Bullying, dishonesty mar nuclear discussion

Nuclear power advocate Huang Shih-hsiu (黃士修), who initiated next month’s referendum question about restarting the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮), is behaving like a hoodlum. During a televised debate with Taiwan Power Co’s Nuclear Power Division head Hsu Yung-hui (許永輝), who opposes the initiative, Huang said: “You should watch your mouth.” “Are your affairs in order?” Hsu later asked. Huang’s apparent threat to Hsu and his family has rightly caused a stink, but Hsu’s reply deserves equal attention. “You have never so much as turned a wrench inside any of Taiwan’s nuclear power plants, nor have you escorted colleagues through them,” Hsu said. “Don’t tell me how much you love the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant,” Hsu added. “If you are saying that you want me to expose my family and other Taiwanese families to the risk of radiological contamination, I’m telling you I won’t do it!” Hsu’s reply should be reflected upon by pan-blue camp politicians who embrace nuclear power without being able to guarantee its safety, as well as selfish “not in my backyard” individuals who support nuclear power so long as the waste is not stored in their communities. As Huang tried to demonstrate that spent nuclear fuel is “not harmful,” he rather bizarrely compared the spent fuel stored on Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) to the fictional Japanese Gundam battle robots called “mobile suits.” Huang has criticized the residents of Orchid Island for “irrationally” claiming that their health has been harmed by radioactive material stored on the island. Huang has said that the island’s residents only oppose the storage facility because they are “angling for compensation.” Huang’s level of ignorance is truly astonishing. The thorniest aspect of spent nuclear fuel is radiation dosage and radiation half-life. High-level radioactive waste — spent nuclear fuel — has a half-life

By Chin Ching 秦靖

EDITORIAL CARTOON

EDITORIAL CARTOON

In Xi Jinping’s China the past is the future

History lives from telling stories. An ancient culture such as China’s has many to offer. Much can be learned from them: about the country, about how it looks today and perhaps also how this new world power will look like in the future. Deeply rooted in China’s history and mythology, for example, is the novel The Journey to the West (西遊記), dating from the Tang Dynasty and written down in the 16th century. It recounts a wealth of adventures experienced by four travelers in search of Buddhist enlightenment in what was then Central Asia and India. This is where caravans connected the East and the West on what Europeans later called the Silk Road. It is literary fun, an entertaining kaleidoscope that was meant to explain and make the wondrous fascination of the foreign West comprehensible to the people of China. This is where Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 2012 and president for life since 2013, picked up with his great project — a “new Silk Road,” or the Belt and Road Initiative, stretching from Beijing across Central Asia to the West and spanning the seas. “I hear the camel bells ringing and see the smoke of the oasis fires rising,” Xi said when he presented Beijing’s idea in Kazakhstan in 2013 to spend a lot of money to build roads and railways to better link the countries of the world. Unlike in the era of the Journey to the West, China is no longer curiously seeking out the wonders of the distant world and the wisdom of foreign lands. Instead, it is building railway lines as far away as Duisburg, Germany; Porto, Portugal; and London, dredging ports in Sri Lanka, Djibouti and Piraeus, Greece, and paving roads in Montenegro, Tanzania and Pakistan. The purpose

By Volker Stanzel

EDITORIAL: Credibility at stake over LNG plant

The advice of the European Chamber of Commerce Taiwan (ECCT) that the government improve its energy policies is a timely reminder ahead of a referendum on Dec. 18. The ECCT on Thursday released its annual position papers, which urged the government to improve energy transformation, talent recruitment and the nation’s English language environment, among other areas. It cannot be a coincidence that the publication was released on the same day that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) traveled to Taoyuan’s Datan Borough (大潭) to inspect construction of the nation’s third liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal. Her visit has been widely interpreted as an attempt to counter a referendum question about relocating the terminal’s construction to protect a nearby algal reef. The ECCT said it welcomes Taiwan’s commitment to reaching net zero emissions by 2050, but added that the nation needs a comprehensive energy transformation road map that includes “much more ambitious annual targets for the power sector, industry, mobility and buildings.” It also urged the government to speed up the roll-out of renewable energy generation by removing “already tough-to-meet local content requirements,” streamline procedures for renewable energy projects, and implement a holistic grid and energy storage plan. As of the end of last year, renewable sources only accounted for 5.8 percent of the electricity generated or purchased by Taiwan Power Co, while gas-fired power comprised 40.8 percent, followed by coal-fired power at 36.4 percent and nuclear energy at 12.7 percent, while other sources made up 4.3 percent, the company’s Web site shows. While the government has vowed to produce 20 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2025, it is a questionable goal, especially as there are only four years remaining. The government in December 2018 abolished Article 95-1 of the Electricity Act (電業法), which said that all nuclear power generation facilities should halt operations

Advantage Taiwan over Peng fallout

Among the voices expressing concern for Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai (彭帥) over the past two weeks, one was barely audible — that of her long-time former doubles partner Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇). Following their defeat in the WTA Finals championship match in Mexico on Nov. 18, Taiwan’s Hsieh and her Belgian partner Elise Mertens fielded questions via a Zoom call. Chinese state media had just released an incredibly suspicious e-mail, purportedly from Peng, and Canadian tennis Web site Open Court broached the issue. With the entire tennis world chiming in, seeking Hsieh’s opinion seemed obvious. However, the Web site’s reporter prefaced her question with an acknowledgement of the issue’s sensitivity. If there is anything more controversial than a Chinese celebrity commenting on Chinese politics, it is a Taiwanese one doing so. Asked whether she had tried to contact Peng, Hsieh said she had been busy with visa issues and that it was Mertens’ birthday. “I hope she’s OK,” was the best she could offer on her former partner. Given the reportedly fractured relationship between the pair, Hsieh’s reticence is understandable. After their 2013 doubles title at Wimbledon, Hsieh was asked what this first Grand Slam trophy meant for Taiwan. “Taiwan is not a country,” Peng snapped as Hsieh tried to answer. During their appearances in China, they were feted as the “Chinese world No. 1 duo.” Yet, in keeping with the contradictory nature of its statements and actions on Taiwan, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attempted to lure Hsieh into its fold with a US$1.63 million offer to switch citizenship shortly after the Wimbledon success. This was not an isolated tactic. Five-time major-winning golfer Yani Tseng (曾雅妮) was also approached over a passport switch, while former nine-ball pool world champ Wu Jiaqing (吳珈慶) took the plunge, obtaining Chinese citizenship in 2011. Tap-ups are the tip of the iceberg when

By James Baron

US should focus on Taiwan’s virtue

In edging toward Taiwan, the US should make liberal democracy the focus of its rhetoric rather than dangling the possibility of supporting the nation’s independence. The administration of US President Joe Biden has failed to send a clear message on the US’ Taiwan policy. For years, the matter of whether the US supports Taiwanese independence has been controversial. After the virtual summit between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) earlier this month, the question has continued to haunt. One day after the summit, Biden told reporters in New Hampshire that Washington would not endorse Taiwanese independence. “I said that they have to decide, ‘they,’ Taiwan. Not us. And we are not encouraging independence, we’re encouraging that they do exactly what the Taiwan Act requires,” Biden said. “It’s independent. It makes its own decisions,” he added later. US officials downplayed Biden’s statement by saying that Washington does not support Taiwan’s independence and opposes unilateral actions to change the status quo. However, this is not the first time that Biden has confused pundits with his remarks on Taiwan. When asked last month whether the US would defend Taiwan in an attack launched by Beijing, Biden said: “Yes, we have a commitment to do that.” He made a similar comment in August, and in both cases, the White House had to clarify that Washington’s policy toward Taiwan had not changed. Biden’s gaffes came at a delicate time, as China has become more assertive toward the possibility of Taiwan becoming independent. The US’ attempts to encourage or support independence “are extremely dangerous, just like playing with fire,” Xi was quoted as saying in the state-run Global Times. Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said that Washington should not underestimate Beijing’s menacing language, as “Xi Jinping’s rise as the paramount figure within the communist

By Huynh Tam Sang

Ban on feed additive is like a trade sanction

International trade is a fundamental basis of Taiwan’s success. However, when Taiwanese talk about international trade, they often think of semiconductor and industrial products without understanding the significance of farming products in international trade and politics. Under such circumstances, those in the opposition camp have been able to act like the “boxers” (義和團) in the Boxer Rebellion at the end of the Qing Dynasty, pushing for a ban on imports of pork from Taiwan’s key ally, the US. Meanwhile, Vietnam has announced plans to lower its “most favored nation” tariff on imported frozen pork from 15 to 10 percent starting on July 1. This development demonstrates the importance of the pork trade in US politics. Immediately after Vietnam made the announcement, the US National Pork Producers Council commended it while taking credit for the move, saying that Vietnam had been a priority target of the council’s lobbying. During the administration of former US president Donald Trump, the US continually questioned Vietnam about exchange rate manipulation, accusing it of creating an export advantage through the depreciation of its currency, and was planning to impose sanctions against the Vietnamese government. The council spoke up for Vietnam, calling on the Trump administration not to impose sanctions on Vietnam, as it is a major market for US pork. However, the council then seized the opportunity to take credit and seek rewards from Vietnam, while demanding that the US trade representative pressure Vietnam lower its tariff on imported US pork. As a result, Trump temporarily suspended US sanctions against the Vietnamese government. Such give-and-take conditions led to Vietnam lowering its tariff on imported US pork. Vietnam’s demand for pork imports has largely increased due to an outbreak of African swine fever in the country. Even so, it only imported 25,000 tonnes of US pork last year at a value

By Tommy Lin 林逸民

EDITORIAL CARTOON

EDITORIAL CARTOON

‘They become our family’: The US farming couple rescuing desperate Afghans

The US soldiers called them “Caroline’s guys.” They transformed farms in a war zone — risking their lives for the program she built, sharing her belief that something as simple as apple trees could change the world. The university-educated Afghans helped turn land in an overgrazed, drought-stricken and impoverished region in eastern Afghanistan into verdant gardens and orchards that still feed local families today. In the process, the 12 agricultural specialists, all traditional Afghan men, formed a deep, unexpected bond with their boss, a US woman who worked as a US Department of Agriculture adviser in the region for two years. Now Caroline Clarin is trying to save them one by one, doing it all from the 1910 Minnesota farmhouse she shares with her wife, drawing from retirement funds to help a group of men who share her love of farming. Clarin has helped get five of her former employees and their families into the US since 2017, while her wife has helped them rebuild their lives there. Since the Taliban seized power in August, texts from those remaining have grown more urgent, and Clarin said she can “feel the panic increasing” as winter approaches and food shortages grow. She has stepped up her efforts, working endless hours, diligently tracking their visa applications. She calls senators to apply pressure so they do not languish like the thousands of other visa applications in the backlogged system for Afghans who supported the US government during the long war. She is driven by fear her team would be killed by the Taliban, although the new government has promised not to retaliate against Afghans who helped the US. She also wants to give them a future. Since US forces withdrew, more than 70,000 Afghans went to the US and thousands are languishing at US military bases as resettlement agencies struggle

By Julie Watson

EDITORIAL: Focus on social roots of violence

Minister of the Interior Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) on Monday said the police would start keeping records on people with criminal records found carrying baseball bats, knives or other weapons in their vehicles. Officials said the decision was in response to a recent spate of violent attacks, including an assault with a baseball bat on a 19-year-old student in Taichung after he sideswiped a car, and the stabbing of a convenience store clerk after the employee asked a customer to wear a mask. While the police should be aware of who has weapons in their cars — and remove those weapons if the individual has a criminal record — preventing criminal violence requires a multi-tiered approach. In an article on The Conversation Web site regarding knife violence in the UK, the author lists adverse environments for children to grow up in, with austerity as the No. 1 cultivator of violence. The author cites research showing that when home, school and recreational environments “fail to nurture [children], protect them and help them to achieve their potential,” they become “disaffected, fearful and vengeful.” Overwhelmingly, those who engage in violence as adults come from broken families that fail to teach the skills needed to cope with stress and adversity, and to develop productive social relationships. The WHO has a fact sheet listing promising youth violence prevention programs, including “life skills and social development programs designed to help children and adolescents manage anger, resolve conflict, and develop the necessary social skills to solve problems,” and programs to teach positive parenting skills, among others. Experts have also long said that group-oriented activities with a focus on cooperation and team spirit — for example, sports or volunteer activities such as beach cleanups — help build confidence and a sense of responsibility and belonging. Extracurricular activities in Taiwan, like

