Local media reported earlier this month that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) criticized President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) for referring to China as a “neighboring country,” saying that this is no different from a “two-state” model and that it amounts to changing the cross-strait “status quo.” I find it quite impossible to understand why civilized Taiwan continues to tolerate the existence of such a deceitful group that believes its own lies. The relationship between Taiwan and China is the relationship between two countries, and neither has any jurisdiction over the other — this is the undeniable “status quo.” Those who believe in the “one China” principle are incapable of accepting this “status quo” because they have been brainwashed. What is the so-called “one China” principle? China’s “one China” says that “Taiwan is part of China.” This is a false statement aimed at legitimizing China’s idea of annexing Taiwan. The KMT’s “one China” says that “the Republic of China (ROC) is China.” That is nothing but a daydream. Unfortunately, this kind of “one China” statement is having a huge negative impact on the international community, including my home country, Japan. For example, when most Japanese media and people talk about China and the US, they say “China and the US,” but when they talk about China and Taiwan, they say “the [Chinese] mainland and Taiwan.” No one seems to think that “mainland” is wrong, which only goes to show that the average Japanese thinks that the relationship between Taiwan and China is a domestic relationship. For this reason, I have for many years requested that the Japanese media stop using “mainland” to refer to Taiwan. I am not sure if it is this campaign that has borne fruit, but I have rarely seen this word used in recent years. However, one media outlet still insists on using
When John Kerry was announced as the US special presidential envoy for climate by the administration of US President Joe Biden, he said that his cause would not be subordinated to any of the other critical issues in US-China relations, nor would it be used to trade off another area of concern. In a March speech, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US’ relationship with China “will be competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be, and adversarial when it must be.” However, Beijing rejected the idea of compartmentalization. Lu Xiang (呂祥) of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said: “US officials would be too naive if they believe China will accept dialogue and cooperation with no basis for equality and mutual respect.” Kerry later learned that China meant what it said, and the Biden administration might have to eat his words. He traveled to Tianjin in northeastern China, which now seems to be the designated holding place for US supplicants seeking meetings with Chinese counterparts. Kerry asked to meet with Chinese Special Envoy on Climate Change Xie Zhenhua (解振華). However, although Kerry flew almost 24,000km for the meeting, it never took place in person. Instead, Xie spoke with him by video link from Beijing, a call that just as easily could have been handled by Kerry in Washington. China did not say the unorthodox arrangement was related to COVID-19 concerns, and it is widely seen as a diplomatic snub, perhaps as payback because the Biden administration shunted off the first high-level diplomatic meeting with Blinken and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to Anchorage, Alaska, instead of Washington. Xie did have a face-to-face meeting in Beijing with US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in July, where he advised her that US-China relations were in a state of “deadlock”
The Roman Pantheon, rebuilt by Roman emperor Hadrian between 117 and 138, was given to pope Boniface IV by emperor Phocas of the Eastern Roman Empire in 609. Boniface converted it to a church, the Basilica of St Mary and the Martyrs, which is now the name of the building. Since the Renaissance, it has been the site of several important burials, including those of the painters Raphael and Annibale Carracci. The Parisian Pantheon, built by Louis XV of France and intended as a church dedicated to Saint Genevieve, Paris’ patron saint, was completed in 1790, in the early days of the French revolution. The revolutionary leadership transformed the building from a church into a pantheon to serve as the burial place of the famous dead of the nation. It has gone through many changes over the years, and it is now the burial grounds of France’s most respected historical figures, such as Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Marie Curie and Alexandre Dumas. The Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall was completed and opened in 1980. In traditional Chinese architecture, the stone carving that runs through the center of the steps leading up to the memorial hall only appears in imperial palaces or temples. The main gate has five openings, six pillars and 11 roofs, the same style of design that was used at old imperial burial grounds, and the highest honor in traditional Chinese architecture. The octagonal cupola with glazed roof tiles, which emulates the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, is yet another piece of evidence of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) fawning personality cult during the period of strongman rule. It is flabbergasting that Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) would place this overly flattering, somewhat imperial, personality-cult-inducing design pandering to 5,000 years of imperial history adjacent to the Boai Special Zone, with all of its
