Ginger: a root of Taitung's destruction

No days like this one this weekend, the weather service is saying...

The returns are high, the risks are low, and the damage is immense.  FocusTaiwan:

For farmers to harvest old ginger root on a 1 jia (2.3-acre) plot in the mountains, they only have to spend around NT$1.2 million (US$39,328) to prepare the soil and grow and harvest the crop, but can earn NT$6 million in return, said Hu Wu-jen (胡武仁), secretary of the Yanping Township Office.

"The risks are low and the profits are good. Of course ginger farmers are running up the mountains," said Hu, who used to be a ginger farmer himself.

He said most farmers planting ginger in the mountains rent the land for a year from indigenous people, who may not have the NT$300,000 needed to prepare a 2.3-acre plot.

So the indigenous people rent their land to ginger farmers and when they get their land back after a year, it has already been prepared for cultivation and use, said Hu, calling it a "win-win" situation for the indigenous people and ginger farmers.

The ginger farmers look for new pastures after a year because the old ginger root they grow "is picky when it comes to the soil" and needs virgin soil for the best results, said a farmer surnamed Chang.

Under the current laws, according to the article, aborigines can cultivate a plot of land. That is, if the government has allocated it for that purpose (or as pasture). Local aborigines cannot transfer or rent that land to others, unless they are relatives. Note that the control and definition of who owns what belongs to the government, which is run by outsiders. The aboriginals have lost control of their land to the Han. Even when it is "theirs"...

Ginger cultivation has other issues associated with it. Not mentioned in the article is pesticides. This PHD thesis observes:

One applies fertilizer, organic fertilizers, and agro-medicine (nongyao), which harm your body, when growing ginger…many people [use these agrochemicals]…[The gingers] used to grow quite easily and in relatively larger sizes, but now they only grow to be 10 cm long (roughly 4 inches)… These gingers get sick (shengbing) and people keep spraying pesticide…

The thesis also notes that after ginger is planted, the land is not arable for many years. Another issue associated with ginger is landslides.

When asked about how a landslide took place, an experienced Bunun farmer in his early 60s offered his opinion on the design of a ginger farm, “What one should do [after plowing a large area of land] is to dig a trench along the bottom edge of the ginger farm and pile rocks along it to build a base [to make up for the loss of vegetation]” (March 31, 2010). This local narrative redirected the perception of landslide risk to how land is farmed rather than simply blaming highland agriculture as the overarching factor for causing landslides (Sheng, 1966).

....

In Vakangan, one can spot the cultivation of ginger sitting on hills along and above residential houses. While some individuals in the community fear or talk about these plantations as landslides waiting to happen, especially given the region’s proneness to hurricanes, it is also a plantation that offers job opportunities for many local people. Nonetheless, when looking closely into the cycle that drives the plantation, one finds that the risk of landslide is not so simple and straightforward.

This conflict between aboriginals and Han over land plays out in many ways. Another article from the same day tells the story of the area of Dingyanwan and its Han farmers. It was declared a forest reservation area and some farming was allowed. But then the government decided to plant trees and stop the farming. Then. in 1963...

A total of 13 farmers in Dingyanwan were sent to prison for 13 days for obstructing the execution of public duties before being released after paying fines, but the conflict between the farmers and the government has continued to simmer for 50 years.

In 1976, local farmers filed a petition to maintain their farming operations on the land, but a joint investigation concluded that the fields should still be used for afforestation, and farmers were asked by the Forestry Bureau to remove their crops.

The farmers stalled and ignored the request, and in 2001, the Forestry Bureau turned tough and accused over 70 farmers in Dingyanwan of occupying state-owned lands. Prosecutors decided, however, not to prosecute the case.

The bureau then filed civil actions against the farmers to recall the land on the charge of estrepement -- referring to destructive waste of the land committed by a tenant.

When the farmers found that they had no access to proof favorable to their claims, they lost their cases and were ordered to return the lands they worked within a designated period of time.

In 2012 the local legislator "negotiated" with the forestry bureau for the farmers, who were then allowed to plant fruit trees. As the article notes, there was a neglected group...

The problem was that the deal left out a major stakeholder in the area, indigenous Puyumas who consider the land to be their jurisdiction and see the farmers as nothing more than illegal squatters.

Puyuma representatives said in a meeting with the local government on Oct. 28, 2014 that if Dingyanwan's status as a protected forest area is removed, the land should be returned to the Puyuma people because they have been living and hunting there, according to a document from the Taiwan Provincial Consultative Council.

The tribe's representatives asked the local government to handle the issue cautiously by holding more negotiations with them and taking into account both economic development and the Puyumas historical connection with the land.

Taitung's forests are "twice promised land", a prize for the most politically savvy and well-connected. Now with big developers muscling in to pick up chunks for their Chinese tourist business, Taitung is going to take another hit. Of course the piece ends on a note of sympathy for... the poor abused Han.

All of which has left the farmers in an uneasy limbo.

...by "farmers" they don't mean aborigines.

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[Taiwan] 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!

Vietnamese Woman Rendered Stateless in cruel, hypocritical, racist act

The Taiwan government renders a Vietnamese woman stateless for the crime of having an extramarital affair. This move, so obviously racist in every way... well, no need to comment further. FrozenGarlic describes:

A few days ago, the media gave a tiny bit of coverage to the case of Wu Tsui-heng (武翠姮). Wu, who is originally from Vietnam, came to Taiwan in 2005 for work, married a Taiwanese man in 2006, got ROC citizenship in 2010, and gave up her Vietnamese citizenship. She had an extramarital affair, and her husband divorced her in 2011. This week the government notified her that it was cancelling her citizenship because her extramarital affair violated the requirements for morality as stated in the Nationality Law. It also cancelled the citizenship of her two young daughters. Since the two daughters are in Vietnam and Wu is in Taiwan and none of them have valid passports, they are forcibly separated.

FrozenGarlic's whole post is excellent and moving.

J Michael Cole observed:

Of course, Taiwan’s race-based concept of citizenship means that the requirements for “good morals” do not apply to ROC citizens. After all, the philandering — pardon, “good morals” — of Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源), the man who heads the very ministry that is threatening to strip the woman of her citizenship, is very well known to the public.

The race-based concept of citizenship here is one reason, as FrozenGarlic observes, that so many of us don't get citizenship here. I would sure like a list of all the Overseas Chinese who have obtained citizenship here and gone on to have affairs within the five-year period, yet never been stripped of their citizenship. It surely must be an extensive list...

Because the law requires that people must give up their citizenship to become an ROC citizen and that they must do it prior to taking out citizenship here, several people have been rendered stateless by the ROC government when it changed its mind during the citizenship process (for example).

Taipei Times editorialized on it today.
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[Taiwan] 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!

Senkakus Stuff + Revolting Video =UPDATED=

East coast rift valley of Taiwan.

A rare light moment from the Senkaku mess this week as Taiwan-based "activists" seek to sue the Japanese government for "emotional distress" caused by Japanese resistance to their illegal and provocative incursion into the Senkakus last month. Gee, d'ya suppose someday all 1.3 billion Chinese might sue the world for emotional distress?

Maybe I shouldn't give them any ideas....

From the realm of propaganda: Stephen Harner in Forbes with a transparently awful piece on how China really owns the Senkakus. It follows the standard Chinese propaganda line -- blaming Japan for being provocative, wrongly citing history, and as a special bonus, even claims Okinawa was autonomous in 1885! You'll be unsurprised to find that he runs a financial/consulting business in Shanghai.

Also from the realm of propaganda... this one will really make your blood boil. Back in 2009 the Ma Administration released as set of highly chauvinist cartoons depicting ECFA opponents as Taiwanese hicks and ECFA supporters as educated, intelligent people (post). Part of that drill was the appointment of the notorious Yen Ching-piao as "spokesman." MOFA has done it again, this time with the Senkaku claims of the ROC on video. This revolting pile of crap, in Taiwanese, has a couple of comedians presenting the claims, and scarily, linking love of Taiwan with support for the ROC claim. It gives a powerful insight into the way these Deep Blue China expansionists think about the Taiwanese. Very sad.

Fortunately, longtime scholar Bruce Jacobs produced an excellent piece on the shoddy scholarship that underlies the Chinese claim to the Senkakus.

UPDATED: A friend observes:

Speaking of the video, MOFA minister David Lin believes that: "The film features the complicated and subtle themes in an interesting, funny and easy-to-understand style," cf. http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aALL&ID=201302220042            

While Jiang Yi-hua says today that the Cost Guard will continue to escort Taiwanese fishermen in the Senkakus zone: http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=202019&ctNode=452&mp=9
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[Taiwan] 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.

The Senkakus Irritant Watch: Bandwagoning Edition

Remember when Ma Ying-jeou said Taiwan was going to be a "peacemaker, not a troublemaker"? I bet you already forgot that. I bet you forgot that one of Ma's priority pledges before the 2008 campaign and early in his first administration was repairing relations with the US. Remember when Ma was pragmatic, along with his China policies? The p-word has dropped from the media. Yup. That thwap-thwap you're hearing is me patting myself on the back. Again (brace yourself, rant coming).

A new report from CRS was profiled in the Taipei Times today. The report, Maritime Territorial Disputes in East Asia: Issues for Congress (online at FAS), says that Taiwan puts pressure on Japan in parallel with China.

One issue for U.S. policy concerns trends across the Taiwan Strait since 2008, particularly the question of whether Taiwan’s moves to engage more closely with the PRC have created a greater willingness in Taipei to cooperate with China on issues in which it sees their interests as aligned, such as in the East China Sea. Some analysts argue that there is an issue for U.S. policymakers surrounding whether Taiwan coordinated with the PRC in asserting sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands against Japan amid rising tension in September 2012. Beijing has urged cooperation over the islands to advance cross-strait ties. Taipei’s officials have denied cooperating with the PRC. Even without explicit coordination, the parallel actions of the PRC and Taiwan in the current East China Sea flare-up have added pressure against Japan. Both the PRC and Taiwan deployed government patrol ships and military assets that raised concerns about the potential for accidental collisions and the escalation of tensions.

On September 25, 2012, Taiwan deployed 12 Coast Guard ships that escorted 60 fishing boats and fired water cannons toward Japan’s patrol ships. Furthermore, Taiwan dispatched military systems sold by the United States during the incident.

The government in Taipei is clearly attempting to stoke the Diaoyutai issue at home, to drum up some faux nationalism and to divert attention from the many problems the economy is facing. During recent exercises the military wore patches saying "The Diaoyutai are ours!" (DefenseNews). In the most recent exchange of water cannon fire between ROC coast guard vessels and Japanese ships, Chinese ships were hanging around. The two sides probably aren't actively coordinating, but of course they don't need to. Everyone knows the score and knows how they should behave.

For quite some time I've been arguing that the Ma Administration is deliberately using issue such as the beef issue and the Senkakus to perturb and irritate relations with Tokyo and Washington. People are finally starting to notice this (similar argument today in Taipei Times). Now the Congressional Research Service has called attention to the possibility.

I've heard US officials are unhappy with the incidents in the Senkakus. When Chen Shui-bian had a couple of democratic referendums, US officials excoriated him publicly. When Ma Ying-jeou's military confronts Japan in the Senkakus as China shadows events, a place the US is bound by treaty to defend, the US....oh yeah, what has the US said? Nada. All I can say is, Ma is just lucky he isn't pushing a referendum. Then he'd really be in trouble.

Let's not forget, the ROC is also strengthening its presence on the South China Sea islands. As if it wants to irritate relations with nations to the south.....

Really, what did the US expect when they supported Ma? That he would support them? This is a guy who spent his early life being groomed as an ROC ideologue.This is a guy who wrote his thesis on how China owns the Senkakus. This is a guy who dresses up and performs the Confucian rites with children dancing to him like an old-time emperor (remember? Vaguely, you do). This is a guy whose public speeches are filled with open references to Han Chauvinist ideology. This is a guy who publicly speaks as if Taiwan, the Senkakus, and Okinawa all belong to China. This is a guy who thinks he is President of China.

Good luck getting him on board, Washington. I'm sure you'll hear some very pretty words. Would you be having this problem if you'd supported Tsai Ying-wen? As my man Drew remarked today:

It seems the pragmatists were both Chen and especially Lee (those pro-independence firebrands) who maximized Taiwan's international space, saw China's bluffs, but recognized the value of engagement with caution without compromising their principles or spurning valuable allies. They were not dreamy Greater China ideologues. Funny that.

