Saturday, June 30, 2012

Happiness in Taiwan

Swinhoe's Lizard

Commonwealth Magazine offered another one of its comprehensive reviews of Taiwan life and economy, this time on happiness in Taiwan. Apparently this is going to be a periodic survey. The article says:
Closer analysis of the five main metrics comprising the index shows that Taiwanese feel happiest about "Family Life," which accounted for 16.65 points of the overall happiness score. That was followed, in descending order, by "Physical and Mental Health" (16.13 points), "Social Relations" (13.47 points) and "Employment Situation" (12.74 points), with the lowest score being "Political and Economic Climate" (6.95 points).
One of the interesting wrinkles to the survey methodology is that they ranked each of the categories on a satisfaction/importance grid, pictured here. You can see that family life has the highest importance and middling good satisfaction, and the political climate gives little satisfaction but is not important. It's almost like a map of the mentality I have heard some social scientists talk about: each Taiwanese living within a set of concentric circles, with my family relationships in circle 1 the most important, then circle 2, which consists of everyone whom I may interact with, and thus must be placated, and finally, circle 3, everyone else, who do not impinge on my existence and needn't be thought about much. This attitude that politics is of low importance also goes a long way to explain why Taiwanese appear not to care that their legislature is a nigh-on total failure and many other things.

Commonwealth's "analysis" is hilarious in its assumptions:
"Those born in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, are more cautious, having lived through the era when Taiwan was ahead of China and South Korea. They know there has been a change in the weather," Chen Chien-liang echoes. "Young people don't really have that sense of crisis."

From government and business to academia and the media, many observers often compare Taiwan to South Korea and China. As its economy has surged forward, South Korea has become the seventh country in the world with per capita income exceeding US$20,000 and a population of more than 50 million. China meanwhile is more economically vibrant than Taiwan, with annual economic growth of more than eight percent.

CommonWealth Magazine's Happiness Index Survey found that, contrary to general expectations, the Taiwanese public is not particularly envious of either South Korea or China.

A solid 44 percent of respondents felt life was better in Taiwan than in South Korea. Much more overwhelming, fully 72 percent of respondents felt Taiwanese were happier than people in China.
"Contrary to general expectations"?? Some political scientist who was obviously weaned on the Developmentalist Cult of GDP is clearly terrified that South Koreans may be, by some measures, making more per capita than Taiwanese. O the humanity! What it shows is the importance of rank in the way many Taiwanese organize the evaluations of their lives and success as well as the unstated but lurking and deeply primal fear of being weeded out. This unspecific, primal, and lurking fear of being weeded out is important for locals, perhaps because of the way they grow up in an education system that functions as a weeding out system.

Young people don't have any sense of crisis because there is no crisis in Taiwan when South Korea does well economically; we should be celebrating the general increase in well-being in the world as well as the growth in an important market for Taiwanese goods. The world is not a zero-sum game; though for many old-fashioned thinkers that is the only possible world. I have no idea what kind of clueless fool could ever imagine that Taiwanese on the whole could be envious of China, when Taiwan is so much wealthier, safer, more stable, and better run than the empire of Beijing.

It will be interesting to track the survey in the coming years.....
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Friday, June 29, 2012

On the road with FTV and Michella

What a great week I've had traveling in Jiji in Nantou, Jingguashi and Jiufen, and Wanhua in Taipei this week with Michella Jade Weng and the FTV crew shooting segments for a travel show. I also tried out my new Canon 550D DLSR, but unfortunately I only have the 18-55 kit lens. I took a few nice shots like the dragonfly above but viewed from the bottom, the learning curve sure is looking steep.

Our first stop was the tourist town of Jiji, in Nantou, with its famous Japanese-era railroad station. One of our goals was to try banana-themed food, like this plate of fried rice with bananas (bits of dried banana inside, banana chips on top). This shot also shows the concentration and effort that goes into preparing and presenting the items on the show, something I hadn't really realized until I had the chance to tag along.

This shot at the military equipment park just outside the main town area manages to convey a tithe of Michella's boundless energy, positive attitude, and attractiveness.

As part of the banana theme we visited this vendor near the famous collapsed temple outside town, who had a dozen or so different local varieties of banana on display. Michella checks her mic while Zhi-hong the cameraman checks the shots.

Day 2 saw us riding the famous Green Tunnel on 152 west of Jiji, the old route 16. After that I had to give my impressions in Chinese and English of travel in Jiji. Speaking Chinese on camera makes my mind go blank and my Chinese revert to kindergarten level, but I managed to struggle through it without a nervous breakdown. After doing Jiji we drove to the other side of Taiwan to do the Ruifang/Jiufen/Jinguashi tourist area.

We took in the night views but all my shots were awful, so I won't subject you to them. Here is the town of Jinguashi, where we overnighted. Quaint, and far from any useful services. Like the internet, for example.

Early in the morning we headed over to the famous Old Street in Jinguashi town, which apparently rivaled Jiufen during the period when the copper and gold mines were booming. On a Wednesday morning in this era it's totally dead.

My favorite of the shots from this trip, Michella and Zhi-hong check the light and plan the shot. I was constantly amazed by their energy. I'd be wearing down by the end of the day, and they'd be plotting still more shooting.

Then it was over to the abandoned copper processing and mining facilities. This shot shows an old rail line for moving ore down the mountainside to the processing facility below.

Sections of the world's longest smokestacks. They moved toxic fumes from processing the ore up the mountainside and into the valley on the other side. Well worth a visit, tons of infrastructure is just rotting away in the harsh sun, waiting for you to image it.

And me? Here I am paralyzed by vertigo atop the processing facility, wearing a dorky folding hat someone gave me in Nantou. The show appears in a shorter English version and a longer Chinese one, so we shot introductions and comments in each language, along with plenty of food shots, shots in temples, biking, and similar. It was tons of fun. When the show goes up on Youtube, I'll post the links here.

Great time, great learning experience. Hope I get a chance to do it again!
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Beef: The Shut-out

An old rail line for shipping ore down to the processing facility in Jinguashi. It's a crying shame that this facility is simply rotting in the sun.


GONDORFF: He's gonna hit ya with 20 grand, Eddie. How much cash we got?
NILES: Not enough to cover a bet that big.
GONDORFF: Get a couple extra guys in the line, then. We'll give him the shut-out.


I'd say it's good to be back on the blog, but really, beef? Again. Argh.

A few posts ago, I squinted hard at The Beef Game:
The KMT doesn't want this resolved. If the President wanted a resolution he could just issue an executive order and be done with it. Rather, the party leadership wants this impasse. This is all theatre designed to distract and annoy. If the legislature isn't doing something, well, then it isn't doing anything about the two most important near-term items it should be looking at: the capital gains tax (when was the last time you heard anyone talking about that?) and the land value assessment that hasn't been raised since 1987 (totally vanished from the discourse). That latter item is crucial; it has made land into a tax shelter for the wealthy. Addressing these issues is critical for reversing the upward wealth redistribution in Taiwan. Now neither of these things are on the legislative agenda and more importantly, neither is appearing in the media, which, in its best Golden Retriever style, is focusing on beef pant beef pant beef pant beef pant. Woof!
The beef issue is generally credited with the US suspending the TIFA talks on a trade agreement with Taiwan in 2007. It's not apparent to me whether it is the reason for the suspension, or just an excuse. As I noted in that post, the beef issue has assumed a massive symbolic importance in US eyes.

Yesterday the Ministry of Foreign Affairs averred that there was no timetable for a resolution of the beef issue:
Taiwan's government said Friday that it has never promised Washington it will resolve the long-running dispute over U.S. beef imports by a certain time, denying a report stating Taipei's intention to handle the issue after the presidential election in January.
I would bet money that Taipei said a few things that made the US think it had been promised something. Remember in the glorious spring of our youth years ago when Ma, then Chairman of the KMT, promised the US he'd get the arms deal done?

MOFA denies that there is a timetable but in reality there is a deadline. The Taipei Times reported today on a PFP legislator who said the public supports a ban on ractopamine, pointing out that....
“The UN’s Codex Alimentarius Commission is meeting next month and is probably not going to set a residual allowance level for ractopamine, which means ractopamine would not be allowed at all in food,” Lee said. “We should follow the Codex’s standards.”
Imagine that! Of course the Administration knows full well that the Codex Commission is looking at racto standards next month. It is hard to avoid concluding that the legislature has now done its job of stalling long enough so that the July UN Comission meeting, which as the PFP legislator observes, is likely to say nyet to ractopamine at any level, can provide the Administration with more excuses to stall or even piously say, "O so regretful, but we'd like to be in compliance with international standards and thus can't allow any ractobeef into Taiwan. And the public is overwhelmingly against letting it in." And the beef issue will remain to foul up Taiwan-US relations even as AIT officials announce that the relationship is great after the beef mess fades into the next big relationship problem....

I'd just like to point out that the beef issue between the US and Taiwan is mirrored by the Senkakus between Japan and the KMT Administration. From time to time Taipei "reminds" Tokyo that the Senkakus belong to the ROC and have since oil was announced there in 1968 for every picosecond of the last 5,000 years. Taiwan's quiet reiteration of its South China Sea claims serve to drive wedges between it and potential allies to the south. But I'm sure that the KMT Administration's intoning of these territorial claims cannot be meant to maintain irritants in the relationship and isolate Taiwan.
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Tuesday, June 26, 2012

On the road

Light blogging this week, on the road.

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Sunday, June 24, 2012

Apple's Patent Aggressiveness Hurts Taiwan's Economy?

Clean air today, good for photography...

The rabidly pro-China WantChinaTimes argues that Apple hurts Taiwan....
Significantly, Taiwan's exports to the United States and Europe in May declined 12.3% and 13.4%, respectively. Meanwhile, its exports of consumer electronics to these two regions were down 53.7% and 41.1% year-on-year, respectively.

The sharp fall in Taiwan's exports of electronics was attributed to large declines in the Taoyuan-based HTC's exports of smartphones to the United States and Europe.

According to media reports, HTC contributed one quarter of Taiwan's export growth in 2010. Therefore, declines in its exports to the United States and Europe negatively affected exports and even income and employment growth.

Apple can be called the culprit behind the decline in HTC's — and hence Taiwan's — exports. To achieve its goal of profit maximization, Apple filed patent infringement lawsuits around the world against major manufacturers of Android mobile phones and tablet computers, including Samsung and HTC, and demanded that other countries ban the import of products that violate patents.

HTC's exports declined sharply due to its failure in these lawsuits, though it had commanded a large market share in the United States, which has grown over the past few years.
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Yangmingshan Riding

Went over Yangmingshan yesterday with my friend Michael Fahey. Went from Shihlin MRT up to Fengguizi at 600 meters, then down to Wanli via the 28-2, a lovely and enjoyable descent through farms along the ridge. Rode over to Chinshan, grabbed lunch, then back over the 2甲 (陽金公路) to the visitor's center and up the 101甲 to the 101 and down to Danshui. Another glorious descent.80 kms, more than 1500 meters of climbing. Really a wonderful ride. In the photo above taken at the new, upscaled Taipei Train Station, those are people actually lining up to buy....cheesecake.

Taking off from the Shihlin Metro with Ralph, Michael, and Michael

Grabbed this photo, then straightened out to change camera settings for another shot. As I stood next to this critter, a car came along not a foot from my toes and crushed it. You can imagine how peeved I was.

Some nice views at the top.

Nice views coming down the other side too.

Riding the coast from Wanli to Chinshan and lunch.

The 2甲.

Descending into Danshui.

Danshui under rain.

Came home to my new standing desk, here modeled by my son.....

