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
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
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and