The torrential rains this week revealed that many parts of the country remain very vulnerable to the forces of nature. In central and southern Taiwan, the storm destroyed bridges and seriously damaged roads, with casualties reported from landslides and flash floods. In the north, the public witnessed extensive flooding, which inundated homes and vehicles and damaged roads following an overnight deluge on Tuesday.
However, while one may quickly blame Mother Nature for spewing fury and showing no mercy over vast swathes of land, there are always actions people could take to prepare for such calamities, hence the role of the government, whose priority should be to protect the public’s well-being and keep people from harm by mitigating dangers and damage efficaciously and expeditiously.
In light of the floods and mudslides that continue to affect parts of the nation, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Tuesday directed government agencies to keep abreast of the latest developments and reiterated vigilance and the importance of disaster-prevention preparation.
It is comforting to see the president appearing to be aware of the emergency situation confronting people, especially those residing in flood-hit and disaster-prone areas. In view of Ma’s words of concern for the public, however, one cannot help but wonder why he was so reluctant to suggest to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers to agree to the opposition’s call for an early legislative recess so that lawmakers could return to their constituencies and lend a helping hand to victims whose homes have been battered by the rains.
The current legislative session ends tomorrow, with the opposition planning to force the Ma administration to withdraw such unpopular policies as the electricity rate increases and plans to ease import restrictions on beef containing residues of the animal feed additive ractopamine. The beef issue has obviously warranted urgent attention from Ma, prompting him to instruct KMT lawmakers — in his capacity as KMT chairman — to give their full support to a vote that would ease the ban.
If the president is truly sincere in his concern for the people affected by the deluge, he could have easily made a similar suggestion to the party’s lawmakers to first put aside the disputes on the legislative floor, thus bringing an end to the legislative session and enabling the lawmakers to attend to disaster relief work in their constituencies. The absence of such actions has disturbed many, leaving some to wonder whether pushing through a draft relaxing the ban on beef containing ractopamine constitutes an issue more worthy of the president’s attention than the well-being and safety of his people.
Prevention is better than cure. Well-considered preventative measures are always far preferable to post-disaster relief work. The last thing the public wants to hear from Ma is that “things are unpredictable (世事難料)” — a hot phrase of late for the president — when disaster strikes and the government fails to avert potential damage to lives and property as a result of its perfunctory attitude to potential dangers.
As the saying goes: “Better late than never.” With typhoon season around the corner, it is to be hoped that Ma and all his officials will treat this week’s torrential rains as a wakeup call, correct their mindset and implement every conceivable preventative measure possible before the next natural disaster strikes.
A Chinese diplomat’s violent threat against Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi following her remarks on defending Taiwan marks a dangerous escalation in East Asian tensions, revealing Beijing’s growing intolerance for dissent and the fragility of regional diplomacy. Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday posted a chilling message on X: “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off,” in reference to Takaichi’s remark to Japanese lawmakers that an attack on Taiwan could threaten Japan’s survival. The post, which was later deleted, was not an isolated outburst. Xue has also amplified other incendiary messages, including one suggesting
Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday last week shared a news article on social media about Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan, adding that “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off.” The previous day in the Japanese House of Representatives, Takaichi said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute “a situation threatening Japan’s survival,” a reference to a legal legal term introduced in 2015 that allows the prime minister to deploy the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The violent nature of Xue’s comments is notable in that it came from a diplomat,
Before 1945, the most widely spoken language in Taiwan was Tai-gi (also known as Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hoklo). However, due to almost a century of language repression policies, many Taiwanese believe that Tai-gi is at risk of disappearing. To understand this crisis, I interviewed academics and activists about Taiwan’s history of language repression, the major challenges of revitalizing Tai-gi and their policy recommendations. Although Taiwanese were pressured to speak Japanese when Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, most managed to keep their heritage languages alive in their homes. However, starting in 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enacted martial law
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
RSS