... and my new Canon EOS 550D, modeled with my 1979 AE-1 that my father gave me before I went to Kenya in 1986.

On the road all week. Should be a picture dense week!
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Friday, June 22, 2012

DPPers found innocent again

A public petition is circulating asking the authorities not to restart Nuke plant 2. Here is one of the graphics.

Chen Shui-bian won the case in a lawsuit over the Longtan Land sale.
According to the park, the commission fee for Chen and Wu was included in the “ridiculous” land price. In addition, over one-third of the purchased Longtan land was designated for pubic facilities and could not be utilized. Feeling cheated, the park brought a civil lawsuit against Chen, Wu, Gu, Dayu, and other personnel involved in the scam, asking for compensation of NT$400 million.

Because the science park could not provide proof for its loss, and also because Chen and Wu were not directly involved in the negotiations of the land procurement process, the Taipei District Court ruled against the park's compensation claim.
Longtime readers may recall that in another case involving the Gu (Koo) family, the family initially testified that they had not paid a bribe to Chen over the land case. They then later changed this testimony to say that they did in fact pay such a bribe.

DPPers Chiou I-jen and Michael Kau were also found not guilty in yet another embezzlement case. They had been accused of stealing diplomat funds.

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that these "corruption" cases -- a long string of which the government has lost, including Chen Shui-bian's embezzlement case -- existed in the first place solely to create the impression in the public mind that the DPP was corrupt. But I'm sure that the prosecutors are above petty party politics. I am sure my friend who noted on the ability of the foreign observers to clearly see that when Ai Weiwei is prosecuted for tax evasion in China something is wrong, but in Taiwan foreign observers somehow remain blind to the politics of the string of DPPers attacked and later found innocent, is wrong.

The article noted that the embezzlement case against Lee Teng-hui begins today. What, another case against a prominent pro-independence politician? Hard to believe, eh? I'm sure it is a coincidence like all the others.
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Thursday, June 21, 2012

Thursday links -- Alan Wachman Passes

Busy one today with the semester winding down and grades to do, enjoy some links....

UPDATE: I just heard that Longtime scholar Alan Wachman passed this week, losing his battle with pancreatic cancer. From the announcement:

In lieu of flowers, Alan’s family asks that donations be made to a fund that has been started at Tufts to honor Alan’s work and legacy. The information is as follows:
The Professor Alan M. Wachman Memorial Fund
The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
Tufts University
160 Packard Avenue
Medford, MA 02155.


Today's links...

EVENTS: Mark your calendars!
Taiwan Birdathon 2012.

Taiwan is holding a 30-hour Birdathon event on November 24-25th 2012 (8:30 am - 2:30 pm).

It will be held in the southern counties of Yunlin, Chaiyi, and Tainan - home to great birding sites such as Alishan, Yushan National Park, Huben, Beimen Wetlands, Aogu Wetlands, and Qigu Reserve. A wide range of shore and forest birds can be expected - including many endemics and wintering specialties.

This will be a fun event suitable for bird watchers of all abilities. Teams, each consisting of 3-4 members, aim to spot as many bird species as possible in the 30 hour period. There may be other less competitive 'targets'. Foreign teams are especially welcome - accommodation and food will be paid for on the 23-25th, and can be paired up with local guides if necessary. No registration fee required.

Organized by the Taiwan Ecotourism Association. Sponsored by Taiwan Tourism Bureau, the SW Coast National Scenic Area Administration, Alishan NSA, and Siraya NSA.

For more details see the official website at http://www.taiwanbirdathon.org (English version still under construction at time of writing) or the blog post at http://birdingtaiwan.blogspot.tw/2012/06/taiwan-birdathon.html
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Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Taiwan Communique 136 out!

From: Formosan Association for Public Affairs

We are pleased to let you know that the new issue of Taiwan Communiqué is hot off the press (attached). This issue starts with a summary of the May 19th protest against Ma Ying-jeou’s policies. We also present an analysis of Ma Ying-jeou’s second inauguration speech, and particularly criticize his “One Republic of China, two areas” concept.

We then focus on recent opinion polls showing a sharp decline in the President’s popularity, and analyze the reasons for this decline: his mishandling of the beef issue, the steep hike in electricity rates and the capital gains tax debacle.

This is followed by two essays: one on Taiwan’s democracy, whose is it anyway? By former FEER correspondent Julian Baum, and one titled Taiwan’s beacon starting to flicker (on the need for Taiwanese to speak out on human rights) by former AIT Chairman Nat Bellocchi.

We then present an update on the health and prison conditions of former President Chen Shui-bian, and reprint an OpEd by former Alaska governor Frank Murkowski, titled “Treatment of Chen is a national disgrace.”

In the Report from Washington we report on the introduction of a House resolution calling for normalization of relations with Taiwan, and on two letters sent by ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Howard Berman (D-CA) urging the State of California and the Department of Homeland Security that Taiwan be referred to as “Taiwan” on websites and immigration forms – in accordance with US policy.

We close this issue with a book review of the book Politicized Society: the Long Shadow of Taiwan’s One-Party Legacy by Finnish Prof. Mikael Mattlin, reviewed by Prof. Jon Sullivan of the Univ. of Nottingham.

Below you find the table of contents. The electronic version has been uploaded to our websites www.fapa.org and http://www.taiwandc.org/twcom/index.html The hardcopy will be sent out to those who are on our mailing list early next week.

Best regards,

Gerrit van der Wees
Editor, Taiwan Communiqué
Formosan Association for Public Affairs
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Central Police Uni prof indicted for espionage for China (and other stuff)

In 2009 I scribed a post arguing that PRC police presence in Taiwan would surely result in intelligence sharing between the CCP and the KMT on Chinese dissidents and other freedom supporters in Taiwan. Apparently, formal networks are not necessary...
Wu Chang-yu (吳彰裕), 53, an associate professor with the school’s Department of Administrative Management, is accused of passing along information on the activities of Pakistanis in Taiwan, as well as information on Falun Gong practitioners and Tibetan independence activists.
According to the piece, he also helped them with information on a PRC prof who had political views Beijing didn't like. Sad. Now imagine what would happen if we had PRC police agents roaming around here.... O wait, I'm sure there will be a substantial leaven of them among the 'independent' tourists from the PRC.

Meanwhile, remember the beef issue? Yeah, President Ma had pushed for an extra legislative session on that but the DPP and KMT finally agreed on something: a postponement of the session. So, nothing will get done on beef (remember the Administration can issue an executive order if it wants), capital gains, or the land tax issue until the legislature reconvenes. [cynical laugh]

Taoyuan Jobs:
Two schools need foreign teachers. Please contact May (cell phone: email me)

1. 4-6pm Thursday and 3-6:30pm Fridays. Location: Da-Yuan (Tao-Yuan county)

2. 3:30-5:30pm Monday and Wednesday. Location Nan-can. (Tao-Yuan county)
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Monday, June 18, 2012

Daily Links, Mon, June 18, 2012

Lin's chastity and piety memorial arch in Dajia, Taichung.

Rounded up a few links today. Have at'em! Typhoon/Tropical Storm Talim is on the way, so batten down the hatches this week, we're gonna get soaked again!

SPECIAL: Don't miss this great piece in China Heritage Quarterly on the Confucius Institutes and Chinese language abroad. Good related piece in Globe and Mail (thanks anon!)

BLOGS:
MEDIA:
  • Scott Simon's excellent op-ed on Chinese investment in Canadian oil sands.
  • China promises Taiwanese investors nearly $100 billion in loans.
  • According to the Joint EU-UN Global storm center, Taiwan is a province of China and no people live in Hsinchu or Taichung. Perhaps a polite letter might be in order.... 
  • Yes, KMT paper says it was all the DPP's fault that no important bills got passed this legislative session.
    The KMT caucus hoped that the amendment bill related to US beef imports, the introduction of a capital gains tax on stock transactions, and the National Communications Commission (NCC) personnel appointments could be passed in the current legislative session. However, due to the DPP’s obstruction, these important amendments bill failed to be adopted in the Legislative Yuan

    There were a lot of important bread-and-butter bills piling up in the Legislative Yuan which needed to be handled, including amendment bills increasing punishments for drunk drivers, empowering Fair Trade Commission (FTC) members to seize and conduct searches on business operators which artificially force up commodity prices, exempting the underprivileged, including lower-and-mid income families, from national health insurance premium hikes, preventing sex offenders from being paroled without receiving proper psychotherapy, and so on.
    In the post below I observed how the DPP boycott played into KMT hands. But remember, the KMT controls the legislature; if nothing happens, it's their fault.
  • (Chinese) 2 30 cm long cracks in the reactor vessel of nuke plant 2. 
  • Randy Forbes on the challenges China is creating for the US
  • Why our food is making us fat
  • Series of shallow quakes rock Taiwan
EVENTS:
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Taiwanease Taxi App Out!

Need to be somewhere on time? The hardworking folks at Taiwanease have introduced another great app, the Taiwanease taxi app.
We created Taiwanease Taxi as a bare-bones version of our Taiwanease Directory app. There are still the thousands upon thousands of listings, but we're keeping it simple - only taxi cards, and nothing else.
Go thou and download!
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Sunday, June 17, 2012

The Impotence of Being Earnest

"And Ser Lyn Corbray?"
The candlelight was dancing in his eyes. "Ser Lyn will remain my implacable enemy. He will speak of me with scorn and loathing to every man he meets, and lend his sword to every secret plot to bring me down."
That was when her suspicion turned to certainty. "And how shall you reward him for this service?"
Littlefinger laughed aloud. "With gold and boys and promises, of course. Ser Lyn is a man of simple tastes, my sweetling. All he likes is gold and boys and killing."

Ractobeef. So useful, if it didn't exist, it would have to be invented.

The Taipei Times today reported again that the KMT legislative caucus wants the executive branch -- that is, the branch led by President Ma, who is also Chairman of the KMT -- to end the beef impasse by issuing an executive order permitting US ractobeef into Taiwan.....
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers yesterday demanded that the executive branch “do its bit” to resolve the dispute over a ban on imports of US beef containing ractopamine residues — the latest in a string of moves over the issue faced by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration.

Ma on Friday night instructed the party to push for a provisional legislative session to pass an amendment to the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) which would relax the ban. This came after the legislative session ended without a vote on the bill because of an opposition boycott.
Let's see... Ma wants the legislature to do it, the legislature wants Ma to issue the order. Neither party wants to... everyone is so earnest in their criticism of the President:
We already set the scene for the Executive Yuan to get the issue resolved by an executive order” at Thursday’s caucus meeting, KMT Legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖) said. “Why is the Executive Yuan throwing the ball back into our court?”

Chen said the legislature “had already paid a hefty price” over the US beef issue, as the political confrontation had provoked criticism over chaos in the legislative body and legislative inefficiency.
...with some hacks on Ma:
KMT Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) said “an aura of passivity and inactivity” has pervaded the caucus as a result of “misguided [government] policies.”

Tsai agreed with the DPP’s description of Ma as a “lame duck” president, saying that lame-duck signs “have been surfacing.
The pro-KMT China Post's piece on Saturday, Ma Distressed Over Failed Beef Vote, gave the President's very earnest side of things....
The president is “regretful and distressed” that opposition lawmakers have paralyzed the Legislative Yuan, said Fan Chiang.
Opposition lawmakers have paralyzed the Legislative Yuan. Yeah, right. As the China Post's thumbnail history observes, this has been going for months (years actually)...
For months, Ma has actively lobbied for legislators to pass amendments to the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) that would open Taiwan's borders to U.S. beef containing ractopamine.

But the Executive Yuan is not considering the use of executive order to force open borders to beef, said Executive Yuan spokesman Hu Yu-wei (胡幼偉) yesterday.

Earlier, Premier Sean Chen had told reporters that an executive order is a legal option, but that revising law through the Legislature is the “most safe way” to resolve the impasse.
The legislature has been punting the beef issue around for months. The legislature is paralyzed. And Ma? He's been distant, arrogant, mismanaging... the TT analysis:
Ma’s critics describe him as a stubborn and arrogant politician who lacks communication and negotiation skills, both as president and KMT chairman, and the traits have taken a toll on his leadership within the party at the beginning of his second term, as KMT lawmakers brush off the government’s attempts to seek unanimous support from the party caucus for reform proposals.

To call for party unity, Ma attended the KMT’s caucus meeting on June 7 and asked party legislators to ensure that the bill on US beef pass the legislature by the end of this legislative session.

However, the caucus meeting, held to strengthen communication between the executive branch and legislative caucus, lasted only an hour. Ma left the room immediately after making a speech, without listening to lawmakers’ responses.
Ok, let's tote up the score. Legislature paralyzed. Beef dominating the headlines. Each side blaming the other. Each side capable of independent action that could easily resolve the impasse. Neither side moving.

It's all a game, folks.

The KMT doesn't want this resolved. If the President wanted a resolution he could just issue an executive order and be done with it. Rather, the party leadership wants this impasse. This is all theatre designed to distract and annoy. If the legislature isn't doing something, well, then it isn't doing anything about the two most important near-term items it should be looking at: the capital gains tax (when was the last time you heard anyone talking about that?) and the land value assessment that hasn't been raised since 1987 (totally vanished from the discourse). That latter item is crucial; it has made land into a tax shelter for the wealthy. Addressing these issues is critical for reversing the upward wealth redistribution in Taiwan. Now neither of these things are on the legislative agenda and more importantly, neither is appearing in the media, which, in its best Golden Retriever style, is focusing on beef pant beef pant beef pant beef pant. Woof!

And the DPP lent a hand with this boycott, tying things up for another five days and ensuring nothing got done. It must have been difficult for Ma to keep a straight face when he was hacking on the DPP for engaging in a boycott, which was exactly what he wanted.

If the DPP wanted to screw the KMT, they should have forced a vote and then moved on to the really important stuff like capital gains, water, or energy policy. Make the KMT look like what it is: the party of the 1%. Remind the public what's really at stake.

Ma and the KMT are just playing a game to make sure that once again, nothing gets done. Four more years of this to look forward to! As a special bonus, this will exasperate the Americans and weaken US support for Taiwan. It is hard for me to interpret this as anything other than a key goal of the pro-China KMT Administration. Don Shapiro of AmCham pointed out the importance of beef in pissing off American Taiwan supporters in a piece for Brookings back in Feb:
Although it considered itself well-versed on the beef issue, an American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei delegation that visited Washington last autumn was still surprised by the vehemence of the criticism of Taiwan it heard from American officials on the subject. One high-level official described Taiwan flatly as “an unreliable trading partner,” for example, while another said the disagreement over beef had “cast a pall” over the entire bilateral relationship. Beef had taken on a symbolic importance far out of proportion to its monetary value of less than 1 percent of U.S. exports to Taiwan.
Sure KMT elites know what the effect of dragging their feet on ractobeef on the US must be.

This of course will be with the tacit approval of those in US circles who want Ma to sell Taiwan to China anyway, since they are all doing business with China, and for whom those 23 million democratic Taiwanese are so many impediments to greater mutual profit.

You can be sure that when the beef issue is played out, the scene will shift back to something else intractable and US-related, like the F-16s. I can see the headlines now. Legislature passes resolution calling for F-35s, Demands F-16 Upgrades be Suspended. Or perhaps Ministry of Defense Admits Budget Will Not Cover Upgrades, US Demands Explanation.


To hell with politics anyway....what a lovely day today was here in the Chung, so nice to get out and take some pictures. Facebook was full of photos from people out enjoying the rare sight of blue skies and puffy white clouds after a week or more of torrential rain. Hope you found some free time to hit the trails or the roads today......
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Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Paddy Fields in a Globalized World 2: Methane

Methane. A powerful greenhouse gas; human activities pump it out like crazy. By now educated readers are aware of the problem of methane from production of cattle and other ruminants, which worldwide accounts for 28% of methane production (EPA). Last year, I wrote a post on paddy fields in a globalized world and learned that rice paddy fields, 90% of which are in Asia, account for roughly 20% of global methane production according to most sources, though there is much variability in the estimates. They are also known to be major producers of another greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide.

The connection between human activities and a warming world, robustly-established in the climate sciences, is important because by 2050 the world will be feeding 9 billion people, meaning that rice production and its associated methane production will likely have to increase.

In Taiwan rice is generally planted twice a year. The vast majority of methane emissions take place during the second planting (here, here). Because in every country cropping practices are different, local factors affect methane output from rice farming. This paper on the methane emissions in all 15 of Taiwan's irrigation districts observes:
The amount of methane emitted in the second crop season was 7– 16 times that emitted during the first crop season. If the reduction in planted acreage proposed (12%) is during the second crop season, this will reduce the amount of methane emitted by 21% annually.

Additionally, the rice straw following the first crop harvest is ground into the soil before the rice is planted in the second crop season. The addition of ground rice straw to the soil significantly increases the rate of emission of methane in the hot and humid summer. Removing the rice straw from the soil greatly reduces the rate of emission of methane.
The authors recommend that rice straw be removed from fields prior to the second planting to reduce methane emissions. The paper dates from 2003, when Taiwan had just entered the WTO and the government had taken thousands of hectares of rice fields out of production to comply with agreements to import rice. This ironically reduced methane emissions. The paper observes that in Taiwan temperature is the major determinant of rice field methane output; it is highest in Pingtung fields and lowest in Nantou.

Another factor in rice field methane output is water and water depth. In China methane emissions fell 40% when water-saving practices were implemented that drained fields of their water three times annually instead of keeping them continually flooded. In Taiwan the effects are similar though not so dramatic. This is because when the fields are flooded, soil bacteria shift to anaerobic fermentation of organic material in the field, which creates methane. Upland rice fields, which are not flooded, produce negligible amounts of methane. Recall, however, that as my post on paddy fields noted, flooding rice fields recharges underground water sources.

Another methane reducer in Asia was the shift to artificial fertilizer and away from animal and organic waste. Differences in fertilizer type also affect methane production. Nitrogen-rich fertilizers result in much higher methane emissions, in one 2003 study in Taiwan large reductions were found if non-nitrogen fertilizers were used (another study of methane and nitrous oxides emissions from Taiwan).

Because every region has its own special methods and practices for producing rice, there is no global fix for the problem of methane production from rice fields. But it is surely something humanity will have to consider in the coming decades.

REF: Want to reduce weeds, snails and methane in rice paddies? Try ducks!
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Daily Links:
  • Travelscope Introduces Taiwan's Tea and Aboriginal Cultures. 
  • American surfers hit Taiwan
  • AsiaEye under the radar news
  • Ag losses from rain to top NT$500 million; expect higher food prices in local markets.
  • Five day boycott by DPP blocks vote on ractobeef. The KMT has been calling for an executive order. Note that the Ma Administration could have ended this impasse by executive order. That Ma has not suggests that he wants to use the legislature as a fig leaf for permitting ractobeef into Taiwan ("Look, the legislature decided to let beef in, my hands are tied") or as an excuse for not letting it into Taiwan. Either way, the Administration shifts the blame for the decision onto someone else. The really terrifying thing is that Taiwan's voters will return this legislature in the next election even if it votes to let in beef laced with cyanide.
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Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Avoiding the US-China War: Sell Out Taiwan

NorthCrossJune012__104
The NY Times offered a rare piece in an Establishment newspaper: one that pointed out that the US and China are on a collision course. Unfortunately, basing its argument on a book by Hugh White that argues for a power-sharing agreement in East Asia, it quickly reaches for the usual....
To avoid this, White’s suggested East Asian order would establish red lines that the United States and China would both agree not to cross — most notably a guarantee not to use force without the other’s permission, or in clear self-defense. Most sensitively of all, while China would have to renounce the use of force against Taiwan, Washington would most probably have to publicly commit itself to the reunification of Taiwan with China.
According to the author, White also argues that the US should cease working for democracy and human rights in China.

There's not much to say here. White is primarily thinking about power sharing in East Asia; in this kind of thinking democracies have allies for the same reason that Congressmen have principles: so they can sell them.

I think, instead of offering Taiwan to appease Beijing, the US should take White's suggestion and go one better: sell out Australia to Beijing. It's practically empty, it's much bigger than Taiwan, and the beaches are better. Who cares if the people of Australia object? Isn't the greatness of a realpolitik move measured by the number of one's friends it betrays?

For those interested in the long version of why selling out Taiwan won't work, see this post on Finlandizing Taiwan. The short version is simple and obvious: it doesn't address the problem, which is Chinese expansionism -- instead, it rewards it.
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Daily Links:
  • Typhoon updates from the CWB. Looks like it might miss us completely. We could use a break.
  • Did Facebook suspend the accounts of Hong Kong and Taiwan activists on purpose? 
    Facebook is blocked in mainland China, but is used heavily by the rest of the Chinese-speaking world, including Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. Political activists in Hong Kong and Taiwan use Facebook as their primary tool to mobilize support for their causes and activities. On June 1, when scores of activists' accounts were deactivated in Taiwan and Hong Kong, outrage and conspiracy theories quickly spread across the Internet. Activists in Hong Kong suspected political foul play, given that their accounts were suspended just as they were organizing major protests to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the June 4 massacre.
  • China Airlines to buy 10 planes. Boeing or Airbus?
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Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

RactoBeef update

Rain still continues..... it is hard to believe the heavens could hold this much water. Luckily the typhoon looks to be swinging past us moving north a distance from Taiwan, according to info that my man The Bushman has posted on his typhoon blog.

As a number of commentators on the US beef dispute have noted, the real issue isn't beef, but pork. If Taiwan permits dope-laden beef  to come in, then under its WTO agreements it must also permit ractopamine-laced pork to enter as well. That is why pork farmers in Taiwan are up in arms. While Taiwan produces little beef, meaning that US beef hurts few locals, it produces lots of pork, meaning that US pork is real threat to local livelihoods (excellent TT editorial on this very topic). Media reports say Taiwan is now moving toward a formula to finesse this issue:
Taiwan will separate the permits for importing beef and pork if it decides to open its doors to ractopamine-fed meat from the United States, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday.

Referring to a set of guidelines announced by President Ma Ying-jeou to partially allow imports of beef containing the leanness-enhancer ractopamine, Steve Hsia, the ministry’s deputy spokesman, said that“our policy is very clear.”

“The guidelines include: A safe level of ractopamine in beef; separating the permits for importing beef and pork; clearly labeling beef imports; and excluding imports of internal organs,” he said in a routine press conference.

Hsia’s remarks came amid media reports that several U.S. lawmakers have been urging U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration to press Taiwan to allow imports of both beef and pork containing ractopamine.

In March, 68 U.S. lawmakers appealed to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack about the restrictions Taiwan has placed on U.S. beef pork imports, which they described as not being based on science.
Isn't it wonderful to hear US government officials from an administration that has done nada on climate change, continued funding abstinence-only sex stupidity, and thinks fracking is a really good idea complaining that somebody else's policy is not based on science?

If the Ma Administration's labeling policy is carried out for real and local restaurants are conscientious about posting the origins of their meat, then perhaps US beef and pork may be avoidable. Haha -- how could I write that last sentence with a straight face? Note also that if ractopamine-laced beef from Uncle Sam's beef factories are permitted into Taiwan, then other nations will be able to dump their ractoburgers in Taiwan as well which means there will likely be no trustworthy beef in Taiwan. Even if other nations don't send ractosteaks here, restaurant patrons will never be able to be sure that they aren't getting US beef even when they order some other nation's products. Although the New Zealand representative office here says ractopamine is illegal in NZ, as do the Aussies, the Taiwan DOH claimed it has found it in NZ and Aussie beef (I seem to remember they backed off this claim but can't find the report UPDATE: maddog has the skinny in comment below, was US beef mislabeled. Thanks man!). Given all the issues with beef, especially US beef, this writer has pretty much stopped eating the stuff.

REF: AIT's 'fact sheet' on ractopamine is here.
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Daily Links:
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Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Rain = Silt

Two years ago next month I wrote a post that touched on the silt problems threatening the lifespans of Taiwan's dams. The torrential rains we're getting now, plus the massive downpours we can expect from the typhoon on its way in time for the weekend, suggests that our reservoirs will take another blow..... the article that inspired that post noted...
Before Shihmen Reservoir was completed, engineers estimated that silt would flow into it at a rate of 790,000 cubic meters per year, giving it a useful life of at least 71 years. The reservoir began filling with water in May 1963, but when Typhoon Gloria struck northwestern Taiwan in September of the same year, it washed more than 19 million cubic meters of silt into the new reservoir, equivalent to one-third of its silt capacity. This knocked 23 years off its life expectancy at a stroke.
Morakot did the same thing.....
In August 2009, Typhoon Morakot struck Taiwan with record-breaking rainstorms and devastating floods. As a result, the Cengwun and Nanhua Dam were ravaged, the massive flood water caused Cengwun Dam to silt up with 90 million cubic meters of mud, while Nanhua also suffered silting up of 17 million cubic meters of mud. Consequently, the water retaining capacities of the dams were significantly reduced, seriously affecting the water supply in the Greater Tainan region.
A DPP legislator commented in the Taipei Times in 2010:
Following Typhoon Morakot last August, the bed of the Laonong River (荖濃溪) in southern Taiwan rose in some places by more than 23m, and the cross-watershed transfer project built to supply water to the Zengwen Reservoir (曾文水庫) in Taipei County was almost completely ruined. That was followed on March 4 by the Jiasian earthquake, after which environmentalist groups found that the transfer conduit tunnel was crossed by four geological faults, presenting the danger of collapse in case of a powerful earthquake.
The conduit is discussed in detail in this 2009 post on The View on the destruction of Hsiaolin Village. The DPP legislator's piece stated that Tsengwen Reservoir's current capacity is less than 40%; it is so shallow that in the rainy season it often overflows and has to be lowered. UPDATE: Mike Fagan, who has traveled all over the south looking at its dams, reminds me that the 2010 program to combat the silting problem of the Tsengwen and Nanhua Reservoirs was implemented and $16 billion was spent on it. A 2011 piece from the China Post notes an important connection between the reservoirs and the construction-industrial state:
The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) had earlier planned to remove 52 million cubic meters of sand and mud from December 2010 to November 2011 but is now shortening the plan's completion time to the end of June.

....

According to Wu, the government's dredging efforts have achieved good results, with sand prices having fallen by almost 25 percent from July to December last year, lowering the costs of public construction projects.
Heh. Fagan told me of the tributary widening: "you can see the difference - the newer weirs are much wider than the older stuff, and use different designs." Here are his posts on his trips to Nanhua and Tsengwen.

A UDN editorial sketched the future of Taiwan's dams:
To exacerbate things even further, extreme weather patterns have become ever more prevalent because of global warming. Both the Research Center for Environmental Changes at Academia Sinica and the United Nations-affiliated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have already confirmed that every time the world’s average temperature rises by one degree Celsius, the amount of moisture in the atmosphere increases by 7 percent. This means that convection has intensified and there are now more severe heavy downpours and fewer light showers.

What is more, after analyzing Taiwan’s rainfall data from the last 45 years, Academia Sinica discovered that over this period the number of “severe” and “extremely severe” downpours in Taiwan has increased by 100 percent. The island has thus been affected by extreme weather conditions to a far greater degree than the global average.

If four typhoons strike Taiwan every year, and each typhoon affects the nation for two days, then 40 percent of annual precipitation would fall in eight short days. The number of days when it rains more than 1,000 millimeters per day has also become more frequent. But most of this rainfall flows rapidly directly to the ocean, and very little remains. All this means that the situation whereby Taiwan “rains a lot, but has very little water to use” is getting worse.

On the other hand, the number of days when there has been a light drizzle or sprinkle has declined sharply. Statistics show that during the last few decades, moderate showers fell an average of 70 days per year. In the last few years, this number has gone down to fewer than 30 days per year. Light rains moisten the earth, gradually percolate underground, then slowly migrate to rivers, and finally fill dams with water. This regulating system has today been weakened and is coming to a halt, so that the number of days when rivers run dry has increased, and droughts are becoming more common. The land is undergoing desertification, the rivers are filled with mud and dams are becoming silted.
The bashing by severe rains washes more silt down, meaning that in our warming world dams will have shorter life spans and serve up less water.
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Daily Links:
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Rain Rain Go Away =UPDATED=X4 + TYPHOON BONUS YAY!

From my FB friends: Chungli train station after several days of rain. 

Wow. After several days of rain, the island is a sponge, with more still to come. In the south, where 60 cm of rain has fallen in the last 24 hours, schools and other organizations are closed, including major universities. In New Taipei City, schools below the college level are closed. UPDATED: Facebook and reader comments indicate business closings all over Taipei.

Since this post is several days old, I've moved everything below the READ MORE link....


