Taiwan's brewing academic scandals?

Turn out the lights, the party's over for Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling whose "I didn't know" excuses are crumbling in the widening scandal of the 60 papers retracted from a scientific journal... (TT)

Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) has ordered the Ministry of Science and Technology to look into an academic publishing scandal involving Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧), Executive Yuan spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) said yesterday.

The directive came in the wake of accusations that National Pingtung University associate professor Chen Chen-yuan (陳震遠) committed academic fraud after 60 articles submitted by Chen were withdrawn from the Journal of Vibration and Control over allegations of falsified peer reviews.

The MOE had these paper's listed for Chiang on its website.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. If someone were to peel back the shiny linoleum of Taiwan academia and shine a light on the rot underneath, there are a lot of people in titled positions in a lot of colleges having their names put on papers they had nothing to do with. This unethical and unconscionable practice, stealing the hard work and credit of others, is yet another example of the way Taiwan's society is organized on the mafia principle where everyone kicks up to the Big Man at the top.
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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!

Journal of American-East Asian Relations Website

Cold springs, Suao.

I've been out for the last week running madly about Taiwan on various trips. Apologies for the blogging lack... Next few days posts will pile up. First this announcement via H-Asia... some of my readers in schools abroad should think about this:

H-ASIA
October 21, 2013

Journal of American-East Asian Relations new website
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From: James Matray

The Journal of American-East Asian Relations has a new website located at http://www.brill.com/journal-american-east-asian-relations. The previous electronic listing with Interworld-Pacific is now defunct. I am eager to receive submissions, especially from advance graduate students and tenure-track professors, and promise a prompt decision. Please visit our new website with Brill where you will find a link to a PDF providing instructions for contributors.

James I. Matray
Editor-in-Chief
Journal of American-East Asian Relations
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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!

Court to decide in Formosa Plastics Lawsuit against Environmental Researcher

Nature has a write-up of the coming court decision in the case of the scientist sued by a big company for reporting on what it was doing to the environment.

A Taiwanese court will rule on 4 September in a libel lawsuit filed by a petrochemical company against an environmental engineer whose studies had suggested that a plant operated by the company was causing higher cancer rates in its vicinity.

In December 2010 Ben-Jei Tsuang, an environmental engineer at Taiwan’s National Chung Hsing University in Taichung, presented evidence of increased cancer rates in residents living near a Formosa Plastics Group (FPG) hydrocarbon-processing facility in Mailao, Taiwan, at a scientific meeting. He also presented evidence in a press conference in November 2011.

In April 2012, FPG sued Tsuang for defamation, demanding that he pay US$1.3 million in damages and that he publicly apologize by publishing a statement in four major newspapers.

In the trial, which had its final hearing today at the Taipei District Court, Tsuang’s lawyers framed the case as a “strategic lawsuit against public participation”. An open letter signed by 1,000 academics, including chemistry Nobel laureate Lee Yuan Tseh, expressed support for Tsuang.

The island's prosecutors, ever ready to strike a blow for truth and freedom, at one point threatened to indict Dr. Tsuang, but you can imagine what a chilling effect the lawsuit and the threatened indictment have had on reporting of environmental issues in Taiwan. Commendably, the prosecutor's own report noted that prosecuting and suing academics was likely to have a chilling effect on research in Taiwan. Yet, the government acts from time to time against environmentalists, often in ham-handed ways, like the time the Hsinchu city government examined the visa of a local foreign professor over environmental remarks.

Wild at Heart, the local environmental group, has a full write up of the case here.

The Mailiao complex seen the from wetlands in Changhua to the north.

The complex has made someone lots of money via government subsidized water, electricity, raw materials, and land development, but the Yunlin County government has complained bitterly about the company's string of broken promises. One can only imagine what a disaster I-lan would be now if it had taken the plant as originally planned (see this)...
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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!

Tuesday Quickies.

Sorry, I'm busier than a nest of ants who've broken into a honey factory. Just want to mention a few items....

DPP politico Hsiao Bi-khim just broke the news on Facebook that three protesters protesting a rail line in Taoyuan were given a total of 21 years for their heinous use of freedom of expression. More on that tomorrow, I hope.

Harvard Prof blasts Taiwan academics. It's much worse than that; the system actively discriminates against interdisciplinary research, rewarding profs only for publications in what is designated as their field. It also downplays the importance of books and forces profs to attempt to publish in top journals. I could go on all day about how counterproductive the Taiwan system is.....but since its purpose is to accrue status to the university, not knowledge.....

