House that Fu built
With the nine-in-one elections approaching, I thought the Taipei Times might be interested in the “house” that Hualien County Commissioner Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁) is building for himself: It is nine stories tall, with each floor measuring about 60 ping (198.3m2).
When I went by the construction site in July, the foreman told me — somewhat reluctantly — that it was being built solely for Fu’s personal use; not as an apartment building.
When I asked why one person would need such a big house, he said that Fu had “several children studying abroad,” whatever that means. In addition, the building seemed to be faced mostly in granite.
How a county commissioner can afford to build himself such a large home might be a matter of interest given the Nov. 29 elections, as there are lots of Hualien residents who would like to not have to keep looking at the face of a politician who is developing a personal cult on the level of a North Korean leader.
This information would be especially helpful since Fu has an electoral opponent who has a long record of clean governance in Hualien City.
The approximate address of Fu’s house as given by Google Maps is: No. 93, Qingfeng 13th Street, Jian Township (吉安), Hualien County, 973, and the coordinates provided are: 23.984784, 121.563466.
Since every other building around there is only two or three stories high, Fu’s house is not hard to find. Driving along Jian’s Zhongshan Road northwest of Jian Road will take you there, so you can admire the progress.
Tim Baker
Hualien
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said that Taiwan should not have to choose between aligning with Beijing or Washington, and advocated for cooperation with Beijing under the so-called “1992 consensus” as a form of “strategic ambiguity.” However, Cheng has either misunderstood the geopolitical reality and chosen appeasement, or is trying to fool an international audience with her doublespeak; nonetheless, it risks sending the wrong message to Taiwan’s democratic allies and partners. Cheng stressed that “Taiwan does not have to choose,” as while Beijing and Washington compete, Taiwan is strongest when
RSS