Clarity on sex education
Representatives of parents’ associations early this month urged the National Academy for Education Research to impose more rigorous standards to review textbooks prior to their publication (“Parents’ alliances demand say on sex education methods,” June 9, page 3).
I strongly believe that the authority concerned should give a clear explanation on the so-called inappropriate content brought up by parents.
As they had not received a satisfactory explanation for materials in some sex education textbooks, anxious parents restated their doubts about some problematic content like “sexual spectrum.” This scale, proposed by Alfred Kinsey, describes people’s sexual orientation as a continuum ranging from “exclusively heterosexual” to “equally heterosexual and homosexual” to “exclusively homosexual.”
However, parents are worried whether guiding students to identify their sexuality on the scale is helpful or will encourage them to identify themselves as homosexual before they are mature enough.
A study by researchers at Washington State University states that there are indeed complex individual differences within homosexual and heterosexual groups, but unlike a continuous spectrum, “there are fairly clean dividing lines between adults who are straight and those who aren’t.”
If the authorities concerned can instill the correct concept to society and request publishers to modify the content, the anxiety can be relieved more easily.
The Constitution states that parents have the right to raise their children before they reach the age of maturity. One of the main objectives of sex education is to take the responsibility to teach what is important, and what parents might feel embarrassed to teach, and if there is no trust in education authorities, students will be confused and parents will worry.
Parents’ concern about their children’s sex education should be respected. The government should make its points clear as soon as possible.
Tsai I-chien
Taipei
Getting ‘dual recognition’
I cannot help but think that Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee’s (李大維) last man standing battle cry against Beijing is a ruse to camouflage a covert diplomatic operation aiming for nonexclusive recognition (“Diplomats to battle Beijing ‘head-on,’” June 18, page 1).
Why else would President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party retain a foreign minister who cut his teeth during the decades under the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)? Why on earth should she compete with China as the successor to the Qing Empire, rather than govern as the elected leader of a medium-sized democratic state?
Despite what Lee announced, Tsai must have secretly ordered her diplomatic corps to get Taiwan recognized by countries that also recognize China at the same time — or in outdated parlance, “dual recognition.” This should be achievable by a nimble diplomatic service receiving clear orders — as Finnish diplomats performed the feat of organizing the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (1975) during the Cold War.
The Holy See can set a good example, as Jerome Keating pointed out (“Unique relations with the Holy See,” April 18, page 8). How about the US next?
I wish Taiwan’s diplomats every success and hope I have not jinxed their plan.
Te Khai-su
Helsingfors, Finland
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS