National Central University associate professor of Earth sciences Lin Tien-shun (林殿順) on Friday sent a letter of complaint to the Australia-based Global Carbon Capture Storage Institute, after it changed references to Taiwan to “Chinese Taipei” in a 2003 paper of his.
The paper, titled “Cenozoic stratigraphy and subsidence history of the South China Sea Margin in the Taiwan region,” was published in the journal Basin Research in 2003 and was cited 358 times as of yesterday. Lin is the paper’s lead author, in collaboration with two academics from the University of Oxford.
The English-language paper he submitted uses Taiwan as the nation’s name, but those references were changed to “Chinese Taipei,” while “Taiwan Strait” was changed to “Chinese Taipei Strait” on the institute’s Web site, Lin wrote on Facebook on Friday.
Photo: Screen grab from Lin Tien-shun’s Facebook page
He has written to the institute’s chairman of the board, Claude Mandil, to express his strong protest against its political interference in academic research, Lin said.
“These changes are ridiculous, unfair and unacceptable to Taiwanese. I request that you replace ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan,’ as I originally wrote,” Lin wrote in the letter.
“I have been leading the Taiwan carbon storage project for years and visited your institute in Australia a few years ago. One of your former directors also visited Taiwan to exchange ideas on carbon storage,” Lin wrote.
Photo: Screen grab from Lin Tien-shun’s Facebook page
“If the incorrect and inappropriate references are not removed, we will consider stopping exchanges with your institution,” he wrote.
As of press time last night, Lin had not responded to questions from the Taipei Times about whether the institute had replied, but the institute’s link to the paper was invalid yesterday.
The nation should be referred to as “Taiwan,” “Taiwan, ROC” or “the Republic of China” in research funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology, ministry guidelines say.
Academics must request a change of name and inform the ministry’s corresponding agency if they find international journals or conference organizers using incorrect names in reference to the nation in papers, or the papers in question would not be counted as part of their five-year research work when applying for funding, the guidelines say.
The guidelines do not apply to Lin’s case, because the nation’s was correctly named in the original paper, the ministry said.
It called on researchers to file an immediate request for such names to be changed if they encounter similar situations.
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
STAY VIGILANT: When experiencing symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, such as dizziness or fatigue, near a water heater, open windows and doors to ventilate the area Rooftop flue water heaters should only be installed outdoors or in properly ventilated areas to prevent toxic gas from building up, the Yilan County Fire Department said, after a man in Taipei died of carbon monoxide poisoning on Monday last week. The 39-year-old man, surnamed Chen (陳), an assistant professor at Providence University in Taichung, was at his Taipei home for the holidays when the incident occurred, news reports said. He was taking a shower in the bathroom of a rooftop addition when carbon monoxide — a poisonous byproduct of combustion — leaked from a water heater installed in a poorly ventilated
RSS