Illogical opinions
The opinion piece by Huang Tien-lin (黃天麟) contains glaring logical fallacies (“Punishing the wealth creators not helpful,” May 18, page 8).
Huang suggests that because both the capital gains tax and Marxism both appeal to fairness and justice, and Marxism has been disastrous for millions, therefore the capital gains tax must also be doomed to disaster. This is a post hoc fallacy. In addition, Huang implies that because Beijing does not levy a capital gains tax, neither should Taiwan. This is a tu quoque fallacy.
An opinion piece can be expected to contain opinion, but it must also follow the common practice of reasoned discussion.
Stu Chuang Matthews
Taipei
Taiwan-SKorea science link
Jean Cocteau’s 1929 novel Les Enfants Terribles was more than a work of succinct and elegant prose. The talented author managed that rare gift of creating a phrase that has not only transcended translation, but has also passed into English loaded with a pejorative message aimed at the sophomoric and epicurean. However, the two siblings at the heart of the story are in essence products of a broken and fractured upbringing who must struggle for their own existence.
Whilst the stereotyped view of this phrase is a long way from the relationship between South Korea and Taiwan or their relations with the wider world (they are more magnifiques than terribles) there is nevertheless more than just a declamatory sense in this literary comparison. Both Taiwan and South Korea, born as they were out of the ashes of colonialism and war, have had to fight tough over the past half-century.
On Thursday, the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in Daejeon, South Korea, was formally opened by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, IBS president Oh Se-jung and a host of dignitaries, including former Academic Sinica president Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲). It is hoped this new institute will serve as the bridgehead for major scientific investigation in the country.
Nobel Prize-winning Lee was an appropriate emissary for his country as the former head of Academic Sinica. While such an institute is a great example to the IBS, it also is a great advocate for what Ben Martin of the University of Sussex argues is the importance of establishing and utilizing links between actors and institutes in the scientific fraternity.
Physical relations and locations should not be seen as some kind of historical penumbra, shadowing the uplands of a 24-hour society and the world of Web 2.0. The connections that arise between actors and institutes have been shown to be a success, as in the misappropriated phrase “think global, act local.”
The president of Academia Sinica, Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠), intimates that the relationship between universities, students and academics at the institute is growing stronger and that far from practicing some kind of inward-looking recursive and inchoate didacticism, the institute is ever closer to becoming what Leibniz termed an entelechy in his Monadology — the full realization of being.
Akin to a fledgling flying the nest for the first time, so the IBS, while full of confidence, will also need guidance and a little help from its friends. With its history, record of achievement and a vision for the future, the Academia Sinica, it is hoped, will be one such friend.
It is also to be hoped that unlike the siblings in Cocteau’s novel, the two countries can work together to utilize the networks that exist between them to establish their respective places as lighthouses of scientific discovery.
Stephen Dennison
Daejeon, South Korea
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
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Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
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