all the women who voted for his “good looks”? But no; thanks to the influence of former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and others, sexism is taboo in the party, at least in explicit terms. Clearly not racism, however.
Ridding itself of such attitudes would help transform the DPP into a truly liberal party and, as a pleasant side effect, increase its chances of electoral success.
MARK CALTONHILL
Wugu, Taipei County
Man-made climate change
Global warming has been a controversial issue for two decades. Some think global warming is caused mainly by carbon dioxide from the combustion of coal, oil and gas, while others think global warming is no more than a normal part of the natural climate cycle.
Some claim that global cooling has taken place in recent years, but that the data indicating this have been covered up by “global warming scientists.” The expression “global warming” has been replaced by “climate change,” presumably because the latter can cover both global warming and cooling. During global cooling, should we emit more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
The US Environmental Protection Agency recently said that carbon dioxide is hazardous to health. If this is true, people should refrain from drinking beer and carbonated soft drinks. Believe it or not, carbon dioxide now joins alcohol and sugar as unhealthy ingredients in beverages.
The US Department of Energy recently announced that it would award US$334 million to American Electric Power in Columbus, Ohio, to finance about half the cost of the first commercial-scale carbon dioxide capture and storage project for a coal-fired power plant in New Haven, West Virginia. Carbon dioxide will be absorbed from a slipstream of flue gas equivalent to 20 megawatts, compressed and injected underground at a depth of 1.5 miles (2.4km) for storage. If the total cost is US$668 million, the interest is 5 percent per year, the plant lasts for 20 years, and operation is 8,760 hours a year, the roughly estimated cost of the carbon dioxide capture and storage would be US$0.38/kWh. Hopefully this cost can be reduced drastically in future plants. The residential electricity cost is typically US$0.10/kWh.
Regardless of whether global warming is real or not, renewable energies should be developed since fossil fuels take millions of years to form and are limited.
CHARLES HONG
Columbus, Ohio
The international women’s soccer match between Taiwan and New Zealand at the Kaohsiung Nanzih Football Stadium, scheduled for Tuesday last week, was canceled at the last minute amid safety concerns over poor field conditions raised by the visiting team. The Football Ferns, as New Zealand’s women’s soccer team are known, had arrived in Taiwan one week earlier to prepare and soon raised their concerns. Efforts were made to improve the field, but the replacement patches of grass could not grow fast enough. The Football Ferns canceled the closed-door training match and then days later, the main event against Team Taiwan. The safety
There are moments in history when America has turned its back on its principles and withdrawn from past commitments in service of higher goals. For example, US-Soviet Cold War competition compelled America to make a range of deals with unsavory and undemocratic figures across Latin America and Africa in service of geostrategic aims. The United States overlooked mass atrocities against the Bengali population in modern-day Bangladesh in the early 1970s in service of its tilt toward Pakistan, a relationship the Nixon administration deemed critical to its larger aims in developing relations with China. Then, of course, America switched diplomatic recognition
The National Immigration Agency on Tuesday said it had notified some naturalized citizens from China that they still had to renounce their People’s Republic of China (PRC) citizenship. They must provide proof that they have canceled their household registration in China within three months of the receipt of the notice. If they do not, the agency said it would cancel their household registration in Taiwan. Chinese are required to give up their PRC citizenship and household registration to become Republic of China (ROC) nationals, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. He was referring to Article 9-1 of the Act
Strategic thinker Carl von Clausewitz has said that “war is politics by other means,” while investment guru Warren Buffett has said that “tariffs are an act of war.” Both aphorisms apply to China, which has long been engaged in a multifront political, economic and informational war against the US and the rest of the West. Kinetically also, China has launched the early stages of actual global conflict with its threats and aggressive moves against Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan, and its support for North Korea’s reckless actions against South Korea that could reignite the Korean War. Former US presidents Barack Obama
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