Letters:

The pan-blue camp's lies

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the fundamental fallacy underlying the arguments most frequently heard during Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong's (宋楚瑜) election campaign, so let's examine all these lies and demolish them one by one.

Lie number 1: "The DPP administration's performance has been extremely poor." Fact: Despite quite a few flip-flops and an unrelenting boycott in the Legislative Yuan by a pan-blue camp hellbent on wrecking Taiwan's economy, the DPP administration has done a good job in steering the Taiwanese economy out of its first recession. Actually, according to international organizations, the Taiwanese economy has even become more competitive and efficient over the past three years.

Lie number 2: "The KMT can manage the Taiwanese economy better than the DPP, so only the KMT can bring Taiwan back to the good old times." Fact: This is really the joke of the century. We all know that during the Lien's tenure as premier from 1993 to 1996 and Vincent Siew's (蕭萬長) from 1996 to 2000, the "economic strategy" simply consisted of putting all the eggs in the IT basket, based on the the idiotic assumption that the US export markets for Taiwanese IT products would keep growing forever. When the IT bubble burst in mid-2000, of course the Taiwanese economy was badly affected. The DPP has worked extremely hard to diversify Taiwan's industrial structure.

Lie number 3: "Why waste time with those useless referendums? Let's keep the status quo and concentrate on the economy." Fact: If Taiwan can forcefully assert its independence from the Chinese dictators, and be internationally accepted with a brand new name and identity, it will be much easier for Taiwan to sign free-trade agreements (FTAs) that are so vital for Taiwan's future.

Lie number 4: "Why provoke China all the time, like the DPP administration is doing?" Fact: Hasn't the DPP administration extended too many olive branches to the Chinese dictators? And have any of them been ever reciprocated? On the contrary, China has stepped up its suppressive and overbearing behavior in the international arena. That statement by the Chinese official at the World Health Assembly, "Who cares about you Taiwanese?" is a perfect indication of this.

Lie number 5: "If the DPP keeps provoking China, eventually China will invade." Fact: China has already made it clear that Taiwan's refusal to unify on China's terms could be grounds for a military attack. Which means that by sticking to the status quo Taiwan is already provoking China. The only reason why China has not attacked yet is because it knows that any invasion will almost certainly be crushed. If they attacked using non-conventional weapons, it would cause not just a massive number of civilian casualties, but the global horror and repulsion could result in countries recognizing Taiwan. Needless to say, the "Boycott made in China" campaigns will gain huge impetus and the communist princelings who run the most profitable Chinese corporations will be hit straight in their pockets.

George Dukes

Sunderland, UK

Undervalued universities

The Ministry of Education has ranked universities by the total number of papers published in internationally published peer-reviewed journals, most of which are in English. On this measure, universities with a large proportion of faculty in the sciences tend to do better than those which are strong in humanities and social sciences. A well-established national university in Taipei was very upset with its low-ranking and protested to the Ministry of Education for using just one indicator for ranking, while ignoring the performance of those who write in Chinese or other languages (such as Arabic or French).