Stadiums are not ATMs
On Aug. 24, the Hsinchu City government released its Professional Baseball Existing Subsurface and Surface Playing Field Conditions Report, attracting more ht 30,000 online visitors who downloaded it within two hours. The interest was so great that the activity caused the official Web site to temporarily crash.
The way Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) has dealt with the Hsinchu Baseball Stadium is exactly the same as how former Taipei mayor and Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) dealt with the Taipei Dome. They both kicked the can down the road, treating public issues as a kind of political ATM to be used for political gain. They not only increased social costs, but also affected sports fans’ rights and interests.
As a baseball lover, I would like to ask Kao: When will the renovations be finished? When will the stadium reopen and fans be allowed back in?
After Ko was elected Taipei mayor, he listed the Taipei Dome as his first priority among the other “five major corruptions,” established an investigation team and spent years on it. However, after two terms, the Taipei Dome issue has remained unsolved, it remains closed to the public, and the investigation team could not find answers.
The investigation started with much fanfare and propaganda, but then fizzled out. We should not hold our breath waiting for Ko to apologize.
After spending NT$1.8 million (US$56,495) of taxpayers’ money within nine months, Hsinchu Baseball Stadium’s improvement project under Kao’s leadership has seen no progress. I would like to kindly ask Kao: Who is to blame?
Municipal administration requires continuous devotion. Now that Kao has been elected Hsinchu’s mayor, she should bear the responsibility of renovating the Hsinchu Baseball Stadium, finish the renovation as soon as possible, and give a safe and comfy playing field back to baseball players and fans. That is the first and foremost task that she should address.
Kao, like Ko and the Taipei Dome, is using the Hsinchu Baseball Stadium as her political ATM where she could withdraw political benefits.
Kao should abide by Ko’s motto and “do whatever needs to be done.” If there are legal issues with the baseball field, then she should turn to the judicial process, allowing prosecutors to bring the truth to light. If there are engineering failures, then she should order the company in charge to carry on with the renovations.
The issue with the Hsinchu Baseball Stadium falls within the field of engineering, so the solution should also belong to engineering professionals.
For her part, Kao should use her skills as a techie, find a way to finish the renovation project immediately, and take the citizens out to ball games in Hsinchu Baseball Stadium again.
A mayor with high efficiency and a sense of responsibility should be able to accomplish that.
Hu Yen
Taipei
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