Finding the Taipei Dome
Not long ago, an additional 1,000 outfield seats went on sale for the 30th Asian Baseball Championship opener on Sunday between Taiwan and South Korea at the newly opened Taipei Dome. The tickets were snapped up in 30 seconds. As a result, 17,000 people swarmed into the venue for the game.
The Taipei City Government has strongly promoted the Taipei Dome, citing the grand opening of the new stadium as a major achievement, while calling on visitors to use the MRT to access the facility. Aside from advertisements, the city launched a baseball stadium-themed MRT train that passes by the Taipei Dome, making the venue a sensation.
However, some visitors might be confused as to which MRT station they should alight at. The answer is, after all, not obvious: It is Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall Station.
According to Taipei Rapid Transit Corp’s (TRTC) station naming and renaming guidelines, key principles include “identification of places” and “notability of landmarks.”
After years of delays, the Taipei Dome was not an easy birth and it is a major attraction. The landmark is of unprecedented significance to not only the country’s global visibility, but also the capital’s international image, serving as a symbol of identification.
Opened in 1988, the Tokyo Dome has been in operation for more than 35 years and is in use for an average of 317 days per year, as the operator makes every effort to give full play to its functions.
The TRTC should change Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall Station’s name to Taipei Dome station as soon as possible to make it easier for overseas visitors and local fans to find the site.
Renaming the station would provide greater support for events at the Taipei Dome.
Apart from having a Taipei Arena Station for the smaller stadium, the TRTC should add the larger and more influential stadium on its map soon.
Hsiao Chia-hung
Taipei
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS