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.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
RSS