On Thursday last week, President William Lai (賴清德) presided over the first meeting of the Healthy Taiwan Promotion Committee, in which experts shared great insights. I shall also give my opinion as follows:
For all students: Taiwan should include courses on mental health in primary and secondary-school curricula to remove stigma towrd mental illnesses, and to enhance emotional intelligence and psychological resilience.
To achieve these goals, teachers should be provided with materials and vocational training.
For vulnerable students: The nation should establish an early-stage care system. All teachers should undergo vocational training on mental health that would provide them with the knowledge and capability to care for students and identify those in need.
The aim is to provide a “healing” campus for students.
For students in need of psychological help: Taiwan should combine psychiatric care and the existing counseling system to support the latter.
Every student faces a different kind of mental challenge. Some of these challenges can improve with the help of teachers, counselors and psychologists.
Some students have emotional disorders, while some have difficulties with impulse control, and some are at risk of injuring themselves or others.
There might be biological reasons, family issues or social factors contributing to their circumstances.
However, the lack of psychiatric care support exhausts teachers and counselors.
There should be an inter-departmental working group between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Welfare to promote mental health on campus.
Resources such as campus security systems, counseling services, hospitals and clinics should be integrated with to promote knowledge relating to mental health, remove stigma, identify and care for students in need, provide early intervention and offer treatments in terms of medicine, counseling and family therapy.
If young people take good care of their mental and physical health, it would prepare them to face pressure in life such as in the workplace and with family, and to pursue life goals and contribute positively to society.
Lin Jin-jia is a psychiatrist.
Translated by Fion Khan
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
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
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
RSS