Taipei lacks lighting
In Taipei there should be more streetlights because it’s too dark at night to walk.
It’s very dangerous to walk along dark streets. Stray animals or criminals could attack us. Also, we could get hit by motorcycles, scooters or bicycles that are on the sidewalk.
Some street corners have lights, while others don’t. Also, some streets have more lights, while others have less. Some lights are bright, while others are not, or are broken.
The city should install more lights, use brighter bulbs in all streetlights and repair all broken lights as soon as possible.
JORDAN HSIEH
Taipei
The legitimacy of ROC rule
The recent protest against the detention of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has brought up an issue relating to the fundamental question of the legitimacy of the Republic of China (ROC) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rule in Taiwan.
Before 1987, Taiwan was under Martial Law for 38 years, otherwise known as the White Terror, which was inflicted on the population by an authoritarian regime that legitimized its rule of Taiwan on the Cairo Declaration and on the suppression of protests and revolts by Taiwanese against corruption and discrimination against Taiwanese.
Less well known is the fact that, until the 1990s, personnel working in the ROC court system and other government bureaucracies were appointed based on provincial proportionality to ensure that a minority of Chinese immigrants would perpetually occupy key positions. All this was based on a Constitution not ratified by Taiwanese.
If “rule by consent” is the core value of democracy, then the inhumane, discriminatory and unjust persecution we see today of Chen, his family and countless other Taiwanese as well as the KMT’s de facto one party rule of Taiwan should make us call into question whether democracy exists in Taiwan or whether ROC rule over Taiwan is legitimate.
Whatever crime Chen is accused of, it is not a violent crime.
Rather, Chen is a peaceful man who during his tenure as president of Taiwan did everything possible to accommodate the dethroned KMT rulers, to the point of being accused of treating Chinese in Taiwan better than their own Taiwanese compatriots.
However, that did not prevent Chen’s persecution by the corrupt court system in order to intimidate future Taiwanese from challenging KMT supremacy over Taiwan.
The injustice and inhumane rule of the ROC does not stop there.
The entire system of resource distribution is unjust, from the disproportionate sum allocated to Taipei City where most Chinese immigrants reside, to an educational system favoring the descendants of Chinese immigrants and unfair prosecution of Taiwanese political and economic crimes compared with those committed by Chinese compatriots.
Chen’s case stands out as the most arrogant and daring of all, carried out by a shameless KMT party machine.
If these violations of Chen’s human rights continue, it will no doubt prove once again the illegitimacy of ROC and KMT rule in Taiwan.
CHEN MING-CHUNG
Chicago
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
Art and cultural events are key for a city’s cultivation of soft power and international image, and how politicians engage with them often defines their success. Representative to Austria Liu Suan-yung’s (劉玄詠) conducting performance and Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen’s (盧秀燕) show of drumming and the Tainan Jazz Festival demonstrate different outcomes when politics meet culture. While a thoughtful and professional engagement can heighten an event’s status and cultural value, indulging in political theater runs the risk of undermining trust and its reception. During a National Day reception celebration in Austria on Oct. 8, Liu, who was formerly director of the
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
Taiwan’s labor force participation rate among people aged 65 or older was only 9.9 percent for 2023 — far lower than in other advanced countries, Ministry of Labor data showed. The rate is 38.3 percent in South Korea, 25.7 percent in Japan and 31.5 percent in Singapore. On the surface, it might look good that more older adults in Taiwan can retire, but in reality, it reflects policies that make it difficult for elderly people to participate in the labor market. Most workplaces lack age-friendly environments, and few offer retraining programs or flexible job arrangements for employees older than 55. As
RSS