Tough day. Too tired to post. Enjoy some links...
- SPECIAL: Taiwan in Cycles on cycling and air quality in Taiwan
- KMT chair Eric Chu to meet China President Xi on May 4
- Chu rules out presidential bid for second time this week. Theories abounding -- but one outstanding one I keep hearing is that he is reluctant to run because there are some iffy land deals in Taoyuan involving his family. Meanwhile current candidate Hung Hsiu-chu came out with some comic stuff about the greatness of China, total deep Blue fantasyland that locals will reject. Doesn't anyone in the KMT have the sense to keep this stuff under wraps? Even Ma Ying-jeou, whom no one would confuse with a pragmatic, flexible politician, knew enough to become Taiwanese when he ran for President.
- Gov't to let blue collar workers earn permanent residency in Taiwan.
- It's 2015. We are not sleepwalking towards war like this National Interest article claims. Beijing is heading us there with eyes open.
- Bored? Chinese propaganda is everywhere, like in the World Policy Journal
- Taiwan to wastefully position search aircraft in Spratlys where it is convenient for China to destroy them, so that they can patrol the South China Sea, which is already monitored by a half dozen navies.
- Frozen Garlic with speculation on a possible party realignment. Great piece. His fundamental idea is correct, but his thinking on Ko is wrong... Perhaps I'll post tomorrow.
- Faces of new media in Taiwan: German reporter Klaus Bardenhagen.
- In the ongoing saga of the Farglory -- Taipei Dome scandal, the head of Farglory says politics is too scary for him. I note that former Mayor Hau is keeping a low low profile. Current mayor Ko's relentless assault on these construction-industrial state giveaways may turn up dirt on many KMT figures...
- The New Qing history is a direct challenge to Beijing's territorial claims in Taiwan and elsewhere. Naturally Beijing authorities are pushing back against it.
- Taiwan Take on Spanish man in Taichung accused of raping 17 year old girl.
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"Taiwan Take on Spanish man in Taichung accused of raping 17 year old girl."
ReplyDeleteWhat is the court standard of proof in cases like this: innocent until proven guilty, or are the feminists already in charge (with their insistence that the burden of proof be reversed in order to secure a higher number of rape convictions)?
It's not feminists, but the media.
ReplyDeleteIf the guy wasn't a foreigner it would not even be an issue.
ReplyDeleteIt plays into the existing trope of the wild, libidinous foreigner corrupting "our women" as a form of ethnic integration through othering and the construction of an "outside" threat. It is usually a phenomenon in response to an awareness that ethnic integration is unclear and may result in challenges to the existing sociopolitical paradigm.
"If the guy wasn't a foreigner it would not even be an issue."
ReplyDeleteAs in raised in the media, you mean?
Whilst I agree it does seem to be the case that the Taiwanese media jump on cases involving foreigners, I only wonder whether this perception is actually false; how many cases of alleged bad behaviour involving foreigners do not make the headlines?
I know of many cases anecdotally which could and perhaps should have made headlines but which didn't.
In any case, my earlier comment about feminism was more in the vein that I don't think it'll be too long before Taiwan has feminists in the judicial system arguing for some form of the reversal of the burden of proof for cases of rape allegations, i.e. that a man accused of raping a woman would have to prove her consent and that he would therefore be presumed guilty until proven innocent.
The "sleepwalking towards war" article makes a compelling case based on historical precedents that when a new power rises (as China is doing), trying to keep it from becoming a regional hegemon is a recipe for war. However we have just as compelling historical precedents showing that appeasing such a rising power that demands annexation of its neighbors is also a recipe for war.
ReplyDeleteYes, I tend to take the latter view. History doesn't give many examples of peaceful rises.
ReplyDelete