The ugly Taiwanese A lot has been made of the theory that the xenophobic political scientist Samuel Huntington has proposed, which supposes that capitalism in a country will lead to the inevitable rise of democracy. Moreover, the eagerness of Taiwanese businesses to go into China has been labeled as goodwill by the media and politicians, who assume it will lead to increasing human rights. Not true. It is well known across Asia that Taiwanese businesses are some of the stingiest and at the same time, most abusive toward its workers. While many companies flee Taiwan to escape the increased costs caused by rising living standards, they in turn exploit labor in poorer Asian countries. In China, workers for Chinese factories are supposed to work 40-hour weeks and most hold to that level. However, in most Taiwanese factories, the work week runs to 80 to 90 each week, with little to no overtime pay. I've met many people in China who deride the Taiwanese. In fact, much of their hostility towards Taiwan comes from Taiwanese fatcats making tons of money off such exploitation. And don't get me started on the ethnic Taiwanese prejudice against their Chinese counterparts. Taiwanese investment CAN make a difference in cross-strait relations. Thus far, however Taiwanese have proven only to be philandering (paying for cheap, karaoke girls), exploitative and bigoted. The reporting in Taiwan regarding the mainland is turning into a propaganda machine, just like the Chinese side. We Taiwanese are NOT perfect. Joshua Shen
Foshan, Guangdong, China
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs