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By Richard Halloran
Conventional wisdom holds that the image of the US in Asia today is mostly negative. This is not the case, however, in China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia, a survey published this week found. At the same time, perhaps surprisingly, the survey found that China had a negative reputation among its fellow Asian countries.

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By Lai I Chung 賴怡忠
On June 10, a Taiwanese fishing boat sank after colliding with a Japanese patrol boat near the Diaoyutai (釣魚台) islands. With talks between the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) having just resumed, this incident occurred at a very awkward time.

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By Chen Lung-Chu 陳隆志
Before the Referendum Law (公民投票法) was passed in 2003, Taiwan had already held referendums at the local level. Since a committee protesting the construction of a fifth naphtha cracker plant by CPC Corp, Taiwan in Houchin (後勁), Kaohsiung City, held the nation’s first referendum in 1990, there have been other referendums on various public issues.

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US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other top brass are launching an effort to use more of the country’s intellectual capital for military purposes, but some academics are skeptical
By Patricia Cohen
Eager to embrace eggheads and ideas, the US Defense Department started an ambitious and unusual program to recruit social scientists and direct the nation’s brainpower to combating security threats like the Chinese military, Iraq, terrorism and religious fundamentalism.

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It’s taken gasoline prices of more than US$4 to convince the consumption-happy nation to begin cutting down its mileage and buying fuel-efficient vehicles
By Clifford Krauss
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