What use is investigation?
I found Presidential Office spokesman Lo Chih-chiang’s (羅智強) statements about the missing documents that compelled 34 interested global citizens to issue a group statement calling the KMT’s handling of the case a “political ploy” quite interesting (“Official hits back at academics’ letter,” April 12, page 1).
According to the article Lo said that “they [the current government] were not aware of any missing documents” at the time of the handover from the administration of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to the incoming administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
So, if they were not aware at the time of the handover, doesn’t that possibly mean that the documents became “missing” after the handover, instead of before it? If the Ma administration was unaware at the time, as they seem to be pretty much all the time, then what can an investigation discover?
ERIC MOORE
Greater Kaohsiung
Taiwan needs to go green
One lesson we can learn from the recent disasters in Japan is that humans, no matter how sophisticated their civilization, still live at the mercy of nature.
The enormous force of earthquakes, tsunamis or nuclear power are simply too overwhelming for humans to rein in. What happened at Fukushima and Chernobyl are apocalyptic signs. They remind us that man cannot and should not play God and tinker with forces of that magnitude.
Unlike earthquakes and tsunamis, which unleash their power instantly and cause tremendous visible damage right away, the release of radiation is slow and invisible and could harm people for thousands of years to come.
Like Japan, Taiwan is situated on geological fault lines. Its nuclear reactors are considered to be some of the most dangerous in the world. A disaster on the scale of that at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant would cripple Taiwan, a price the 23 million people of Taiwan cannot afford.
Taiwan’s best bet is to decommission its nuclear plants and use alternative energy sources. Likewise, the proposed petrochemical plant in central Taiwan would only aggravate environmental deterioration, polluting air and water and, in the long run, increasing the toll on the nation’s health.
The choice for Taiwan is clear — a green island, sustainable for future generations.
YANG JI-CHARNG
Ohio
Appreciating Hoklo
The Taiwanese language (also known as Hoklo) has been used in Taiwan for hundreds of years. It has many unique and interesting features.
A syllable can be used without a vowel (ng, “yellow”). The letter “n” has two sounds, n and nn (tsin, “true” and tsinn, “money”). The tone for the word “mister” (siansinn) is changed when a surname is added. Taiwanese songs are composites of musical and linguistic tones.
Guan, lin and yin are the plural forms of gua (“I”), li (“you”) and yi (“he”), formed by adding “n.” In Taiwanese, “a” is used in front and/or at the end of a noun to represent “lovely” or “little” (Ama, “Grandma,” kaua, “little dog”). It might indicate contempt instead, depending on the context.
An adjective is emphasized by repeating itself (sng, “sour”; sngsng, “very sour”; sngsngsng, “extremely sour”) or by using a repeated adverb (sui tangtang, “very beautiful”; ling, kiki, “very cold”). “Not a half” is used to emphasize “none” (bo puann lang, “not a half person”). Eyes are counted in “lui” like flowers, indicating the beauty of eyes.
Taiwanese has local accents, such as northern and southern. In Yilan and Lotong, rice and egg are pronounced as puinn and nuinn instead of penn and nenn, respectively.
As in English, “have” (u) plus a past participle is used to express a present perfect tense (u lai, “have come”). Taiwanese living in the US often say no car is like no feet — “feet” is pronounced “car” in Taiwanese.
The English “here” means “there” (hia) in Taiwanese. Santa Claus greets people in Taiwanese “Ho, Ho, Ho!” (Good, Good, Good!), and his beard is extremely beardy (hohoho in Taiwanese).
CHARLES HONG
Columbus, Ohio
Pat Gelsinger took the reins as Intel CEO three years ago with hopes of reviving the US industrial icon. He soon made a big mistake. Intel had a sweet deal going with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the giant manufacturer of semiconductors for other companies. TSMC would make chips that Intel designed, but could not produce and was offering deep discounts to Intel, four people with knowledge of the agreement said. Instead of nurturing the relationship, Gelsinger — who hoped to restore Intel’s own manufacturing prowess — offended TSMC by calling out Taiwan’s precarious relations with China. “You don’t want all of
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