The appointment of Hau Lung-bin
His support for the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (核四) shows he has little respect for or understanding of environmental issues. As head of the EPA how will he deal responsibly with issues related to the storage of nuclear waste? Given his unquestioning acceptance of the need for a new nuclear power plant and opposition to a referendum on the fourth plant. He has obviously given little thought to the issue.
How does Hau's appointment fit in with Chen Shui-bian's (
David Reid
Hobart, Australia
Culture matters
I read your excellent feature on culture ("Culture matters. Or does it?", Mar. 3, page 11) and would like to react. I have taught at universities in Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan for eight years and I am presently a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii.
I have read the Harrison and Huntington book Culture Matters and found it most interesting. The logic of the authors is flawed, however, because they fail to distinguish between culturally similar expectations across cultures and culturally different behaviors that are linked to those expectations in each unique culture.
Their argument implies that only "successful" cultures value success. Is there any culture or country that does not value safety, success and trust? While most, if not all, countries and cultures share similar basic expectations, they each express their expectations differently, through their own learned behaviors. Some patterns of behavior work better than others in the global context.
The problem is not in "bad" values but rather in less effective behaviors that are used to express those shared common ground values in some cultures. The good news is that we can teach new behaviors that express old and traditional cultural values. Cultures are not condemned to failure because of their values. They are condemned by their lack of access to new behaviors that can express their traditional values more effectively in the global context.
All behaviors are learned and displayed in a cultural context. Accurate assessment, meaningful understanding and appropriate intervention must recognize the importance of the consumer's cultural context or it will fail. Interpreting behaviors outside the context where those behaviors were learned and are displayed is the first step onto the slippery slope of racism. Harrison and Huntington had it right. Culture does matter. They have it wrong, however, when they evaluate every other culture's behavior from their own "self-reference criterion" of their own foreign cultural context.
Paul B. Pedersen
Honolulu, Hawaii
Seek sustainable solutions
John Diedrichs makes two excellent points (Letters, Mar. 7, page 8), namely, the absence of conservation of electricity in Taiwan and the possibility that if alternative energy were fully utilized there would be an electricity glut.
The wind generator, fuel cell and solar collector market is an arena with low barriers to entry, a place for the Taiwan economy to create a market rather than just be market driven. The technology has already been developed and designs are available off the shelf. Fuel cell technology is now being fine-tuned. Taiwan light industry could quickly become the world leader in alternative energy in a sustainable market of products and services. Diedrichs' arithmetic gets a little fuzzy, however. Shouldn't the costs of the electricity from the nuclear power plant be calculated over a 20-year period of 24 hours a day kilowatt-hours?
Also, for my home, I would have to wait 10 years to realize the savings of a fuel cell that costs the same as "an economy car." No fuel cell maintenance costs were mentioned in the letter. The power plant has become a political question on the crux between economic boom and bust. Sustainable solutions must be sought, rather than a quick buck fix.
Warren Weappa
Yung-ho City
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while