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Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Tuesday Night Flights

News from all over....

The Atlantic reports that US Vice President Joe Biden is going to be in charge of China during 2012, which will feature leadership transitions in China, in Taiwan (hopefully) and in the US with election and second term of President Obama. Biden is not known to be a friend of Taiwan; with new leadership in Beijing, the Obama Administration is likely to begin with another round of concessions on permanent issues for temporary gains. The article says:
The view of some of the administration's China-handlers is that management of US-China policy has become so central to a vast array of other policy challenges that the administration's approach needs to be both broad and managed with "a deep and senior bench." The evolution of many functional offices at the Department of State and Treasury tasked with various line items in the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue has helped stabilize many aspects of the relationship and has helped to benchmark meeting to meeting progress on core concerns.
The US-China relationship will be very interesting during Obama's second term....

WSJ blogs on the sudden re-appearance of Chen Shui-bian as it is likely he will attend the funeral of his wife's mother next week. Chen Shui-bian will receive permission to attend, will only be given three hours out of prison, will spend only a half-hour at the services, and must wear shackles and leg irons and be attended by guards at all times. Most of that is according to the law. There doesn't seem to be anything very political about the KMT's decision, in fact they seem to be loosely following the law -- the smart move for them would be to grant special clemency, let him speak to the press, and generally cause a ruckus that would harm the DPP four days before the election. But they hate him too much.

It's way cool that Korea is now a cultural exporter, with K-pop making it big all over the world. Unfortunately competition with Korea is a sore point for the locals. Case in point....
In 2010, Taiwanese TV stations aired 162 Korean dramas or an average of 13 dramas per month. They broadcast as many as 120 Korean dramas in last year`s first half, yet Korean dramas have faced a flurry of negative sentiments there. In September 2011, Wu Denyih, Taiwan`s administration chief, said, “Taiwanese TV programs are outdated and boring, and are filled with Korean dramas,” criticizing the excessive airing of Korean shows. Recently, Taiwan’s National Communications Commission requested that Taiwanese broadcasters refrain from airing Korean dramas. As an example, one TV station was advised to air programs other than Korean dramas for at least one hour between 6 p.m. to midnight per day.
The weirdness of Taiwanese avidly watching Korean soaps despite the sensitivity of Taiwanese about things Korean has yet to be fully plumbed in the media or academia, AFAIK. The Taiwan National Communications Commission (NCC) recently ordered Gala TV to reduce its broadcasting of Korean soaps. Interestingly, this does not seem to have become an election issue for either party.

The Asian manufacturing picture is clouding, says WSJ. Manufacturing data have contracted for the fifth straight month in Korea and the seventh straight month in Taiwan (but the rate of decline is slowing).  WSJ writes:
In Taiwan, HSBC's PMI remained well below 50 in December, though at 47.1 it did beat November's 43.7. Some 70% of Taiwan's gross domestic product comes from exporting electronic components, technology products and petrochemicals, leaving the small island particularly exposed to a global slowdown.

The effect of this steady slowdown on the Jan 14 elections may be muted because it has been so steady; people are adjusting to it as the new normality. Local makers like bike industry firms are waiting to see what will happen after Chinese New Year, as Europe implodes and America dithers, amid fears that the China market is looking like the bubble there might finally go ka-boom.

Portnoy has a great collection of Netizen's questions for the President over at Ballots and Bullets. Consider:
The ECFA that Government signed with China is designed to reduce the bilateral trade restrictions, however, the biggest barrier between Taiwan and China is nothing but Internet and information. It is well known, China’s Golden Shield is the most complex system for filtering and control of Internet speech. The gradual implementation of the Web site registration and users’ real-name system, among other measures, are turning the Internet in China into an Intranet. Many websites from Taiwan are blocked in China, and many Chinese websites in are extremely slow in Taiwan, which is extremely inconvenient for netizens to communicate on both sides. If you are elected, will you prioritize this issue, and how will you negotiate with China?
Finally, Taihan has an excellent post on Taiwan's short-term energy security prospects. This is a comprehensive review and no excerpt can do justice to it. Go thou and read!
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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.

4 comments:

  1. About Korean drama...I have two female friends, one mainlander, who hates hot korean entertainers one taiwanese, who loves them. I encountered this type of preference-difference from time to time.

    Summing up all relevant observations, it makes me think that the mainlanders try to spread the hatred toward koreans just as they have been spreading hatred toward westerners, japaneses, taiwaneses, aborginal people, .... etc. Basically, they hate every race on the earth.

    The Mainlanders are a unique ethnic group. They despise all other races but at the same time like to tag the others as [Chinese]. Sounds familiar? Yes, Borg has the same mentality and vision.

    My own fate is a bit like captain Picard. Once I thought myself as a Chinese until just recently that my psychological shacle was broken. Partially thanks to Ma, who enlights me that we are so different.

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  2. Scary thought: What if the many many blue polls are more right than wrong this time? :-S

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  3. The cycling event wasn't the slightest bit political. There was no mention of elections or KMT or Ma or anything remotely approaching politics to be seen.

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  4. Here is a report from 自由時報:
    http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2012/new/jan/1/today-life1.htm

    為避免政治炒作,文建會主委曾志朗前天就表明拒絕任何政治性的宣傳,因此,時常參加建百各種活動的總統馬英九及行政院長吳敦義,昨天反而缺席了「轉動台灣向前行」活動,由副總統蕭萬長、文建會主委曾志朗、體委會主委戴遐齡及執行團隊總召集人劉金標等人帶隊,自中正紀念堂出發騎往士林官邸。不過,蕭萬長發表感言時還提及很「讚」,並舉起雙手比如同「二號」的手勢。

    The red part says the Ma and Wu are usually very keen at joining 100 Year activities but they intentionally skipped One Bike One event, instead the activity was lauched by vice president Siew, the head of culture commitee, and the head of Physical Education, and the chairman of Giant- King Liu (劉金標). Although the cultural commitee emphasized this is not a political event, Siew (蕭) still made a "V" hand gesture ( their campaign number 2) when he was talking about "讚"

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