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One evening in July, Stephanie Felts was lying in bed trying to process simultaneous climate disasters all over the world. From a crushing Canadian heat wave to US wildfires and China floods, the drumbeat triggered memories of a close call her family had with a raging inferno when they lived in Salt Lake City, Utah, a few years ago. “I just realized, OK, this is as good as it will ever be — not because we can’t do anything to make things better, but because we just won’t,” said Felts, 43, who works in financial services and now lives near Atlanta, Georgia. “It makes you feel like: ‘Hey, the apocalypse is starting.’” She is not alone. More people are finding it hard to cope with a growing sense that governments and businesses will not do enough to slow climate change. To make matters worse, there is the knowledge that even if humanity suddenly unified in a historic shift to renewable energy, it is too late to avoid the grim consequences already baked in. Perhaps not since the depths of the Cold War has such a profound, widespread despair for the future emerged. Whether one calls it climate anxiety, ecological grief or something else, deep concern about climate change is increasingly affecting many people’s everyday life. A majority of US adults already say they are somewhat or extremely anxious about the effect the climate crisis has on their mental health, a poll from the American Psychiatric Association found. That is on top of the stress of trying to protect against the COVID-19 pandemic. However, while the pandemic might recede in the coming months or years, the atmospheric changes wrought by burning fossil fuels will remain for a long time to come. As this reality dawns on more people, mental health professionals all over the world find themselves
The northern hemisphere summer this year has brought a series of record-breaking natural disasters. The list — which includes intense flooding in China and western Europe, heat waves and drought in North America, extreme drought in Africa, and wildfires in the sub-arctic and southern Europe — is long, growing and global. This is the beginning of climate chaos and it delivers a stark message: We can no longer rely on historical patterns to inform predictions of future natural disasters. Notably, the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) more clearly attributes extreme weather events to human influence on the climate, pointing out that fossil fuels have caused 86 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the past decade. For decades, a small number of extremely rich and powerful private and state-owned firms have profited greatly from selling these fuels while deceiving the public and influencing governments to forestall political action to tackle climate change. Big Oil’s strategies to preserve its business model for as long as possible are well documented. Facebook ads promoting their “climate friendliness” and “green gas” were viewed 431 million times last year alone. Such corporate deceit is especially problematic for nations in the Global South, which are striving to improve their economic security and risk locking themselves into dirty infrastructure assets that will become stranded. In fact, every region has high renewable energy potential. International collaboration and support, particularly finance from the Global North, is essential to realizing it. The lack of an international mechanism directly addressing fossil fuels means that the industry has continued to expand significantly, even since the 2015 Paris climate agreement was signed. The UN’s Production Gap Report says that planned fossil fuel production in 2030 is currently 120 percent greater than would be allowed under a 1.5?C carbon budget. Implementing these plans would threaten to trigger
Financial products and services have been rapidly evolving, rendering the industry more complex, but the public has failed to keep up. People’s lack of knowledge has led to disorder in the markets and a distrust of the financial players, as well as fraud. Regulators mete out stiff penalties to those profiting from consumer ignorance, but people need to become better educated about financial services. Taiwanese have a high level of education, but the nation scores low on financial literacy, with relatively poor skills in managing personal finances, budgeting and investing. Media reports tell about young people who cannot manage their finances well enough to pay back their student loans, people plagued by credit card debt through ignorance about revolving interest rates and older people placing pensions into whatever insurance policy their sales agent recommends. Being financially literate means having the knowledge to make essential financial decisions, but a lack of financial education among Taiwanese continues to land cases of financial fraud in the headlines, whether they involve people purchasing investment-linked insurance policies and derivatives, investing in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, or buying shares in fraudulent, unlisted companies. The “Taiwan Financial Lives” survey released on Oct. 30 last year by the Taiwan Academy of Banking and Finance found that 37 percent of respondents felt they only had “a little understanding” of financial services and products, while 36 percent felt they “completely” did not understand. Describing their overall financial literacy, 32.2 percent believed theirs to be “low,” while 45.5 percent said theirs was “extremely low.” While more Taiwanese are embracing the diversity of wealth management tools and products available, they are finding that simply leveraging their knowledge and life experience to navigate the financial industry is not enough — financial literacy is key. A survey released in June last year by HSBC Bank found that only 20
