Following two incidents of alleged plagiarism, the public sector is again in hot water for apparently blatantly copying Western creations. This time, it is the National Taxation Bureau, which copied several characters from Walt Disney’s Zootopia.
It is shocking that the three incidents took place in less than two months, after the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) in late March reportedly copied Marvel Comics’ Ant-Man character for its “TRA Superman” to promote passenger safety, and the Environmental Protection Administration last month blatantly used three famous Star Wars characters on a poster to encourage people to recycle waste; it indicates that a trend of plagiarism has formed in the public sector.
The agencies in question probably wanted to amaze people by showing popular characters in government promotions, but the media blasted the outcome, while netizens and local comic book artists called them a disgrace to the nation.
It is one thing for the government to churn out a poorly executed lantern for a local lantern festival — as witnessed in the “monkey-gourd” debacle by the Taipei City Government earlier this year — or snubbing local artists and contracting out work to foreign artists, as the Taichung City Government did for its lantern festival this year.
However, plagiarism, being not only shameful but also illegal, is worse.
In using others’ intellectual property without permission, these agencies obviously had not considered the potential consequences of their actions. What if Disney, which owns all the aforementioned creations, decided to file a lawsuit against them? Will they pay compensation using taxpayers’ money?
As many Taiwanese who grew up in the 1980s can attest to, imitations of US cartoon characters that bordered on plagiarism were rampant back then — knockoffs of Disney characters were often seen on the walls of kindergartens and merchandise sporting images of those characters were sold in neighborhood shops.
In retrospect, Taiwanese can probably argue that, back then, Western comics had just broken into the Taiwanese market; people had significantly fewer sources of entertainment with the nation still under martial law; and artists living in that pre-Internet era probably did not have many channels to promote themselves — hence, the prevalence of knockoffs.
None of those situations exists anymore, and apart from a handful of tourist destinations that shot to fame thanks to faithful paintings of foreign cartoon characters done by locals, Taiwanese artists are generally moving in a direction that emphasizes originality, as evidenced by the popularity of Taiwanese cartoonists on Facebook.
Simply put, knockoffs of artworks, like knockoffs in just about every field, hint at backwardness, which is why it is especially frustrating to see the government taking the lead in imitating Disney when the skills of students at design colleges and universities of the arts all across the nation could have been tapped into.
Once again, these incidents show that the government is not doing enough to promote Taiwan’s soft power.
The public often hope that Taiwan will aspire to the status of an advanced country, and it can be safely assumed that officials do too. While this is no doubt a lofty goal and a time-consuming effort, the government should desist from committing violations of intellectual property if it wants Taiwan to be taken seriously.
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.
As Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu’s party won by a landslide in Sunday’s parliamentary election, it is a good time to take another look at recent developments in the Maldivian foreign policy. While Muizzu has been promoting his “Maldives First” policy, the agenda seems to have lost sight of a number of factors. Contemporary Maldivian policy serves as a stark illustration of how a blend of missteps in public posturing, populist agendas and inattentive leadership can lead to diplomatic setbacks and damage a country’s long-term foreign policy priorities. Over the past few months, Maldivian foreign policy has entangled itself in playing
A group of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers led by the party’s legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (?) are to visit Beijing for four days this week, but some have questioned the timing and purpose of the visit, which demonstrates the KMT caucus’ increasing arrogance. Fu on Wednesday last week confirmed that following an invitation by Beijing, he would lead a group of lawmakers to China from Thursday to Sunday to discuss tourism and agricultural exports, but he refused to say whether they would meet with Chinese officials. That the visit is taking place during the legislative session and in the aftermath