Lift student entry ban
Since shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic began at the end of 2019, exchange students have not been able to enter Taiwan. Many students kept their hopes up — especially as Taiwan led the way in coping with the situation — and kept submitting applications, hoping that they would finally be able to realize their dream semester abroad.
For many of those who have been waiting for almost two years, the spring semester is their last chance. They have changed study plans, sometimes even extending studies, and accepted delays and financial losses.
It has been frustrating to watch businesspeople travel to Taiwan for significantly shorter stays, while even people with working holiday visas were allowed in as exchange students were denied. This denies Taiwan the benefits of exchange programs, including improved mutual understanding of country and culture, students being brought together from around the world to overcome differences, and the promotion of relations between nations.
While students who are seeking degrees and those with scholarships are allowed in, exchange students are treated with hostility. Using scholarships as a standard for who can enter is unfair.
Moreover, the Central Epidemic Command Center announced that after letting in international degree-seeking students, exchange students were to be considered next.
The caution that the government must exercise in light of the COVID-19 situation is understandable, but exchange students would observe every protective measure. They would quarantine for the required time at their own expense, submit to testing regimes and submit health certificates as needed.
The benefits of admitting exchange students far outweigh the risks.
After two years of hoping and waiting, exchange students hope that they will finally be allowed to enter Taiwan for the spring semester.
As a country that praises itself as a defender of democratic values and fosters intercultural exchange, hopefully they get considered.
Waiting incoming exchange students
The ethics of journalism
The Taipei Times’ report on questionable political coverage by some news firms (“Channels chided over Yen coverage,” Dec. 23, page 3) highlights the one issue that has been evolving over the years. As a public relations professional, I teach future communicators the “rights” and “wrongs” of information gathering and sharing, ie, ethical reporting.
As the “father of public relations,” Ivy Ledbetter Lee, said so well more than 100 years ago, the goal should be “to supply the public prompt and accurate information concerning subjects which it is of value and interest to the public to know about.”
While that might not sit well with some people, everyone has the right to be aware of it and form their own opinion.
Journalism and public relations are not “popularity contests.” In both cases, the goal should be to present honest, clearly stated fact, not opinion.
Unfortunately, all too often these days reporting is structured to sway opinion and support causes that might or might not be in the best interests of the public.
The perception that SET News and Formosa News have shown bias in the tone and depth of their reporting on former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) is not unusual, sadly.
In the US, we are “blessed” with media firms that make little effort to disguise their political leanings. Sadly, the public is left to conduct its own analysis and form an opinion that might or might not match that of the source of information.
As I tell my students time and again: “Check and double check your information. Use more than one source before forming an opinion.”
Times have changed. We are bombarded with more “news sources,” some of which are questionable at best. No longer do we have the luxury of forming opinions based on, as my grandmother used to say years ago: “I heard it on the radio.”
Today the caution is “caveat lector,” or “let the reader beware.”
Kirk Hazlett
University of Tampa
Florida
Weeks into the craze, nobody quite knows what to make of the OpenClaw mania sweeping China, marked by viral photos of retirees lining up for installation events and users gathering in red claw hats. The queues and cosplay inspired by the “raising a lobster” trend make for irresistible China clickbait. However, the West is fixating on the least important part of the story. As a consumer craze, OpenClaw — the AI agent designed to do tasks on a user’s behalf — would likely burn out. Without some developer background, it is too glitchy and technically awkward for true mainstream adoption,
Out of 64 participating universities in this year’s Stars Program — through which schools directly recommend their top students to universities for admission — only 19 filled their admissions quotas. There were 922 vacancies, down more than 200 from last year; top universities had 37 unfilled places, 40 fewer than last year. The original purpose of the Stars Program was to expand admissions to a wider range of students. However, certain departments at elite universities that failed to meet their admissions quotas are not improving. Vacancies at top universities are linked to students’ program preferences on their applications, but inappropriate admission
On Monday, a group of bipartisan US senators arrived in Taiwan to support the nation’s special defense bill to counter Chinese threats. At the same time, Beijing announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had invited Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) to visit China, a move to make the KMT a pawn in its proxy warfare against Taiwan and the US. Since her inauguration as KMT chair last year, Cheng, widely seen as a pro-China figure, has made no secret of her desire to interact with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and meet with Xi, naming it a
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) took the stage at a protest rally on Sunday in front of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei in support of former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), who has been sentenced to 17 years in jail for corruption and embezzlement. Huang told the crowd that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) had sent a message of support the previous day, saying she would be traveling from the south to Taipei: If the protest continued into the evening, she had said, she would show up. The rally was due to end
RSS