Monday, July 05, 2010

Daily Links, July 5, 2010

Went to a local eatery today, first day of summer and lunch was packed. Americans think they are the kings of all-you-can-eat, but nobody can body-slam a buffet like a Taiwanese matron in search of shrimp. It was dog eat dog out there. Fortunately, plenty of goodies on the blogs this week....

BLOGS:
Disclaimer: the two facts that here is a picture of a pile of discarded shrimp carcasses, and below is the section on the media, are not at all related.

MEDIA:



SPECIAL
: Michelle Phillips in the Washington Times conducts a clinic on how to report on Taiwan with a piece on ECFA that blows away all other reporting to date: quotes from many knowledgeable players, identifies their connections, puts the political issue front and center. Excellent work!
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5 comments:

green sleeeves said...

check this out
http://colebatch.blogspot.com/2010/07/trading-places-beijing-and-taiwan-make.html

on as separate note
Feinstein is notorious to be in bed with CCP, the Obama administration being entangled in the two wars and having no guts, it's very likely there is a back-of-the-door deal to remove the "substantial irritant", aka the arms sale to Taiwan away from the US-China relationship. Sadly Ma is more than happy to oblige, or, pimp Taiwan out to be exact.

Sage said...

Jens Kastner argues that students from China will be really good for Taiwan.

Thanks for sending this link ... way to piss me off first thing in the morning. :)

Sage said...

Sage // July 5, 2010 at 11:18 pm | Reply to Jens Kastner's "Mainland students won’t do Taiwan any harm"

“bring extra money in Taiwan’s universities’ cash registers.” And this is always the bottom line isn’t it?

Regardless of the impact, it’s always about money. And to clean up a student dormitory … I hope this be in jest.

Chinese students for a long time have enjoyed the opportunity to attend American schools and with the exception of the elite student, pay the hefty foreign tuition fees.

While at the same time, UCLA as example, has raised the cost of tuition for American students by 30+% putting an education at this university out of the reach of many American students.

No other industry has figured out how to sell to China better than American university’s. Entice the elite class of Chinese students (and I don’t mean the brightest, just the wealthiest) by offering a discount, and watch the “me too” Chinese students follow. As we know, education is valued in Asian society, particularly Chinese.

Today in China, that foreign education for your child ranks right up there with the new Mercedes that you’ve just got to have to maintain your status and face.

But … again using America as example, there isn’t a more important resource than the American secondary education system. It has always given America the point of difference; training young minds to be our future leaders in both government and industry.

Many people have a problem just selling that off to the highest bidder, regardless of what condition of the student union or dormitory may be in.

Chinese students sit shoulder to shoulder with American students, with the opportunity to learn our technology and gain much “insight” into our way of life.

To those who know absolutely nothing about China and it’s culture, gaining insight to our “way of life” is something that we should expose them to, naively thinking they will see the light and appreciate the “American way of life” … it has proven to be far from reality and in some instances, counter productive. A failed missionary perspective.

Not unlike America encouraging China to adopt a free market society and embrace capitalism would somehow cause the Communists to change their stripes … it has fallen flat on those who supported this. One only needs to spend time in China to see evidence of this.

As it relates to Taiwan however, you only need to look to Tibet or Kyrgyzstan to appreciate what the Chinese colonization will bring you.

Opening the doors to their students is just one more step in the direction that the KMT and CCP would like to take the island. A slow but measured colonization.

Somehow there are those who feel that inviting Chinese students to Taiwan universities is a kin to inviting your brothers and sisters … this may be the case for KMT members, but this is NOT the case for native Taiwanese, who are NOT Han Chinese.

If you would like to propose something worthwhile, propose a revamping of the KMT designed education system that continues to suppress native Taiwanese, making a quality secondary education beyond reach of many. Require that the teachers actually teach! That wouldn’t be a unique idea.

As long as the Communist have missiles pointed at Taiwan, as long as the Communists practice ethnic genocide and the Han colonization in Tibet and Kyrgyzstan, all native Taiwanese should fight to the bitter end to keep Chinese students from infesting their universities.

Grab a bucket and a brush and paint the dormitory if it bothers you this much.

les said...

What Taiwan needs is a pruning of the poor universities, not Chinese butts on bad seats. But, this is typical of the kind of supply-side economics which prevails here. Instead of creating products that are needed, let's find a way to force the market to accept what we are producing, or even import a market if the local one won't buy our shoddy product.

Anonymous said...

"Quantity vs. Quality" isn't the issue. That concept has long since been replaced with "Quantity vs MORE Quantity = Quality".

This might be acceptable if we were talking about flip-flops or household slippers, but not education.

But how could this system change? Thoughts, anyone?