Asia Times has a piece on the recent Open Letter to Ma Ying-jeou on the charges against Lee Teng-hui. The government's response this time has been quite different. As the article notes, last time they went on the offensive, saying some surpassingly stupid things in response. They also contacted many of the signatories privately. This time neither of those things is occurring. I think the government has hit upon the right move: ignore them and they'll go away. Only this time there were a lot more signatories than last time.

Taipei Times runs article headlined Jason Hu's disapproval rating tops 40%. If you read the text, his approval rating is over 50%. This smacks of spin. We're the good guys, TT, no need to indulge in that. Correctly note that Hu has majority approval.

Finally, this great commentary in the Taipei Times today highlights an important bit of history....

The reception given to the project at the originally planned location in the Lize (利澤) area of Yilan County’s Wujie Township (五結) was very different from what happened later in Mailiao. In December 1987, then-FPG chairman Wang Yung-ching (王永慶) took part in a televised debate with then-Yilan County commissioner Chen Ding-nan (陳定南).

Wang said that if Chen gave the go-ahead for the plant to be built in Yilan, it would be a highly ethical decision that would bring great benefits to the county. Chen, however, responded by saying that if he allowed the complex to be built in Yilan he would be blamed for generations to come for what he called a “criminal error.”

In view of the seven fires in one year at the plant in Yunlin, and the protests that have followed, one can well imagine how thankful Yilan residents must feel today about Chen’s decision not to let FPG build the plant in their county.

In the two decades since it was built, the sixth naptha cracker plant has not brought the promised prosperity to the area. Instead, it has brought the threat of cancer and other illnesses, as well as the menace of fires that can and have broken out at any time. However, over on the other side of the Jhuoshui River (濁水溪), in Changhua County’s Dacheng Township (大城), the government was until the beginning of this year still offering the same old lures of “jobs and prosperity” to try and persuade local residents to support the construction of an eighth naphtha cracker plant.

....imagine what Yilan would be like if that hopeless naptha cracker had been built there. Formosa Plastics appears to have reneged on its promises to Yunlin, if the county gov'ts claims are correct.
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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.

"Political Neutrality" for Teachers

Before we go on to the main event here, I'd just like to take a moment and ask who is in charge at DPP HQ? Are they smoking crack over there? Just when the island needs US support, and when the DPP needs backing from its Congressional and government allies, it up and decides to foment public agitation against US beef imports -- the one export item our government is obsessed with importing into Taiwan. Great move guys -- thanks for making the job of Taiwan advocates in Washington that much harder.

Onwards and downwards.....

Big news in the local papers as the government passes a revised political neutrality law aimed teachers. In Taiwan, teachers are central government employees. The law extends neutrality rules that applied to public servants to all teachers and professors with administrative responsibility, such as Deans or Department Chairs, in public schools, along with all research fellows in public institutions. The new restrictions include hanging, posting, or wearing political symbols of political parties or candidates; holding meetings, initiating rallies, or leading petitions; signing on ad in public media; speaking, rallying, or calling for support on behalf of candidates.

The law is obviously aimed at anyone criticizing the current administration from a position of importance in an educational institution, and is clearly meant to muzzle such individuals. As a commentary in the Liberty Times noted today, the law is vague, and implies that anyone who speaks out on policy from the bully pulpit of a deanship or similar can be criminally charged with abuse of administrative resources. Even part-time administrators appear to fall under the law, and since many ordinary teachers in universities do administrative work or have titles like "Director of Overseas Cooperation", they might well be vulnerable. Imagine too that any Academia Sinica researcher could conceivably be charged with "being political" for commenting in public on an ongoing policy -- say the environmental concerns of the Suhua Highway or a new program to re-introduce Chinese history as the only history in the public schools. The mere fact of having to consider this possibility may have a chilling effect.

It is hard to see how this can have a positive effect on the government's avowed intention, through three Administrations, to internationalize the university system here. The very basis of a university is the open exchange and critique of ideas.

As I've noted before, to move closer to China is to move farther from democracy.

REF: Op-Ed in Liberty Times

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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!

Taiwan Studies Conferences: Call for Papers fast approaching

Daffyd Fell of SOAS passes around the alert -- looks like some meaty paper themes there! Hurry up and get an abstract in:

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Dear All,

The deadlines for abstract submission of the world's two largest Taiwan Studies conferences are fast approaching. The deadline for the European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS) conference is November 15 and for the North American Taiwan Studies Association Conference
(NATSA) is November 30.

Below I have pasted and attached the Call for Papers for the EATS
conference and attached the Call for Papers for NATSA.

Best Wishes

Dafydd

Dafydd Fell
SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies

Sixth Conference of the European Association of Taiwan Studies

Call For Papers
The European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS) will hold its sixth annual conference on 16-18 April 2009. The conference is co-organized by the Center of East Asian Studies, Autonoma University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain and School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Centre of Taiwan Studies.

Venue: Madrid.

The organizers particularly welcome abstracts on the following themes:

1. "Taiwanese Democracy: A Model for Mainland China and Hong Kong?" in the field of Domestic Politics and Democracy
2. "Social Realism" in the field of Literature
3. "1949-2009: 60 years of the ROC" in the field of History and Social Sciences
4. "A New Start? " in Cross Strait Relations
5. "Historical Linguistics" in the field of Language
6. "The impact of changes of ruling parties on Taiwan: Divided versus Unified Government"
7. "The Role of the Media in Taiwan's politics and society"

We particularly invite submissions on these themes for the consideration of an interdisciplinary panel.

Masters and 1st year Ph.D. students enrolled in a Taiwan Studies Programme at a European university are especially encouraged to apply to present their research in the EATS MA panel.

In addition, we will consider outstanding submissions in the following disciplinary areas:

1. Economics and Business
2. Anthropology and Religion
3. Politics, Law and International Relations
4. History and Geography
5. Cultural and Area Studies

Please submit a 250-300 word abstract by 15 November 2008. Please e-mail your abstract to eats2009@yahoo.com

We will announce the accepted abstracts on 14 December 2008. Participants who present papers and affiliated with European institutions will be eligible for travel grants. Details will be
announced.


[Taiwan]

...and all shall have prizes!

The deserving were awarded this week with prizes being handed out for the Taiwan blog awards, highlighting some of the great work bloggers do in promoting the island. On to the Taiwan Blog Awards!

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Media release
2 November 2008
for immediate release

Results of the 2008 Taiwan Blog Awards

The results of the 2008 Taiwan Best Blog Awards have been announced. The awards are for English-language blogs related to Taiwan.

Voting took place over the month of October at the Taiwanderful website. There were 35 eligible blogs in eight categories. The overall award for best blog went to the New Hampshire Bushman. The full list of winning blogs follows.

• Best Taiwan Blog 2008
The New Hampshire Bushman (http://www.thenhbushman.com/)
• Best Taiwan Education Blog 2008
Mandarin Scholarship Taiwan (http://mandarinscholarship.com/)
• Best Taiwan General Blog 2008
The Wild East (http://www.thewildeast.net/applications/wordpress/)
• Best Taiwan Other Blog 2008
Poohat and the 10 billions years before the sun blew up (http://www.poohat.blogspot.com/)
• Best Taiwan Personal Blog 2008
Mouse Eared Kiwi in Taipei (http://taipeiblog.sandra.net.nz/)
• Best Taiwan Photography Blog 2008
Taiwan Photographers (http://www.taiwanphotographers.wordpress.com/)
• Best Taiwan Politics Blog 2008
Taiwan Matters! (http://taiwanmatters.blogspot.com/)
• Best Taiwan Religion Blog 2008
SQJ Taipei (http://pagels.teamexpansion.org/sqjtaipei)
• Best Taiwan Travel Blog 2008
The Daily Bubble Tea (http://thedailybubbletea.com/)

The awards aim to highlight some of the best English language blogs about Taiwan. There are hundreds more blogs and English language bloggers in Taiwan. They contribute some of the most comprehensive up-to-date information about Taiwan on a wide range of topics, from travel through politics to culture. The blogs combine personal commentary, photography and video. Blogs are a unique form of promotion for Taiwan.

Full details of the awards are available at http://www.taiwanderful.net/blog/best-blogs-taiwan-2008-final-results

For further information contact
David Reid (available for interviews in Taipei)
e-mail: reid.david@yahoo.com.au

Gilad Feldman (Fili)
e-mail: filination@gmail.com

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And from the land of cafe americain comes news of a prize awarded by the French Taiwanese Culture to professors at SOAS in London, which does great work on Taiwan. The prize was awarded last year but the Taiwanese have been a bit slow in getting their Ministry of Culture people over to be on hand for the ceremony, but things finally fell into place....

SOAS laureates Professor Robert Ash and Dr Dafydd Fell from the Centre of Taiwan Studies Receive the Prize of the French Taiwanese Cultural Foundation at a ceremony in Paris.

The two laureates from SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies, Professor Robert Ash and Dr Dafydd Fell, received the Prize of the French Taiwanese Cultural Foundation at a special ceremony at the Institut de France, Académie des sciences morales et politiques on October 27, 2008 in Paris. The ceremony was co-presided by Dr. Huang Pi-twan, President of the Taiwan National Council for Cultural Affairs and Mr Michel Albert, Secrétaire Perpétuel de l'Académie des sciences morales et politiques.

In October 2007 it was announced that SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies had been awarded Prize of the French Taiwanese Cultural Foundation. The award, worth Euro 25,000, is hosted by the Institut de France, Académie des sciences morales et politiques in Paris. The Prize was instituted in 1996. It is awarded in recognition of work on relations between Taiwan and Europe, and which contributes to the enhancement of cultural exchange between the two regions. In awarding the prize to the SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies, the jury of the French Taiwan Cultural Foundation highlighted the Centre's work in developing Taiwan studies in Europe. In particular, the jury was impressed with the achievements of the SOAS based European Association of Taiwan Studies annual conferences and its development of Taiwan studies teaching in Europe. European Association of Taiwan Studies conference has become the one of most important Taiwan studies academic events in the world. SOAS has also become the continent's leading institute in Taiwan studies teaching, with the widest range of Taiwan studies postgraduate courses and the only MA degree in Taiwan studies in the English speaking world. Recently, SOAS has also been developing intensive short Taiwan courses as part of the SOAS/Heidelberg/Tubingen European Taiwan Studies teaching project. The prize money will be used to strengthen the SOAS/Heidelberg European Taiwan Studies teaching project.
Chinese language news reports:

http://www.cca.gov.tw/images/epaper/20081031/p01.html

http://www.cca.gov.tw/images/epaper/20081031/p02.html

http://qqqq.cca.gov.tw/qqqq/news/news_detail.asp?newsid=951

Link to SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies:
www.soas.ac.uk/taiwanstudies

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With the arrival of Chen Yunlin in Taiwan to negotiate with Regional Administrator Ma, the importance of promotion of Taiwan through these very different channels cannot be overestimated. Thanks to everyone for their hard work and for deepening our understanding and appreciation of the Beautiful Island.

[Taiwan]

Shung Ye Monograph Series at SMC

For those of you into Taiwan books, the Southern Materials Center has both reprints and new stuff on Taiwan. Their bookstore is at: 羅斯福路三段 283 巷 14 弄 14 號 (14 Roosevelt Rd. Lane 283, Alley 14). It's the lane behind McDonalds across from the side gate of National Taiwan U.).(website)

One of the series they have put out is a monograph series from the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines that contains some really great material. I have two of the books, In Search of the Hunters and Their Tribe: Studies in the History and Culture of the Taiwan Indigenous People, and Natives of Formosa: British Reports of the Taiwan Indigenous People, 1650-1950. The first consists of academic articles that range across a variety of topics, from aboriginal peoples in the 19th century, to Japanese anthropology in the service of colonialism, to naming patterns and boat design. Really great stuff, hugely informative. The other volume I have contains excerpts from British consular officials, missionaries, sailors, and travelers who visited Taiwan for one reason or another. For example, the sea cliffs of the wild east coast were widely held to be among the world's most beautiful sights. Here one seaman quotes himself, and another writer:

"When that most prosaic but useful publication, the China Sea Directory, ventures upon superlatives, there is generally some tolerably good reason for it. (here follows my description as above), and then "the highest sea precipice in the known world lay unveiled before our eyes. It was superb...the studendous cliffs of the Yosemite Valley in California,...the grand sea-wall of Hoy, in the Orkneys,...the glories of the iron-bound coast of Norway, all fade into nothingness beside the giant precipices of Formosa. We kept close to the land, the appearance of which if anything, increased in grandeur. The gigantic wall of rock was cleft every few miles by huge gorges...forming as they did a practicable highway into the interior, which is otherwise well-nigh inaccessible, owing to the denseness of the vegetation."

In the nineteenth century Sauo was among the few places that were accessible on the east coast, so everyone ended up at Suao at one point or another in their journey. Hence there are many descriptions of Suao:

"I proceed now to give a brief sketch of Suao Bay and vicinity....On the western side of the bay, on a small stream, lies the Chinese town of Su-ao, or Saw-o, in the local pronunciation. It is a wretched town of about fifty houses. I had hitherto always held Kelung to be the filthiest town in the universe, not deeming it within the bounds of possibility that a place could be worse than it; but a visit to Suao forced me to confess my mistake."

