Global Voices Online on Taiwan

Global Voices Online, a fantastic peek into the blogospheres of 200 nations, has great stuff about Taiwan, like this collection on transportation and the east coast. The proposed highway down the east coast was an important topic in the DPP primary debates -- headlining the Taipei Times presentation of it -- and is highly controversial. The post collects local bloggers musing on where things are headed....

In the essay on outdoor recreation, ‘Conservation Esthetic,’ Professor Leopold wrote, ‘Recreational development is a job not of building roads into the lovely country, but of building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind.’

The total area of Taiwan is about 36,000 sq. km, and mountains account for 30% of the surface area. The Central Mountain Range has been an important barrier stretching from north to south. It stops typhoons approaching from Pacific Ocean going to the western plains and stops western invaders from going to the eastern areas. Ever since Taiwan was colonized by China and Japan, transportation between the east and the west has played a critical role in the local community development, government control, and natural resource depredation....

[Taiwan]