Ministry policy misguided
I was dismayed to read that a Ministry of Education official said that since "English is not a native language of the Philip-pines and India, Filipinos and Indians speak English with non-native accents" ("Ministry cool to teachers from India, Philip-pines," Jan. 21, page 1). The inference is that these countries were not suitable places from which to hire English-language teachers.
One could very well say the same thing about learning Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan, but to do so would be a big mistake. Taiwan remains one of the favored destinations for learning Mandarin, and I had excellent teachers at National Taiwan University.
Taiwan is such a good place to study Mandarin precisely because Mandarin is not the "native" language, and so it was necessary for the government to invest heavily in training teachers. These are the same type of policies implemented by the colonial governments of England and the US in both India and the Philippines.
Today, many of the most celebrated writers in the Eng-lish language are Indians. Phone banks in both India and the Philippines handle customer service and telemarketing for US corporations (using American accents). The educated elite in both countries speak English as their first language and are often unable to communicate in local languages -- just as many Taiwanese can no longer speak the languages spoken by their grandparents' generation.
It would be easy for the ministry to hire people based on their linguistic fluency without basing this on country of origin. In fact, country of origin is not even a guarantee that a job candidate will have a good accent. Not only are there more than a few Americans whose English is far from standard -- proper training in the field of English-language education is as important, if not more so, than mere fluency.
If the ministry is determined to bring in native-speakers to teach English, they need to have hiring practices that will enable them to pick the most qualified candidates regardless of their country of origin. Otherwise they will be no better than the many cram schools who continue to turn down qualified Asian- and African-Americans because they only want a white face in front of the classroom.
P. Kerim Friedman
New York City
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