It took close to two years for a stretch of concrete road and elevated highway roughly 6km in length to be dismantled from over the Cheonggyecheon River in Seoul, South Korea. After the project was completed, however, the waterway situated underneath was able to breathe again for the first time in almost half a century, as the river once again saw the light of day. Since Oct. 1, the river has brought in countless numbers of tourists.
On a similar note, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has recently announced a plan to restore a stretch of Xinsheng South Road running from Xinyi Road down to Heping East Road to its former glory, and expose the old canal system in preparation for the creation of a "Little Venice." So what can we learn from Seoul's experience?
The Cheonggyecheon River is the major waterway in Seoul, and it has a rich history, which is in evidence in old paintings and carvings on stone pillars around the city. The project demonstrated that culture can bring in the crowds. By restoring the historical face of the city and strengthening the links between past and present, the city has boosted its claims to greatness and history.
After four or five decades of use the Cheonggyecheon elevated expressway was becoming a bit of a safety issue, and sorely needed to be renovated. Most people who actually used the road were in favor of rebuilding the expressway, as was borne out by many public surveys conducted on the issue. The Seoul city government, however, had different ideas and wanted to pull down the expressway to make use of the river that still ran underneath. The scheme has not only reduced air pollution in the area, it has also encouraged more people to use the city's subway and other forms of public transport. In under 12 months, public approval for the project was as high as 80 percent.
Taiwan is by comparison backward in its approach to transportation. One example of this is the Huanhe Road project that is to follow the course of the Xindian River in Taipei County. Despite years of public opposition, both Taipei County and the Ministry of the Interior's Construction and Planning Agency are still hoping to build the elevated expressway. It does beg the question whether incessant construction is seen as the only indicator of political achievement in this country.
In the future, after old canals have been restored to their original state, there may well be implications for the transportation system. However, as we have seen from the Cheonggyecheon example, we have to move beyond the old mindset of continuously building roads and encouraging the escalation of private car ownership -- especially in these days of high petrol prices and the Kyoto Protocol -- and strengthen our public transportation system. This would bring so much more to our capital city.
The significance of the Cheonggyecheon project goes deeper in the implications it has for a new approach regarding the nation's rivers. Taiwan's eater laws focus mostly on flood prevention and other matters related to natural disasters, and are not really concerned with the value of aesthetics and the living environment. Apart from a very small number of areas, rivers in Taiwan are hidden behind massive flood walls or buried underground. This has an enormous impact on the ability of Taiwanese people to take pleasure in riverside environments. The Cheonggyecheon project is a great example of the value of such projects, for the advantage to the community greatly outweighs short term political benefits and administrative achievements.
Chiau Wen-yan is a professor at the Institute of Marine Resource Management at National Taiwan Ocean University.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
The government and local industries breathed a sigh of relief after Shin Kong Life Insurance Co last week said it would relinquish surface rights for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) to Nvidia Corp. The US chip-design giant’s plan to expand its local presence will be crucial for Taiwan to safeguard its core role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and to advance the nation’s AI development. The land in dispute is owned by the Taipei City Government, which in 2021 sold the rights to develop and use the two plots of land, codenamed T17 and T18, to the
Taiwan’s first case of African swine fever (ASF) was confirmed on Tuesday evening at a hog farm in Taichung’s Wuci District (梧棲), trigging nationwide emergency measures and stripping Taiwan of its status as the only Asian country free of classical swine fever, ASF and foot-and-mouth disease, a certification it received on May 29. The government on Wednesday set up a Central Emergency Operations Center in Taichung and instituted an immediate five-day ban on transporting and slaughtering hogs, and on feeding pigs kitchen waste. The ban was later extended to 15 days, to account for the incubation period of the virus

The ceasefire in the Middle East is a rare cause for celebration in that war-torn region. Hamas has released all of the living hostages it captured on Oct. 7, 2023, regular combat operations have ceased, and Israel has drawn closer to its Arab neighbors. Israel, with crucial support from the United States, has achieved all of this despite concerted efforts from the forces of darkness to prevent it. Hamas, of course, is a longtime client of Iran, which in turn is a client of China. Two years ago, when Hamas invaded Israel — killing 1,200, kidnapping 251, and brutalizing countless others
US President Donald Trump has announced his eagerness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un while in South Korea for the APEC summit. That implies a possible revival of US-North Korea talks, frozen since 2019. While some would dismiss such a move as appeasement, renewed US engagement with North Korea could benefit Taiwan’s security interests. The long-standing stalemate between Washington and Pyongyang has allowed Beijing to entrench its dominance in the region, creating a myth that only China can “manage” Kim’s rogue nation. That dynamic has allowed Beijing to present itself as an indispensable power broker: extracting concessions from Washington, Seoul