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Daily Links:

• President Ma says the pension system must be overhauled. Translation: the little people are screwed, but at least the nation's wealthy won't be paying taxes.
• Not news: the air in south, central Taiwan is bad for you.
• Taipei property prices reach new high
• Taiwan's 2012 election, one year on.
• Birding Taiwan on the new year.
• Brian Benedictus: Can Taiwan modernize its submarine fleet?
• BLAST FROM THE PAST: Life visits Aboriginal Princesses Near Sun Moon Lake, 21 Feb 1949

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[Taiwan] 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.

Ma's New Year Speech 2013

Backyard daisy, up close.

Today's New Year's Day Speech from the President offered some real head-scratchers, like this statement:

In the future, the government's industrial policy must concentrate on boosting local employment and increasing people's incomes. For our policy to attract more foreign investment, we need to break free from traditional approaches, which are over-reliant on tax breaks and low labor costs.

Right, we have to break free from traditional approaches... what's the Ma Administration policy for bringing back Taiwanese firms to Taiwan? I blogged on it a while back: it's tax breaks and low labor costs -- the formation of "free economic zones" (read: traditional industrial and science parks) where labor laws don't apply and more foreign workers can be imported. Not surprisingly, the proposals have been excoriated for their obvious tendency to promote traditional resource- and labor-intensive industries.

But the really fun part was President Ma once again displaying his ideological roots in the bygone security state era with reference to the Chineseness of Taiwan, in context of cross-strait relations:

The people of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are all ethnic Chinese. We are all descended from the legendary Emperors Yan and Huang.

Ma's powerful ideological commitments to this conception of Taiwan as "Chinese" which dominate his thinking, Han Chauvinist to the core. Note that the speech contains no references to Taiwanese culture or Taiwaneseness. Ma wrote on his Facebook page before the election, which I blogged on:

“I am a descendant of the Yellow Emperor in blood and I identify with Taiwan in terms of my identity. I fight for Taiwan and I am Taiwanese,” Ma wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday. “In nationality, I am a Republic of China [ROC] citizen and I am the president of the ROC.”

Ma is Taiwanese only for the sake of elections, and only to the minimal extent necessary. That post contains several examples of the way Ma downplays Taiwaneseness into a subclass of Chineseness. Here in today's speech he simply eliminates the idea that there is any significant difference between Taiwanese and Chinese, and the aborigines, immigrants, and others who are Taiwanese simply vanish. Ma's thinking on this, like the KMT, is based on the archaic idea of "blood".

When Ma asserts that the people on the two sides of the Strait are Chinese he is also implicitly asserting that they are all part of China. It is an article of faith among right-wing Chinese ideologues like Ma that everyone who is Chinese should be incorporated into a single super-state. Thus, to assert that group X is Chinese is to assert that they should be annexed, as we have seen with both Taiwan and with the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which PRC officials have said is Chinese since its ethnic Tibetan inhabitants are "Chinese."

Ma returns to the theme of Chineseness at the end of the speech:

My fellow citizens, please rest assured that no matter how difficult and hazardous the world may be, as long as we remain confident, work as one, seek reform, and skillfully marshal the forces of progress, we can surely achieve positive things and create a new future for the Chinese society.

...not a new future for "Taiwan."
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Daily Links:

• A PR strategy for Taiwan's military
• Taiwan transitions to all-volunteer military
• Taiwan needs a new approach to emerging markets

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[Taiwan] 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.

Twofer 2-28

Two interesting things out there in the blogosphere this week. Today Andrew over at Taiwan in Cycles blogged on Jeremy Lin, race, and Chinese nationalism as only he can....

As Americans, with their immense baggage of a history smeared by racial conflict, try to play down and pass censure on the issue of "race", modern Chinese nationalism is founded on a bedrock of racialism that hopes to exploit the west's own vehicle for colonialism to further their own goals of territory and wealth.

....

Chinese nationalisms in both the PRC and the ROC, continue to use the dated and logically incongruous Sunist construct for defining "Chinese" and "Chineseness", as a shared system of culture, customs, language, history and people. The need to create uniformity in this model that might incorporate vastly different cultures, languages, customs, histories across a wide geographical area under a single national Chinese nationalist umbrella, took the form of a fascist style of state culturalism, in which the state became the creator and promulgator of a centralized and monolithic state Chinese culture. China is not a homogenous place by any means and the fear of regional nationalisms was, and still is, a real threat to maintaining the old Qing borders.

Today is the anniversary of 2-28, a massacre and subsequent terror that took the lives of thousands of educated Taiwanese, "tainted" and impure in Sunist racialist terms by their long association with the Japanese. This racialist view of what constitutes "Chineseness" continues to haunt Taiwan in countless ways, from its exploitation by Beijing in vain appeals to ethnic solidarity with the Taiwanese, who long ago took another path, to the two classes of immigrants to Taiwan: the favored Overseas "Chinese" -- and everyone else.

Andrew's whole post is full of links and insights, spend some time with it.

Quite different is another post a thoughtful reader sent a link to: The Taiwan Bubble Set to Burst. Apparently CLSA has recommended all seven Taiwan banks in its reports are SELL:

Banks are now in the late stages of their credit cycle. After over a decade of loose lending, Taiwan faces the prospect of a bursting housing bubble and a crisis in tech, where the companies are turning into zombies and refusing to die. Credit tightening should accelerate the seasoning process. We reiterate our SELL recommendations on all the market’s banks, especially since earnings should be front-loaded this year. For those who must be in the sector, we suggest Chinatrust for its credit-card franchise and prudent credit policy.

Easy access to credit over 2000-10 led to overinvestment in commodity-tech such as Dram, panels, LED and solar. Housing now faces poor affordability and oversupply. Property prices rose 133% over the past 10 years, but vacancies increased from 13% to 19% over the same period.

Though the timing of the bust is hard to predict, credit tightening should accelerate the seasoning process. It will not only trigger failures and financial restructuring in tech, but also pressure mortgage borrowers and property developers. Tightening will lead to increasing demand for consumer-credit and home-equity loans, while trends in the unorganised money-market rate (ie, loan sharks) and dishonoured cheques suggest signs of trouble.

One hardly knows whether to laugh or cry: Ma's election, ECFA, it was all supposed to save the economy. Think the Ma Administration will do anything real about it? I hear there's some deck chairs on the Titanic that need re-arranging....
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Daily Links:

• Formosa Betrayed, definitive history of 2-28 in English.
• Two pieces on US-China: Minxin Pei in The Diplomat argues that US and China are set to clash. Meanwhile Reuters argues that oil rush in South China Sea will set off conflict. 
• New Jeremy Lin meme: Linning.
• Kenting claims another foreign cyclist. 

EVENT:
USC US-China Institute
03-02-2012: A Conversation with Ambassador Jason Yuan
Davidson Conference Center, Boardroom
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089
Cost: Free, please RSVP
Time: 11:00AM-12:00PM

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[Taiwan] 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.

Culture Wars: China vs Taiwan

Taiwan presents multiple challenges to China -- a democracy where China claims Chinese societies are not ready for that form of government -- and a culture that acknowledges Chinese roots but calls itself Taiwanese -- and, at least from the DPP side, a vision of multilingual, multicultural society where citizenship is rooted in a lawful relation to the national polity, not a racial classification. Not to mention its economic prowess, brand monikers, and its culture industries, which reinforce Taiwan's independent identity. And which sell big in China, too.

Naturally, all this annoying independence of thought and behavior brings out the inner Borg of the thugs across the Strait. It. must. be. assimilated.

This week Locutus of Borg the Culture Minister from China was visiting Taiwan to propose Borgness with Chinese characteristics. To wit:

Cai Wu, the highest-ranking mainland official to visit the island in 12 years, said on Sunday details of the plan have not been finalised but suggested building on a sweeping trade pact the two sides forged earlier this year.

"For instance, I'm wondering if it is possible to sign an agreement patterning after the ECFA (Economic Co-operation Framework Agreement)... it is still under discussion," Cai said during a press conference while touring Taipei's National Palace Museum.

Cai will attend a seminar in Taipei on Monday, according to its organisers, the Shen Chun-chih Culture Foundation, a non-profit Taipei-based body focused on cultural exchanges with the mainland.

To go with economic integration and financial integration, China is essentially proposing cultural integration -- assimilation. Taiwan News put it well today:

In the wake of the signing of a controversial "Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement," the authoritarian People's Republic of China has launched drives to push President Ma Ying-jeou's rightist Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) government to accept political negotiations and help promote "cultural unification" under a "Chinese national identity."

While Ma appears committed to delay political talks until after the crucial Nov. 27 municipal mayoral elections, the KMT government seems to have fewer qualms about cooperating with the Chinese Communist Party - ruled PRC's intention to subordinate Taiwan culture under the reactionary umbrella of "Chinese national culture."

This agenda was showcased yesterday in the second KMT-CCP "Cross-Strait Cultural Forum" held yesterday in Taipei under the theme of "seizing the opening and creating a new situation."

National Cultural Association Secretary-General and former premier Liu Chao-hsuan set the tone by reaffirming that "Chinese culture is the common denominator between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait," followed by Council for Cultural Affairs Minister Emile Sheng's parroting of Ma's denigrating definition of Taiwan culture as "Chinese culture with unique Taiwanese characteristics."

Platitudes aside, the main course of the conference was PRC Culture Minister Cai Wu's upfront demand for the rapid signing of a "cross-strait culture cooperation agreement" under the ECFA umbrella in order to establish an "institutional mechanism" to promote "comprehensive cooperation" in fields including resource integration, financing, talent cultivation, content creation and global marketing and even participation in the "re-examination of culture policies and regulations."

Statements by Cai and other PRC delegates showed that Beijing's short-term objective is to appropriate the fruits of Taiwan's higher development in cultural creative industries, including artistic creation, techniques, commercialization and marketing, and turn our cultural assets into "local content" for the PRC to market globally as "Chinese culture."

Besides predicting that "cross-cultural industry will become a new economic growth point and provide a pillar industry for the national economy," a term which surely did not refer to Taiwan, Cai settled any doubts about the ultimate purpose of "cross-strait cultural cooperation" with a resounding call to "commonly plan for the great revival of the Chinese race nation!"

"Chinese race nation" is Han chauvinist code that Ma uses as well -- see his inaugural speech. The common ground that enables the KMT and CCP to overcome whatever minor inclinations they may have not to cooperate is this race-based vision of the Chinese nation. It is in direct opposition to the formal DPP goal of a national citizenship independent of ethnic considerations in a constitutionally defined independent and democratic republic.

Taiwan News argues that Taiwan's distinctive historical, political, and cultural experience is a wellspring of its creative power. In PRC hands this distinctiveness would be -- as Ma himself puts it -- "Chinese culture with unique Taiwanese characteristics" -- assimilated. The latter half of Ma's formulation would be instantly lost under a PRC rubric, since distinctiveness must be carefully mediated by Chineseness in the PRC cultural lexicon, to fence in the unruly habit of other ethnicities to develop their own identities.

The PRC program is clearly aimed, as Taiwan News observes, at subsuming Taiwan's cultural industries under the rubric of China and eliminating a potentially important source of Taiwanese "difference." Not to mention -- as always -- the practical goal of eliminating Taiwanese industries where they compete with Chinese firms. Elimination of "Taiwan" as a "brand" is also a key goal; media reports suggest that things with the "Taiwan" label on them are popular in China and that what Taiwan sells is its distinctive culture -- accessible, yet different.

How that must annoy the CCP in Beijing.
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Daily Links

• Fake chips from China threaten all sorts of devices
• The Formosa Foundation ad on Youtube
• Can we stop with this rhetoric? "The Chinese" are not a subspecies, whatever you may think of how they treat animals. Or anything else.
• China Times editorial on Taiwan's structural problems and Ma not doing anything for the poor.
  
• First phase of wetland purchase in Changhua done.
  
• Way cool: scientists have argued for years that the Amazon jungle was inhabited by millions prior to European contact and is the result of human creation and construction. Now the evidence is overwhelming. See also Charles Mann's 1491 which will completely change the way you think about the history of the Americas.
  

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[Taiwan] 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!