Daily Links, March 26, 2009

What's landed on the blogs this week?

Bike Sharing programs launched in Taipei and Kaohsiung. As always, Taichung is....behind Taipei and Kaohsiung.

Tea Masters goes to Nantou to watch Oolong be picked, with pics

Google Street view for Taipei confirmed.

Stu goes hiking on Road #7. With pics. Neil Wade with great pics of the same trip.

The Utterance goes to one of the great temples of Taiwan, Long Shan Temple in Lukang. I was there yesterday, and should have pics up tomorrow. It's really one of the most beautiful temples on the island.

Maddog on the China Post's inability to read its own paper. The amount of nonsense in that single article is so great, not even maddog could deal with it all.

David reports on Taiwan's entry taking the wild card in the Greatest Job in the World contest. Look, I blog from a tropical island and I can assure you it ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Arthur Dent catches the irony of Ma saying "We are all Chinese" while simultaneously condemning Kuo Kuan-ying for his raving bigot remarks on Taiwanese. The calls for harmony from KMTers are especially revealing, the way they show, as always, that by "harmony" what is meant is suppression of viewpoints officials do not approve of.

The Foreigner points out many of the differences between the treatment of Chen Shui-bian and the former governor of Illinois.

Wild at Heart on a campaign to protect farmland from development.

MEDIA: FEER with a podcast on the grim state of the Taiwan economy. Bruce Jacobs, Taiwan expert, interviewed by BBC and NYTimes. Manufacturing down 28% in Feb, though there was a minor recovery in March. Pentagon says China's military is rising and is a threat. US gives Taiwan unwavering support in reaffirming TRA. Great! So where are my F-16s? AP reports on the DPP critiques of the KMT's ECFA plan. China tightens up on the cut-and-paste academic culture. Trial of Chen Shui-bian begins. He's going to be found guilty, of course. Why are they even bothering to report it? The Philippines and China see tensions rise over Spratlys. Good thing it's a peaceful rise there in Beijing, otherwise we might have to worry about wars over the Himal, central Asia, the border with Korea, India, South China Sea Islands, the Senkakus.... MOEA envisions Taiwan as management and operations center by 2030. Hey! Anyone remember APROC? Pan-Green organization challenges government on ECFA. Not right time for Dalai Lama to visit, says KMT. Canadian volunteer English teachers to teach in remote areas. The teachers come from a local school district and would appear to be a definite improvement over the missionaries King Car normally uses. The tainted Chinese drywall story, now at least two years old, hits Time.

EVENTS: It's been 20 years since Deng (Chen) Nan-jung burned himself to death as the police broke into his home. This month and next a series of events commemorates this great man. See http://www.shadowgov.tw/19214_0_is.htm

PUBLICATIONS: Taiwan Communique is hot off the press:

We hereby let you know that the new issue of Taiwan Communiqué is off the press (attached). In April there will be the 30th Anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act, so in anticipation of that we discuss how it has helped Taiwan, but also how it has contributed to Taiwan’s international isolation.

We present a discussion of the current debate in Taiwan on the pitfalls a possible economic agreement with China. Then we give an overview of the recent commemorations of 228, and focus on the unsolved political murders of the early 1980s (Lin Yi-hsiung’s family and Prof. Chen Wen-cheng).

This is followed by a brief overview of the significant flaws in the court case against former President Chen and his wife, including a hard-hitting assessment by Freedom House.

We close with a Report from Washington with developments in the 111th Congress, and a Book Review of Prof. Jerome Keating’s excellent new book on “Taiwan, in Search of Identity.”

Below you find the table of contents. The electronic versions will be 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

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