If Taiwan is said to be a “closed nation,” it is because it is subject to the influence of China and it overlooks its potential connections with other countries, Darwin Venture Management Co (達盈管理) cofounder Simon Fang (方頌仁) said yesterday, advising young people to broaden their horizons by visiting foreign countries.
Fang made the remarks at a forum held by the Ministry of Science and Technology at Huashan 1914 Creative Park in Taipei, where recipients of the ministry’s Leaders in Future Trend (LIFT) program shared their motives for returning to Taiwan after having lived in other countries for years.
The program, launched in July, encourages young people who have studied abroad to return to the nation’s workforce by providing them with subsidies for one year.
People once had fewer resources and less access to government subsidies, but many were able to take adventures abroad; by contrast, people nowadays are prone to be aimless when they have more career choices, he said.
Some people say that Taiwan is a closed nation because its informational and financial flows are linked too closely to China, he said, adding that Taiwanese should look forward to developing connections with the US, Europe and other countries.
As talented people are the foundation of a nation’s power, the ministry hopes to invite 100 young people every year to return to Taiwan through the LIFT program, Minister of Science and Technology Chen Liang-gee (陳良基) said.
Program recipient Tseng Hsiao-chun (曾筱君) said she had studied in Portugal, Belgium and Spain, and obtained her doctorate in marine and coastal management from the University of Cadiz, Spain.
Speaking of the nation’s offshore wind farm development, Tseng said marine projects spark controversy because they lack management mechanisms.
While many policies in European countries are grounded on solid scientific evidence, Taiwan’s academic and political circles are divided, she said, citing her field studies done across the nation since September.
Coastal management has not yet become a full-fledged profession in Taiwan, despite the passing of the Coastal Zone Management Act (海岸管理法) in 2015, she said, adding that she aspires to contribute to the profession soon.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift