Since the SARS virus first spread to this country there have been many bizarre stories that appear to indicate that an alarmingly high degree of selfishness is considered normal in this society.
There was Taipei County businessman Li You-cheng (
There are stories of businesspeople hoarding face masks as well as a drugstore on Taipei's Tihua Street that was reportedly selling N-95 masks for NT$700, about 10 times their normal price. Now vendors are selling masks everywhere in Taipei at double the normal price -- an indication that the mask shortage is due to hoarding by unscrupulous people.
In the face of such indifference to the wellbeing of others, why should healthcare workers be willing to risk their lives in the fight against SARS without support and cooperation from the general public?
The SARS epidemic is like a magic mirror that exposes demons in their true forms. It has revealed the black holes in the nation's healthcare system. It has also highlighted the government's powerlessness in the face of vicious partisan wrangling that has beset politics in this nation for so long. Above all, it has revealed the deplorable state of civic awareness.
The bloated egotism of the Taiwanese cannot be blamed solely on their selective adoption of Western democracy and human-rights concepts. The Taiwan-ese have inherited the Chinese habit of flouting and bending the law and placing themselves and their family above the needs of society.
A huge ego means that many people have no problem demanding the government and healthcare workers wage an all-out war against SARS, while also demanding their individual freedoms not be abridged the slightest bit. Reflected in the SARS mirror, the Taiwanese ideas about democracy and human rights appear shallow. The people have mistaken anarchy for democracy, selfishness for human rights. Hence the high-flown talk about "rights" at every turn couples with an obliviousness about "responsibilities."
The years of political wrangling have led the public to look down on politicians. The obstructionism between political parties has resulted in a weak government that worries more about a possible backlash from the opposition than what's the right thing to do. The people's disgust of politics and their government's weakness in turn contribute to the public's intransigence. People who no longer respect politicians won't respect their policies or their laws.
The fact that Taiwan is superior to China in terms of democratic politics and civic awareness has been part of its justification for trying to rejoin the World Health Organization (WHO). Now that the government is making an all-out effort to win observership in the WHO, the public must not undermine such efforts by their misbehavior.
At this crucial moment, the people of Taiwan should show some moral courage through self-
reflection. Instead of passively resenting the political wrangling that has deadlocked the legislature and damaged the economy they should take action to force politicians to make good on their pledges. They should condemn self-aggrandizing politicians who repeatedly make wild accusations -- or promises -- but fail to back them up. They should stop and consider the impact of their own actions on those of others. Most of all they should cooperate with all public health measures that may be required to curb the spread of SARS.
In late January, Taiwan’s first indigenous submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), completed its first submerged dive, reaching a depth of roughly 50m during trials in the waters off Kaohsiung. By March, it had managed a fifth dive, still well short of the deep-water and endurance tests required before the navy could accept the vessel. The original delivery deadline of November last year passed months ago. CSBC Corp, Taiwan, the lead contractor, now targets June and the Ministry of National Defense is levying daily penalties for every day the submarine remains unfinished. The Hai Kun was supposed to be
Reports about Elon Musk planning his own semiconductor fab have sparked anxiety, with some warning that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) could lose key customers to vertical integration. A closer reading suggests a more measured conclusion: Musk is advancing a strategic vision of in-house chip manufacturing, but remains far from replacing the existing foundry ecosystem. For TSMC, the short-term impact is limited; the medium-term challenge lies in supply diversification and pricing pressure, only in the long term could it evolve into a structural threat. The clearest signal is Musk’s announcement that Tesla and SpaceX plan to develop a fab project dubbed “Terafab”
Most schoolchildren learn that the circumference of the Earth is about 40,000km. They do not learn that the global economy depends on just 160 of those kilometers. Blocking two narrow waterways — the Strait of Hormuz and the Taiwan Strait — could send the economy back in time, if not to the Stone Age that US President Donald Trump has been threatening to bomb Iran back to, then at least to the mid-20th century, before the Rolling Stones first hit the airwaves. Over the past month and a half, Iran has turned the Strait of Hormuz, which is about 39km wide at
The ongoing Middle East crisis has reinforced an uncomfortable truth for Taiwan: In an increasingly interconnected and volatile world, distant wars rarely remain distant. What began as a regional confrontation between the US, Israel and Iran has evolved into a strategic shock wave reverberating far beyond the Persian Gulf. For Taiwan, the consequences are immediate, material and deeply unsettling. From Taipei’s perspective, the conflict has exposed two vulnerabilities — Taiwan’s dependence on imported energy and the risks created when Washington’s military attention is diverted. Together, they offer a preview of the pressures Taiwan might increasingly face in an era of overlapping geopolitical
RSS