Heat wave: it's more than just the name of the coolest disco band of the '70s, authors of the immortal Boogie Nights and The Groove Line; it's a meteorological phenomenon making life miserable here in northern Taiwan and we want to know who to blame.
"What?" you say. Isn't that up to God? (Or the gods, depending on your confession.) Good heavens, no! This is Taiwan and it is a well-known fact that in Taiwan, whatever happens, somebody in the DPP-led government must always be responsible -- at least according to the blue camp. Should lightning strike, the question of how to prevent it striking a second time always takes a back seat to the more vital one of which government minister can be pilloried by blue-camp legislators for not having the presence of mind to do something or another that is never clearly explained. Of course the legislature isn't in session now, more's the pity. If it was, it could waste huge parts of Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Ling-san's (
The government, however, is worrying about more important things. Well "thing," actually, since its only current concern is the impact of anything at all on President Chen Shui-bian's (
Veteran observers of Taiwan politics will, of course, know that the thing the government should do is to form an ad hoc committee to investigate the heat wave and at some time in this century produce a report on the topic which nobody will read. Oh, how we miss Lien Chan (
Then there is the security question. Could an evil Chinese mastermind be manipulating the weather to weaken Taiwan's defenses and hasten reunification? Will Taiwan's armed forces simply conclude that it is too hot to fight? This might sound like the plot of a Sax Rohmer novel or the movie The Avengers, but it is no wackier than a number of other things that the TSU takes seriously. Could there be any connection with so much of Taiwan's air-conditioner industry moving to China in recent years? Coincidence? We think not.
On the other hand, residents of sweltering Taipei tell us that, just as the foolish virgins in the Bible neglected to get oil for their lamps, they forgot to have the Freon, or whatever is used these days, replaced in their air conditioners and now cannot get their units serviced for love nor money. Inadequate supervision of the city's air conditioning servicing industry -- at last, a stick to beat Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
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