All eyes on KMT Chairman Chu

The fines levied against Far Eastern Group in China continue, with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office saying that the total has reached NT$2 billion (US$71.85 million). There are two officially sanctioned reasons coming out of Beijing to explain the fines. The first is that the group contravened environmental and fire safety laws. The second is that Taiwanese independence supporters operating in China are guilty of “biting the hand that feeds them.” Clearly, this is no longer simply a question of how the company has been operating. Beijing is telling Taiwanese firms in China that it is no longer willing to accommodate political transgressions. With such a presumptuous attack — untethered from a rules-based market — on Taiwanese companies investing in China, political parties in Taiwan should stand as one in the face of this affront from a foreign government. Unfortunately, in even this most fundamental of tests, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) has been found wanting. Chu’s “no comment” is more fitting for someone with no skin in the game. His “hope” that companies abide by local laws and regulations is blind to the objective truth of what has happened, and places expectations on Taiwanese companies operating in China far higher than those he places on the Chinese government itself. His behavior is akin to hitting wayward children for the sake of appeasing unimpressed onlookers. His stance betrays a lack of courage, political commitment, economic plan, trade policy and cross-strait strategy, not to mention a lack of an ethical command. China has already said that the Far Eastern case is just an appetizer, so if the KMT cannot get a grip on its chairman, its central command might as well call it a day. After all, China is now using information about political contributions that are perfectly legal and transparent in Taiwan to settle scores with businesses

By Tzou Jiing-wen 鄒景雯

ASEAN is core to Southbound policy

A number of like-minded countries have placed ASEAN and its centrality at the core of their Indo-Pacific strategies. Likewise, Taiwan has emphasized the importance of Southeast Asian countries for its own policy vision. The emergence of the Indo-Pacific construct has provided further thrust for Taiwan to expand its external engagement. This complements Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy. There is little doubt that Taiwan’s policy framework and external outreach to the Southeast Asian region has been an encouraging story. This is one reason that when President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) introduced her administration’s flagship proposal, the New Southbound Policy, she included the 10 ASEAN members as well. Since the 1990s, and more precisely under former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), Southeast Asia has been an important region for Taiwan. Proximity and cultural affinity between Taiwan and some countries in Southeast Asia made it easier for Taiwan to establish robust economic ties. Taiwanese businesspeople who moved to Southeast Asian countries in the 1980s have also contributed to the advancement of these ties. The bond with Southeast Asia has only grown stronger in the past three decades. Taiwan has advanced relations with ASEAN members in a wide range of areas, including the four pillars of the New Southbound Policy: promoting economic collaboration; conducting talent exchanges; sharing resources; and forging regional links. While Taiwan is slowly moving toward expanding ties with the other New Southbound Policy countries, all four pillars are well-placed in Taiwan’s relations with ASEAN members. Strengthening commercial ties with the thriving economies of the region has been an area of utmost importance for Taiwan. With the approximately US$90 billion in two-way trade, ASEAN is one of Taiwan’s largest trading partners. ASEAN members have also been some of the biggest beneficiaries of Taiwan’s foreign direct investment. Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam account for majority of Taiwan’s commercial exchanges

By Alan H. Yang and Sana Hashmi

Stalking legislation plagued by ambiguity

Now that the Legislative Yuan has passed the Stalking and Harassment Prevention Act (跟蹤騷擾防制法), to be put into effect six months after it is approved by the president, there will finally be a legal basis and a mechanism for dealing with people engaged in long-term stalking behavior. The problem is that the definition of stalking is too vague, and this creates difficulty in enforcing the law. In the legislation, so long as a suspected stalker does not enter private property and has not made any verbal or physical threats, the person being stalked can only ask the police to intervene based on the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法). If the stalker does not desist from the behavior, they can only be fined less than NT$3,000 or be admonished, which have limited preventive effects. Also, the legislation allowing for a court-issued restraining order only applies to the Domestic Violence Prevention Act (家庭暴力防治法). If the alleged stalker and the person being stalked are not related or living at the same address, a restraining order cannot be issued. The enforcement agencies are therefore unable to intervene unless the stalker assaults the victim, a state of affairs that is a farce. The stalking and harassment prevention legislation would criminalize stalking behavior, and the offender could be imprisoned for up to three years, or up to five years if the offender is carrying a weapon. By the principle of prosecution as last resort, stalking behavior would not result in a trial without a complaint being filed, respecting the wishes of the stalking victim, and prosecutors would only be able to apply for pre-emptive detention after criminal charges are pressed. As soon as the stalking victim reports the behavior, the police are obligated to investigate the matter. If the complaint is valid, the police would be required to

By Wu Ching-chin 吳景欽

EDITORIAL CARTOON

EDITORIAL CARTOON

After four years as pawn in US-China game, Seattle man is home

Daniel Hsu, a US citizen, fought for four years to escape China. The Seattle, Washington, resident was barred from leaving, despite having committed no crime, a pawn in a geopolitical game between two giant superpowers. Then earlier this month, just four days before a virtual meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), Hsu was told to prepare to go home. He had less than 48 hours. “It was a total rush,” he said in a telephone interview from his home in Seattle. As he raced to visit his grandmother, pack his things and travel to Guangzhou, Hsu knew nothing of the horse-trading going on between China and the US in the build-up to the three-hour-plus video meeting between Biden and Xi on Nov. 15. Both countries appeared to be trying to dial back tensions in their increasingly fractious relationship, and Hsu had become a bargaining chip. He could return to Seattle, and seven Chinese nationals who were convicted of crimes in the US would be sent back to China. China’s ability to make deals by effectively taking people like Hsu hostage has raised concerns that Beijing might feel emboldened to double down on the practice, which has angered not only the US, but also Canada, Australia and a number of European countries, which say their citizens have also faced arbitrary detention in China. “There’s no deterrent imposed on Beijing to doing it again,” Human Rights Watch China director Sophie Richardson said. “The problem is if you took the truly principled road, a lot of people would still be sitting in arbitrary detention in China.” A US official who was knowledgeable about the administration’s talks with Beijing regarding Hsu said that Hsu was not a “deliverable” for the Biden-Xi meeting and that what looked to some like a prisoner exchange was not actually a

By Erika Kinetz

China’s tech regulators strike again

ByteDance, the parent company of the popular social-media platform TikTok, has a not-so-secret weapon. Its powerful algorithms are able to predict users’ preferences with precision and recommend content they actually want to see, thereby keeping them glued to their screens. However, ByteDance might soon have to sheathe that weapon — or, at least, dull its blade. Internet-platform companies in China are facing a slew of new data regulations that could curtail the use of recommendation engines. For starters, the Personal Information Protection Law, which took effect this month, requires platforms to allow users to opt out of personalized content and targeted ads. However, China might soon go much further. Its Internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), recently issued new draft guidelines that entail a host of restrictions on the collection and processing of data and its transfer across borders. Notably, apps would have to obtain explicit consent from users before collecting or using data to make personalized recommendations. In other words, individuals would have to opt into personalization, rather than opting out of it, as is the current norm. This policy could go a long way toward eroding the business models of online platforms like Douyin (the version of TikTok used in China) and Taobao (an online-shopping platform owned by the Alibaba Group), with potentially far-reaching implications for future innovation in the Chinese tech sector. The reason is simple: Many users, if asked, decide that personalization is not worth giving up their privacy. Asking makes all the difference. When Apple buried the option to refuse tracking by apps in its complicated privacy settings, only 25 percent of users took the time to find it and opt out. However, when the company began prompting iPhone users with the opportunity to opt out of tracking, 84 percent took it. Apple’s

By Angela Huyue Zhang

EDITORIAL: The China racket of world sports

On Nov. 2, Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai (彭帥) posted a message on Chinese microblogging site Sina Weibo accusing former Chinese vice premier Zhang Gaoli (張高麗) of sexual abuse. A public allegation of sexual misconduct against a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) inner quorum is unprecedented in China. Surprisingly, Peng’s message was not immediately removed by China’s ruthlessly efficient censorship machine, leaving some to speculate that Peng might have been used by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to purge Zhang, who is believed to be a member of a rival political faction headed by former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民). If Peng was manipulated by the Xi faction, then she was unceremoniously dumped once she was no longer of use. Peng’s online presence has been comprehensively scrubbed from Internet sites inside China. “Unpersoned” and shoved down the memory hole, it was an unambiguous message to others who might be considering making similar allegations against high-ranking party members. More than 20 days after the allegation was made, Peng has not been seen in public — save for an unconvincing “proof of life” video filmed at a restaurant and a stage-managed appearance at a Beijing tennis competition — and is believed to be under house arrest. It is a depressingly familiar state of affairs in today’s totalitarian China, which makes the international reaction to Peng’s case so incongruous. The tennis world has erupted in paroxysms of outrage over Peng’s disappearance, with high-profile players and governing bodies clutching their pearls in horror and calling for her release. Whether their expressed shock is synthetic or genuine cannot be known for sure. What cannot be denied is that prior to Peng’s disappearance, players and sporting bodies seemed perfectly happy to engage with the lucrative Chinese market, despite a well-documented genocide in Xinjiang, ongoing persecution of Tibetans and