National Central University associate professor of Earth sciences Lin Tien-shun (林殿順) on Friday sent a letter of complaint to the Australia-based Global Carbon Capture Storage Institute, after it changed references to Taiwan to “Chinese Taipei” in a 2003 paper of his.
The paper, titled “Cenozoic stratigraphy and subsidence history of the South China Sea Margin in the Taiwan region,” was published in the journal Basin Research in 2003 and was cited 358 times as of yesterday. Lin is the paper’s lead author, in collaboration with two academics from the University of Oxford.
The English-language paper he submitted uses Taiwan as the nation’s name, but those references were changed to “Chinese Taipei,” while “Taiwan Strait” was changed to “Chinese Taipei Strait” on the institute’s Web site, Lin wrote on Facebook on Friday.
Photo: Screen grab from Lin Tien-shun’s Facebook page
He has written to the institute’s chairman of the board, Claude Mandil, to express his strong protest against its political interference in academic research, Lin said.
“These changes are ridiculous, unfair and unacceptable to Taiwanese. I request that you replace ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan,’ as I originally wrote,” Lin wrote in the letter.
“I have been leading the Taiwan carbon storage project for years and visited your institute in Australia a few years ago. One of your former directors also visited Taiwan to exchange ideas on carbon storage,” Lin wrote.
Photo: Screen grab from Lin Tien-shun’s Facebook page
“If the incorrect and inappropriate references are not removed, we will consider stopping exchanges with your institution,” he wrote.
As of press time last night, Lin had not responded to questions from the Taipei Times about whether the institute had replied, but the institute’s link to the paper was invalid yesterday.
The nation should be referred to as “Taiwan,” “Taiwan, ROC” or “the Republic of China” in research funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology, ministry guidelines say.
Academics must request a change of name and inform the ministry’s corresponding agency if they find international journals or conference organizers using incorrect names in reference to the nation in papers, or the papers in question would not be counted as part of their five-year research work when applying for funding, the guidelines say.
The guidelines do not apply to Lin’s case, because the nation’s was correctly named in the original paper, the ministry said.
It called on researchers to file an immediate request for such names to be changed if they encounter similar situations.
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS