The Taichung County Bureau of Health is in negotiations with a Japanese adult video star popular in Taiwan as part of a public health promotion drive, bureau officials said.
If the negotiations bear fruit, Akane Nagase, who has already featured in half a dozen adult videos, will be the spokeswoman of the bureau's upcoming anti-HIV campaign aimed at getting Taiwanese men to practice safe sex.
Nagase first attracted media attention last September amid reports that she was working as a China Airlines stewardess when she started appearing in adult videos. China Airlines has neither confirmed nor denied the claims.
She will be visiting Taiwan on a tour later in the year. The bureau hopes she can take some time while she is in the country to work on the campaign for a nominal fee, bureau personnel said.
Bureau director Chu Nain-feng (
"She wants to give back to society," Chu said. "The details of the project have yet to be settled, but I don't foresee any difficulties."
However, the decision has provoked a backlash from those who question whether it is appropriate to feature a porn star in a public health initiative sponsored by a government body.
"What is the message that the bureau is trying to spread? It's OK to do whatever as long as you wear a condom?" Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yang Li-huan (
"We are taking a counterintuitive approach to fighting AIDS," said Tsai Wen-che (蔡文哲), head of the bureau's disease control division, in defense of the proposed plan.
"Our top priority is to get people to pay attention," Tsai said. "And judging from the amount of media attention the case has generated, we are having some success already."
"Are you serious? The health bureau?" Jim Oong (
Oong is the founder of Condom World (
"All efforts to promote safe sex should be encouraged." Oong said. "But the bureau's choice of a spokesperson is very controversial and will likely polarize society."
Oong said the decision reminded him of a previous plan by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to drive down HIV transmission by getting "betelnut beauties" to hand out condoms. The plan was nixed after generating widespread disapproval and derision.
Oong told the Taipei Times that if the authorities were serious about encouraging condom use, they should start by relaxing laws regulating the availability of condoms.
"Because condoms are still regulated as a medical instrument, a lot of channels for selling and promoting sales are curtailed," Oong said. "For instance, we are not allowed to sell condoms online."
"I think it's creative," said Tseng Chao-yuan (曾昭媛), general-secretary of the Awakening Foundation, an organization that promotes gender equality.
"A lot of women end up with AIDS because their husbands were unfaithful," Tseng said. "It only makes sense to direct the ads at men."
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)
‘NEVER!’ Taiwan FactCheck Center said it had only received donations from the Open Society Foundations, which supports nonprofits that promote democratic values Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has never received any donation from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a cofounder of the organization wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday. The Taipei-based organization was established in 2018 by Taiwan Media Watch Foundation and the Association of Quality Journalism to monitor and verify news and information accuracy. It was officially registered as a foundation in 2021. National Chung Cheng University communications professor Lo Shih-hung (羅世宏), a cofounder and chairman of TFC, was responding to online rumors that the TFC receives funding from the US government’s humanitarian assistance agency via the Open Society Foundations (OSF),
ANNUAL LIGHT SHOW: The lanterns are exhibited near Taoyuan’s high-speed rail station and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the airport MRT line More than 400 lanterns are to be on display at the annual Taiwan Lantern Festival, which officially starts in Taoyuan today. The city is hosting the festival for the second time — the first time was in 2016. The Tourism Administration held a rehearsal of the festival last night. Chunghwa Telecom donated the main lantern of the festival to the Taoyuan City Government. The lanterns are exhibited in two main areas: near the high-speed rail (HSR) station in Taoyuan, which is at the A18 station of the Taoyuan Airport MRT, and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the MRT
An alleged US government plan to encourage Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to form a joint venture with Intel to boost US chipmaking would place the Taiwanese foundry giant in a more disadvantageous position than proposed tariffs on imported chips, a semiconductor expert said yesterday. If TSMC forms a joint venture with its US rival, it faces the risk of technology outflow, said Liu Pei-chen (劉佩真), a researcher at the Taiwan Industry Economics Database of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research. A report by international financial services firm Baird said that Asia semiconductor supply chain talks suggest that the US government would