WASHINGTON [Special Commentary]: It is just a teensy-weensy change, a change of one little syllable. It is barely noticeable unless you’re watching really carefully: The Tai-“pei” Representative Office in Washington, D.C. (TECRO) could soon change its name — just ever so very slightly — to Tai-“wan” Representative Office. The office’s “TECRO” initials would remain the same. It will be only a symbolic change. London’s Financial Times reported last week that such a change may soon be coming. The timing was a bit awkward, though. The FT’s report came out on the very same day that Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) and Taiwan’s national security team were in nearby colonial Annapolis a few minutes from D.C., where he was holding his regular discreet “Special Channel” talks with top Biden White House, Pentagon and State Department officials. These “Special Channel” meetings have been a fixture of Washington-Taipei diplomacy for at least twenty-five years. They became more frequent and higher-level in the Trump Administration. In fact, unlike most Trump policies, the Biden Administration has preserved the Trump White House’s close ties with Taiwan’s foreign policy and defense leaders. The FT’s news was even more awkward because President Joe Biden spoke with Chinese State Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) for about an hour-and-a-half late Thursday night, September 9 (Friday morning, the 10th, for Chairman Xi). In fact, one suspects that Chairman Xi knew about Minister Joseph Wu’s presence in the Washington area and timed his call for maximum awkwardness. In truth, President Biden had asked Xi for the phone call some time ago. I surmise that, since Biden’s press secretary didn’t mention a call during her Thursday press briefing, it is likely that Xi agreed to the phone conversation on very short notice. Perhaps the Chairman believed he would have an advantage if the the call took place during
Although 20 years have passed since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, unconventional methods of attack continue to threaten global peace and security. As a woman serving in the armed forces, I sincerely urge everyone to recognize that terror attacks, like war, cannot go away forever. While seeking peaceful solutions, people must also understand the nature of war. A poll released on Thursday by the Mainland Affairs Council showed that 83.9 percent of respondents support a sentiment that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) posted on Facebook on Aug. 28: “I want to tell everyone that Taiwan’s only option is to make ourselves stronger, more united and more resolute in our determination to protect ourselves.” A similar percentage said they support the government’s efforts to bolster national security and the nation’s capabilities to defend its sovereignty and democracy. This also reflects the meaning of “national defense by the people as a whole,” that the military and civilians are united in their determination to defend the nation. Since humans first appeared, conflicts have occurred — the most serious being war — but a “science of war” has yet to be formulated that could cover its every aspect. Neither is there a sophisticated and rigorous theoretical system of war, because war is not the norm and innumerable variables make it difficult to control. Many people eagerly air their views about wars or conflicts, but no one can infer or predetermine how a war will develop, or when and where the next conflict will break out. Even for a major power such as the US, the war in Afghanistan dragged on through the administrations of four presidents, and there has been much debate over when would have been the best time to end that war. Joseph Nye, the US political scientist and expert
Foreigners’ unequal rights I am writing you this e-mail in the hope that you can bring it to the attention of politicians in Taiwan, who are deciding what is humaine and what is not. Like me, you learned some great news for families in Taiwan: The borders have been reopened to foreign spouses. Sure, a day full of happiness for a lot of couples who can reunite after so many months of illogical rules, which considered foreigners a threat, a potential importer of COVID-19 — but not if you held a residency card and, later, if you were a student. However, what is clearly mentioned in the Centers for Disease Control update is that this measure only concerns Republic of China nationals. Married foreigners like me — living in Taiwan, working here and paying taxes here — are left behind. What is this supposed to mean? Are our spouses more dangerous than other people’s? If this measure was intended to care about human rights or show compassion on humanitarian grounds, are we not considered human, too? This is clearly a bad message sent to all foreigners here: We do not count as much as others. I am an electronic engineer, I hold a PhD, and I have skills that are lacking here in Taiwan and came here to work for a small Taiwanese company, to help them grow. Now, five months after my arrival, I am considering returning to Europe. Not because of my job, not because of this beautiful island, but because some politicians decided that my wife cannot come because I am a foreigner. We cannot plan what will happen in the near future; we cannot plan anything for our family or for my wife’s future employment — this is just sad. As you have published articles in support of couples separated by these border restrictions, I hope that
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Foreign workers and tourists stranded in Cambodia during the COVID-19 pandemic have been trafficked and forced to work in sophisticated Chinese-run online scams, a Thomson Reuters Foundation investigation has found. In interviews, nine trafficking victims said they were lured by social media adverts promising well-paid jobs in call centers. Instead, they ended up in shuttered hotel casinos and guarded compounds where they had their passports confiscated before being put to work online. The victims, mainly from Africa and Asia, said they were ordered to create fake profiles on Tinder, WhatsApp and Facebook to entice people into fraudulent investment schemes involving cryptocurrencies, foreign exchange and shares. Those who objected or performed poorly were subjected to violence and threats, victims said. Mary, a teacher from the Philippines, said she miscarried while locked in a room without food and water for three days. “We were desperate,” said Mary, who was three months pregnant and four months out of work when she responded in July to a Facebook post offering call center jobs to English-speaking foreigners. “We thought it was real work, but it became a living nightmare,” said the 26-year-old, whose name has been changed to protect her identity. Approached for comment on the nine trafficking cases that the Thomson Reuters Foundation uncovered, a spokesperson for the Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said: “We also have heard about this before, but until now we still do not have any evidence.” Cambodian police have previously carried out raids and deported hundreds of Chinese on suspicion of telecoms scams. However, organized crime experts said police have struggled to stamp out online crime because of corruption and weak law enforcement. A Facebook spokesperson said the company would investigate profiles and groups passed on by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. A spokesperson for WhatsApp said that users should use tools in the app to report suspicious activity. A Tinder
