Ethanol for independence
What is the outgoing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government’s position in reducing air pollution and the emission of gases that contribute to climate change? It could consider encouraging scooter riders to turn off their engines while waiting at traffic lights.
The Republic of China (ROC) has never attempted to clean up the air pollution in Taipei. Turning off idling engines is not a solution, but the government could implement an ethanol mandate.
Lands owned by Taiwan Sugar Corp lie fallow, where sugarcane can be grown, from which ethanol could be produced. However, the oil monopoly seems to prevent such an initiative. Taiwan Sugar is not allowed to cultivate sugarcane because of an agreement struck with the WTO in 2001.
The government failed to encourage the use of flexible-fuel engines, which can run on gasoline or ethanol, or a mixture of the two. The technology has been implemented in Brazil, and the nation grows sugarcane to fuel its ethanol engines.
In the US, using corn to produce ethanol might be a short-sighted idea, but Brazilian ethanol has proven to be very successful in flexible-fuel engines.
However, Taiwanese consumers are ignorant and the ROC ethanol mandates for E15 fuel (15 percent ethanol, 85 percent gasoline) might be met with resistance from the consumers.
US E85 fuel (85 percent ethanol) requires 15 percent gasoline to provide resistance against cold weather. E85 is widely available in North Dakota.
Brazil uses 100 percent ethanol, which can cause problems for older engines with carburetors, such as scooters. Fuel injection engines allow for the use of flexible-fuel technology, but Taiwanese are not mechanically savvy.
Taipei residents would be the first to suffer if the Chinese navy blockades Taiwanese ports, because they are clueless about small farming equipment and mechanical concepts. Dig a well before you are thirsty.
Jeff Geer
Olympia, Washington
The world is waiting
It is a matter of two mirrors. The world looks into China’s mirror and sees tyranny and weakness. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — headed by the old guard and brainwashed young “princes” — looks in the same mirror and sees strength and superiority, and “freedom with Chinese characteristics,” which means no freedom at all.
Pundits talk about how China, with the results of the Jan. 16 elections, is getting closer to losing Taiwan. China has never ruled Taiwan or Taiwanese, not for one minute since its “revolution.” Nor will it ever do so.
The CCP does not comprehend Taiwan’s 23 million free people. CCP leaders delude themselves into thinking that Taiwanese long to be Chinese, crave China’s wealth and yearn for its “significance.”
You can take the tens of trillions of yuan; all of China’s “allies” bought and paid for; the rape of Africa’s resources with virtually no compensation, except for a road or a deposit into the bank account of the resident dictator; the tyranny, oppression and subjugation; and weigh these all on the scales of national dignity and worth, and they would not tilt the scale one single bit against Taiwan’s greater inherent values.
The CCP has long been beguiled by the KMT as representing the past, present and future of Taiwan.
However, the KMT and all it represents has been in Taiwan’s rear-view mirror for quite some time. The CCP is not even a speck in that mirror. Not even a whisper in the wind.
When people look at Chinese, they see a nation with a long and rich history, which has been held captive like birds in a cage for millennia. Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) “revolution” was actually nothing of the sort; it simply instituted a new dynasty, the Mao dynasty. Looking at China, the world sees a nation ripe for change. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) cannot be the architect of that change.
Perhaps one day Chinese youth will begin to yearn for freedom, and not for a knock-off freedom like many products made in China, but the real thing, like in Taiwan.
When the future of China looks in the mirror, they imagine themselves dressed in the freedoms enjoyed by Taiwanese, and the faintest hint of a wave forms, a crack in the great wall of repression, despite the CCP’s endless crackdowns on free speech. The world is waiting.
Lee Longhwa
Los Angeles, California
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