Relations with the aborigines of the interior were marked by violence on both sides. From the report above:

"We were told that the Chinese had on three previous occasions, in 1858, 1862, and 1866, made attempts to form a settlement in the valley, but had in time been driven out by the savages. Shortly after the second of these attempts was made, the settlers were surprised by night, and about a hundred were killed. A low enclosing wall of earth, surrounded by a ditch, and which had formerly been crowned with a bamboo stockade, remained as evidence of the Chinese occupation; and the European leader of the latest colonizing scheme, referred to in the extract above, was greeated on his first landing by the sight of some thirty-five skull-less skeletons, arranged in a row on the beach -- a striking evidence of the failure of the last preceding attempt at Chinese colonization."

At NT$600 each, these are quite affordable, by comparison with the hefty prices out there for the latest academic works (how can profs ever build a library nowadays? By skipping meals for months at a time?). Next time you're in Taipei, drop by SMC and have a look.

[Taiwan]

Republican Period Rehab in China

Over on H-Asia several scholars are debating the meaning of the rehabilitation of Republican-era figures and events in China. Richard C. Kagan of Hamline observes:

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I am not sure of the historiogaphical beginning of this re-examination of the Republican period. I can say, however, that scholars in China have begun to re-interpret the past in a way that makes the Communist period seamless with the past. Old enemies such as Ghenghis Khan, and Korean leaders have been re-shaped to become heroes of China. Even Chiang kai-shek's death resulted in an invitation for him to be buried in China--along with other family members. A nice mausoleum would be erected. The reason for this re-structuring the past is to seek a united front in Taiwan with the Nationalists. And to attract the families of the old KMT in China to the Party. I would not be so cynical if I had not observed how the Chinese play with the memory of the Nanjing massacre to their own political goals. When the Chinese condemn Chen Yi for the massacres in Taiwan, when they blame the KMT for the White Terror, when they call for the re-trials on the prisoners in Green Island, and when they recognize the major KMT leader, Lee Teng-hui , for bringing democracy to Taiwan, I will be impressed. Until then, releasing old memories of former generals and KMT leaders is not going to rock any boat but might get folks to look more kindly at the CCP. Besides KMT, the CCP has also restored or at least have not gone after the histories of the old gangster families, expecially pock marked Tu yueh-sheng (sp?) of Shanghai.

Historiography is a complex issue for the historian. We cannot take anything for granted.

Richard

Richard Kagan
Hamline University

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Thomas Bartlett also chimed in with this suggestive anecdote:

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In the late 1990s, I visited the public site in Beijing known as the Millennium Shrine in English, and as the China Century Shrine (Zhongguo Shiji Tan) in Chinese. It features a detailed exposition of events in Chinese history, from early times to the very recent past. I was interested to note that it included a very few mentions of the Republic of China, such as the year (1911) when it was established, and the year (1949) when it ended (sic). While watching this, I heard a young boy naively shout in a loud, surprised voice, "Mom, what's this "Republic of China"? His
mother reacted immediately with a hissing rebuke to be quiet, and pushed him along
to another part of the exhibit. I think that little exchange speaks volumes about the extent to which sanitization of the ROC's reputation, much less due recognition of its historical role, had not yet proceeded in China around the time when Gen. Wang Tung-yuan's auto-biography was published.

Highlighting the memoirs of an old ROC soldier who showed the admirable virtue of loyalty to his superior reminds me of the tribute paid by the late Qing court to Ming loyalist figures of the Kangxi period. The regime having become stabilized, it was obviously in court's interest to foster the virtue of loyalty to a received order, as the Ming loyalists demonstrated in their generation. It was also a politic thing to do, to reduce the long-lingering resentment of some descendants of such people. Treating Gen. Wang Tung-yuan's memoirs as history may mean that the old ROC-PRC passion has abated, but gaining the censor's approval, as is still necessary for publication in China, means that such a book is viewed within some
current guideline, such as fostering common, small "n" nationalist sentiment
across the Straits.

When visiting Beijing late last year, I observed a revived awareness of the ROC when I heard an elderly person, not quite Prof. Wu's age, but almost, say that, when she was in school under the ROC, the map of China included "Outer" (as they all call it) Mongolia, but now China's map seems deficient.

This is a person who has access to some degree of insiders' gossip, but has no authority or inclination to speculate in new directions. So, hearing her say that, I immediately wondered how many other people are privately casting an eye northward. As long ago as the mid-1980s, I once heard a commissar from a certain university very pointedly remark that the ROC map used in Taiwan then still includes "Outer" Mongolia. The inference is waiting to bedrawn.

Thomas Bartlett
Melbourne

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[Taiwan] [China]