For those who study the history of the Cold War, Washington’s new initiative with London and Canberra — known by its acronym AUKUS — has eerie echoes of an intelligence-sharing agreement signed 75 years ago. This agreement is now more commonly known as the Five Eyes partnership. When the seven-page full text of UKUSA agreement — as it was originally known — was finally released in June 2010, Time magazine called it one of the Cold War’s most important documents that “reveals one of the foundations of the special relationship the UK and the US still hold dear.” However, unlike the Cold War-era UKUSA agreement, the AUKUS alliance has a strong security and technology dimension. It comes at a time when many Western capitals are recalibrating their relations with China. Until recently, Australia, for example, had insisted on a “hedging” strategy in navigating changing regional dynamics. At one point, Canberra withdrew itself from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a strategic alliance with Japan, the US and India that is also known as the “Quad.” “This is about investing in our greatest source of strength, our alliances and updating them to better meet the threats of today and tomorrow,” US President Joe Biden said late on Wednesday. “It’s about connecting America’s existing allies and partners in new ways.” Yet, he left little doubt which power AUKUS was supposed to aim at. After his nine-minute joint announcement with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, reporters asked Biden whether he told Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) about the planned alliance when he spoke to him the week before and whether AUKUS is “all about China.” Neysun Mahboubi, a China expert at the University of Pennsylvania, said: “A step like this conveys to Beijing that the US is using all its clout to set up new
China’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) has been met with skepticism. Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao (王文濤) had submitted a formal membership application to the CPTPP’s depository state, New Zealand, and had a telephone call with New Zealand Minister of Agriculture Damien O’Connor to discuss follow-up work, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced late on Thursday. Beijing’s move is not surprising, given that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) told an APEC summit in November last year that China would “favorably consider joining” the trade pact. However, the tricky part of the move is its timing after tensions between the US and China increased once more. On Sept. 9, US President Joe Biden called Xi — their second phone conversation since Biden took office. The fruitless call was followed two days later by a Financial Times report titled “Washington risks Beijing ire over proposal to rename Taiwan’s US office.” On Wednesday, the US, the UK and Australia jointly announced the creation of an enhanced security partnership called AUKUS, which would allow Canberra to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. China’s CPTPP bid has been interpreted by commentators as a “symbolic” step to counter the creation of the security partnership, with many questioning the communist regime’s willingness to reform its economy to meet the trade pact’s standards. Beijing denies a link between the events. “China’s bid to join the CPTPP faces trade friction with Australia and territorial disputes with Vietnam,” a Nikkei Asia article said on Thursday. “China is exceedingly unlikely to actually be able to join the CPTPP. The agreement by design includes high standards that go far beyond tariff removal, including regulations guiding market access, labor rights, and government procurement,” an article in The Diplomat said on Friday. There is also concern that even if China joined the pact, it might try
As I wrIte articles in my old age, a thought comes to mind: Will this be the last one? The older I am, the more persistent the thought, but I have still written quite a few short pieces and published them in Juebiji (Collection of Final Writings, 絕筆集). The plural form of “writings” and “final” might seem contradictory, but at my age, every time I pick up a pen, it feels as if it is the last time. During the second half of my life, I was thrust into the Chinese world, utterly unprepared. I had to learn to speak, listen and write anew. As it was too late to learn from the ground up, I had to resort to using English-Chinese, French-Japanese and Japanese-English dictionaries, listening to other people, radio, television and movies, and reading every publication, magazine and book I could lay my hands on. Whether I understood or not, I devoured it all. As for Mandarin, I was barely able to speak “Taiwanese-style Mandarin” in its variety of accents from all over China — it all depended on who I was learning from — and I could manage a so-so understanding of Mainlanders speaking in their local accents. Writing was different: No matter what I did, I could not free myself from Japanese grammar and phrasing. After World War II, the faculty at National Taiwan University’s College of Law was in constant flux, and people were frequently replaced. It was not until Sa Meng-wu (薩孟武) became dean that the situation stabilized. It was the first time anyone had heard of Sa, and we knew nothing of his background or where he came from. He had studied in Japan and had a good understanding of which schools were Japan’s best. When he heard that Liu Ching-jui (劉慶瑞) and I had graduated from Japan’s