Monday, June 11, 2012

Daily Links, June 11, 2012

Clamoring for something good to consume? Check out the links below.....

BLOGS:
MEDIA:
EVENTS:
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Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Rainy Day Northern Cross Island Highway

Another excellent Northern Cross-Island Highway Ride this weekend with good friends Andrew, Dom, and Jeff, as well as Patrick, whom I had never met before. Previous rides on the northern cross here, here, and here (map of route). Sorry about the light posting last week...


Friday, June 08, 2012

Frank Ching on Beijing's Fear of Taiwan

Bicycle policeman in Fengyuan...

Frank Ching in the NST delineates the tragic situation of poor Beijing, victimized by the heartless Taiwan identity:
Beijing is concerned that the sense of Taiwanese identity is growing stronger despite improved cross-strait relations. A majority of people on the island now identify themselves as solely Taiwanese rather than as both Chinese and Taiwanese.
This is quite true. Even that rabid fan of all things KMT, TVBS, has found this in its polling. The March poll observed that with three possible choices -- clever of TVBS to offer these choices -- hardly anyone sees themselves as solely Chinese (3%). 54% are Taiwanese and 40% are both. If they only get two choices, Taiwanese or Chinese, the vast majority opt for the first. Among the young identification with China is tiny.

Ching goes on:
President Ma himself is doing what he can to reinforce a sense of Chinese identity.

In April, he presided over a ceremony in honour of the Yellow Emperor, the mythical ancestor of Han Chinese, and was immediately excoriated by opposition politicians who feared that he was paving the way for unification with China.
In the first sentence, Ching himself avers that President Ma is doing what he can to help maintain a sense of Chinese identity, surely a necessity for a peaceful annexation. In the next sentence, he reports that opposition politicians "fear" this as if he himself had not just asserted it was true. Hokay....

Ching's major points, that "progress" between the two governments is likely to slow in Ma's second term, is probably true. As he notes, the KMT and the CCP had agreed on all the easy stuff and gotten that done. In the second term there is likely to be greater pressure for talks on annexation. Ching then transmits the Received Wisdom:
This is the nub of the issue. Beijing must realise that a consensus within Taiwan is the precondition to any successful political discussions between the two sides.

Now that Taiwan is a democracy, it is not possible for the Communist Party and the Kuomintang to reach an agreement and impose it on the people of Taiwan.
Well, actually, it is possible for the CCP and KMT to reach an agreement and impose it on the people of Taiwan. Was there majority support for ECFA? Let's not forget, the KMT controls the legislature...would they be restrained by the fall in popularity, street demonstrations, etc? Good question.

More importantly, that word consensus appears there. This idea that Taiwan must reach a consensus is common in the literature from pundits on Taiwan. As I've noted before, Taiwan has already reached a consensus: no one here wants to be ruled by the PRC and the vast majority of people favor independence. Violations of that understanding are one important reason Ma's support plummeted during his first term.

So what can speakers for the Establishment mean when they use this word consensus? It often reads to me like just another euphemism for "do what Power wants" -- what they are really saying is that Taiwanese must agree to be annexed before they can be annexed. But it could very well mean that Taiwanese must come to a consensus on what concrete actions to take. It never reads that way to me, though. since that statement is almost never made so clearly.

It is hard to see, given the KMT's adamant refusal to allow meaningful expressions of public sentiment through binding referendums, how such a consensus could manifest itself. Perhaps those who speak about consensus could more gainfully employ their time and pixels by talking to the KMT about letting a consensus be formally and meaningfully evaluated via democratic process, instead of wagging fingers at Taiwan for not having a consensus. But I suspect they don't do that precisely because they know what the results would be....

Ching then claims that Ma's goal is for China to democratize. I have trouble believing that, but let's skip to his last important claim:
In fact, it may well be that the only way Beijing's goal of reunification can be achieved is if, before that, it developed democratic institutions like those on Taiwan.
Actually, there is a consensus on this as well. As Emerson Niu's survey found:
Q4. If only small political, economic, and social disparity exists between Mainland China and Taiwan, do you favor or not favor Taiwan unifying with China?

Not Favor: 56.4%
Favor: 36.4%
NA: 7.2%
Even if China democratizes, Taiwanese don't want to give up their ability to rule themselves.

On the positive side, the call for democracy provides a plausible reason to delay discussions on annexation with China.

On a related topic, re President Ma's defining Taiwan as an ethnic Chinese society and "Chinese democracy", a friend writes:

There was an interesting exchange at the Legislature after the inauguration where members of the cabinet were asked if they were descendants of the Yan and Yellow Emperors per Ma's comments in his inaugural address.


Sun Dachuan, the head of the Council for Indigenous Peoples, a Puyuma, replied 'No, I am not'.


Hai Zhongxiong (Mongolian Affairs Department) said that he and Genghis Khan were not Chinese (Zhongguo ren) or 'Descendants of the Yan and Yellow Emperors'. Instead, they were Mongolians.


His boss Luo Yingxue however thought that there 'were different definitions of descendants of the Yan and Yellow Emperors' and that according to one broad interpretation, the Han, the Manchus, the Mongolians, the Hui, the Miao, and the Yao are all descendants of the Yan and Yellow Emperors. [MT: note that one definition of the ROC includes Outer Mongolia as ROC territory]


I also noticed that Ma's 'blood and soil' nationalistic statements in his inaugural address were sanitized.
兩岸人民同屬中華民族,都是炎黃子孫,擁有共同的血緣、歷史與文化
The people on both sides of the Strait are members of the Chinese people [race], 'Descendants of the Yan and Yellow Emperors, who have a common blood, history, and culture.
This was rendered into English as
The people of the two sides of the strait share a common Chinese ethnic heritage. We share common blood lines, history and culture.
Ask yourself if someone who thinks that way is really a believer in a democratic polity based on citizen participation in a free society.
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Daily Links:
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Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.