The juxtaposition seems odd at first, but there is something notable about the tandem opening of major infrastructure in Taipei and Kaohsiung.
The World Games in Kaohsiung silenced naysayers who feared that the city might struggle in the face of public indifference to non-professional sports and feuding between Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) and the central government’s Sports Affairs Council, which was reluctant to part with cash for the Games.
In the end the Games progressed smoothly, selling more tickets than even realists might have hoped. There is also a strong case to be made that the Games’ excellent opening ceremony helped to convince the public that these Games could be fun, dramatic and healthily nationalistic.
Opening ceremonies for athletics tournaments such as the World Games, the Olympics, the Paralympics and the Deaflympics have become so crucial to the tone and the marketing of these events that planning can take as long as the construction of the stadiums. These events are not only valuable for sports, but also serve as advertisements for whole cities and countries. The importance of flexible, dedicated and properly resourced organizing committees should therefore be obvious.
Meanwhile, two pieces of infrastructure in Taipei opened within weeks of one another. The first was the Neihu Line, from which opposition city councilors extracted mileage by attacking Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who was mayor when the line was developed.
The second is the Taipei Stadium, the main location of the Deaflympics and an imposing structure — though not as attractive as the World Games stadium. Squeezed into one corner of the public entertainment and sports block adjacent to Dunhua North Road, the structure is a reminder that, unlike Kaohsiung, Taipei can only develop within existing boundaries.
This is no excuse, however, for the news that the attached swimming pool, housed in an eye-catching building with a slanted roof, was not built to meet international standards and thus cannot hold serious competitive tournaments. There was certainly enough space to do so; reallocating land from the warm-up track on the corner of Dunhua North and Bade roads, for example, would have done the trick.
This act of ineptitude means that Deaflympics swimming cannot be held in Taipei, a ludicrous outcome that cries out for a Control Yuan investigation just as much as the MRT Neihu Line’s woes.
But the most interesting development in recent weeks involves a complaint by the director of the Deaflympics opening ceremony, theater director Stan Lai (賴聲川), who said red tape was impeding his work: “It’s been very hard to get the people that I want — not to mention the money that is needed. Everything is proceeding in a state of chaos.”
The ideology that underlay the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was offensive — and certainly no less so than director Zhang Yimou’s (張藝謀) bigotry when reflecting on it — but give the Chinese credit where it is due: They treated Zhang like a prince and gave him everything he wanted.
If the Taipei City Government is unwilling or unable to do the same for Lai, those affected will not just be Lai himself, or the Games and their competitors, but also Taipei — and Taiwan.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administrations sit on their laurels in safe electorates when it comes to public works and infrastructure (Keelung City is a glaring example), but doing so ahead of the Deaflympics in a way that frustrates key staff and risks disruption and embarrassment is something even the catatonic voters of Taipei City might notice.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past