The tender for a planned Terminal 3 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport was finally awarded on Aug. 30. Since the tender for constructing the 640,000m2 terminal opened in 2018 — a combined tender for civil, electrical and mechanical engineering — the project has gone through many failed tenders, budget increases, redesigns and deadline extensions, and the tender has even been split into two parts. The civil engineering part was finally awarded on March 30, and the electrical and mechanical engineering parts last month. The new deadline for completing the terminal is June 2026 — five-and-a-half years behind the original deadline in December last year. The main tender for this project — the design — was awarded in 2015 to a collaboration of British architectural firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and CECI Engineering Consultants Inc Taiwan. The design — which was the top choice of 11 attending tender committee members, including six foreign experts or academics — has a wave-shaped roof, roof gutters, glass skylights, large glass curtain walls and a streamlined ceiling with 130,000 petal-shaped aluminum tubes for sound absorption. People have praised the design, calling it stunning. Who knew that a nightmare was soon to follow. According to the bidding documents submitted by the two firms, the estimated cost of the terminal’s main building was NT$22.12 billion (US$797.5 million at the current exchange rate), which is within the budget announced in the airport operator’s tender notice. The estimate’s items included engineering costs and scheduling, together accounting for 15 percent of the assessment points. According to tender rules, if a project’s estimated costs exceed the budget, the bidder will lose points. Bidders usually use the announced budget as orientation for their cost estimate, and the selection committee usually does not spend much time on figuring out whether the estimate is realistic; as
It is almost 20 years since mother tongue education was implemented in Taiwan’s elementary schools, and teaching materials and systems have since progressed. The Development of National Languages Act (國家語言發展法) stipulates that mother tongue education would become compulsory at junior-high and high school from next year — a giant step forward for the nation’s mother tongue instruction. At the moment, the biggest concern is that there might be a shortage of teachers. Although there are Hoklo — also known as Taiwanese — departments at universities, not many people devote themselves to mother tongue education after they graduate. The first mother tongue instructors started teaching in elementary schools in 2002, after passing the Ministry of Education’s language proficiency test, and more entered the field later through a university certification system. However, the mother tongue instructor job market was only able to meet the needs of elementary schools, and many instructors have quit or retired from teaching in the past two decades. Many teachers, civil groups, community colleges and promotion centers have been working hard to offer mother tongue classes, and to encourage students to take National Taiwan Normal University’s mother tongue certificate test so that they can serve as instructors at public schools. Still, the number of students getting the certificate is insufficient to meet the demand of junior-high and high schools. Hopefully the ministry will discuss with all Hoklo departments about providing certificate courses for Hoklo teachers, which would help meet high schools’ demand for instructors. Otherwise, many schools will find it difficult to recruit qualified teachers next year. The ministry should therefore come up with comprehensive complementary measures before the problem arises. Should there be a shortage of teachers, it would hurt the good intention behind the Development of National Languages Act, and it would not be beneficial to mother tongue education. How
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US President Joe Biden campaigned on a promise to restore US leadership in the global fight against climate change, and followed up with a dizzying number of executive orders and lofty targets to slash emissions. Yet nine months into his presidency, political, legal and economic obstacles have forced his administration to make several moves in support of fossil-fuel development at home and abroad, and raised questions about whether the Democrat is able to meet his commitments to clean energy. Setbacks include a judge overturning the administration’s effort to block new oil and gas leasing on federal lands, forcing it to offer millions of new acres for drilling, and rising retail gas prices that have led the White House to publicly ask the global oil cartel, OPEC, to boost production. Most importantly, heavy political opposition has forced the administration to put its centerpiece climate proposals, which would help deliver an April pledge to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, into a budget reconciliation bill that has an uncertain future in the closely divided US Congress. Democrats, who hope to pass the bill by the end of this month, are already talking about paring back investments and targets. The stakes could not be higher. If Washington fails to deliver ahead of a climate summit in November in Glasgow, Scotland, other global powers, including the world’s top greenhouse gas emitter, China, would be reluctant to slash their own emissions. “If that [climate-related legislation] went down before Glasgow, it would be a big mess for Biden and his administration,” said Bill Hare, director and CEO of the non-profit organization Climate Analytics. A Biden administration official said that legal and economic realities have compelled certain administration moves, and touted Biden’s progress so far. “We can do two things at once: achieve our climate goals while ensuring the energy transition is one that takes
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