Defending the police
Sunday’s letter is recommending a police state like the US’, where traffic cops are everywhere and one is in constant fear of being pulled over by the police (Letter, Aug. 4, page 8).
Taiwan is better than the US because of the relaxed atmosphere. So what if some people park illegally or drive on the wrong side of the road. A little anarchy and a lackadaisical attitude is better than being bullied by arrogant cops.
If giving out tickets produces fines and money for the government, then the government will make l not driven over the speed limit or gone through a red light? We all make mistakes. Cutting people a break is paramount to a government that does not want to be too harsh with the people.
All that is needed is propaganda: Let signs and the TV really attack bad driving.
People who obey out of the heart are better off than those who are forced to obey by ruthless cops and cities who are looking for ways to make money.
Stuart Bacha
Tainan
This is a response to the letter of Aurelijus Vijunas. My question is: Why do foreigners in Taiwan feel the need to change everything the Taiwanese do? Why come and live here and then insist Taiwan should be more like the place they came from?
I visited Taiwan for the first time in 1983, came back to study Chinese between 1986 and 1988 and decided to settle here in 1995. Why? Because I liked/like Taiwan as it was/is. I do not want it to change to a copy of the US or any other country.
That is not to say that Taiwan has not changed. It has and all for the better. Want proof? Just last week the annual “Expat Insiders” survey was released. Taiwan came first out of 67 countries. My home country, Belgium, was only 29th.
Vijunas’ view of the police in Taiwan is the main reason I write this. Unlike other places where I had contact with the local police, including the US (where they were invariably coarse), officers here are always courteous, friendly — even when provoked — and helpful. I have nothing but respect for them.
When I was a victim of a crime they kept reporting back to me on the progress of the case (although I never got my property back, the gang involved were rounded up and sent to jail).
When I reported an accident, an attempted suicide, or a case of domestic abuse, I was contacted afterward to thank me for contacting them and informed of the outcome.
During sporting events they keep things running smoothly, despite the best efforts of impatient drivers. And I could go on.
As for doing their part in enforcing traffic rules. Either Vijunas lives in a different Kaohsiung than I do, or he does not want to see police controls taking place on a daily basis all over town.
Hundreds of cars and scooters are towed away every day in Kaohsiung. In the past month alone 10 people I know, and I, got fined for a slew of traffic offenses and other violations.
Police in Taiwan do a fabulous job and should be applauded for it, not criticized.
Geert Anthonis
Kaohsiung
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
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs