Carbon Emissions Contextualization

EPA Minister Shen promoted a new campaign to get locals to reduce their carbon emissions (Liberty Times via Taiwan Today):

Organized by the nongovernmental Taiwan Institute for Sustainable Energy, the event captured the attentions of commuters with a giant balloon display.

“Our balloon represents monthly emissions produced by one person in Taiwan,” a TISE staffer said. “The population of Taiwan generates enough emissions to fill 270 million such inflatables, which strung together could cover the distance between the earth and the moon four times.”

The TISE said Taiwan’s population is responsible for per capita emissions 2.76 times the world average, which is about 12 metric tons a year. “If a balloon were filled with this amount, it would be 10 meters in diameter, or about three-floors high,” the staffer said.

While acknowledging that people need to cut their own emissions, TISE Chairman Eugene Chien said industry must play a greater role in effecting the country’s low-carbon transformation.

Chien said the corporate sector produced almost half of Taiwan’s total emissions in 2007. “The government must place stricter regulations on high energy-consuming industries and help them transform.”

The chairman believes this measure is necessary if the Cabinet-level EPA’s goal of slashing emissions by 210 million metric tons is to be achieved by 2020.

A friend, Tammy Turner, notes (emphasis mine):

With reference to emissions targets and climate change, according to 綠盟能源與氣候變遷小組 (Energy and Climate Change working group of the Environmental Protection Union - Taiwan), there is a very big gap between what the government is doing and saying. Here's a quick translation of their Facebook post on the topic (original Chinese below):

"The enemy at the gate to a low-carbon future (in Taiwan): According to calculations, the total CO2 emissions derived from the development projects that have already been passed by the EIA commission and will go online within the next 5 years will amount to 36 million tons. Then add to this the three projects that are currently under EIA review,the Kuoguang Petrochemical Plant, fifth-stage expansion of Formosa Plastics Sixth Naptha Cracker Plant, and the Changhwa Coal-fired Power Plant, the total emissions for these projects will reach 31.34 million tons. Once these projects are passed, even if every person in Taiwan were to stop using electricity and stop driving it would be impossible to offset the increased emissions from these projects. And although the current government administration (in Taiwan) has announced emissions reduction targets of bringing emissions back down to 2000 levels by the year 2025, a gap of 100 million tons currently exists."
台灣低碳道路的大敵當前。根據統計，已經經由環境影響評

估審查通過，將在未來五年內開始營運的開發案總計溫室氣體排放量已達近3600萬公噸。而目前於審議中的國光石化廠、台塑六輕五期、以及彰化火力發電廠，三者的溫室氣體總排放量亦已達3134萬公噸。雖然開發案一但均通過，既使全台灣民眾均不用電、不開車也無法抵銷這些開發案的增量。而目前的政府喊出的減量目標，2025年回歸到2000年的排放量，則有搞達一億噸的落差。

Is the government serious? It almost looks like they are hoping they can offset the massive emissions from Taiwan's coal plants -- the one in Taichung is the world leader and the one in Mailiao is number 5, with the one coming online in Changhua number 4 -- with reductions in household emissions. Good luck with that.
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Daily Links, April 19, 2010

Went to the engagement/wedding ceremony of my friend Drew's sister in law, and her mother made the best tang yuan ever. What's being cooked on the blogs today?

BLOGS:

• Maddog rips the campaign against DPP-supporting illegal radio stations in the south on the grounds that they sell quack medicines, pointing out that the KMT cheerleaders to the same thing. With bonus pic of Ma with quack pusher. This is why they invented blogs.
  
• Dave's Landslide Blog with another Taiwan-related entry, a short one with links to other things he has written.
• A-gu notes a Point on Blue Thinking: that which they never face.
  
• Just Recently blogs on Lee Teng-hui's criticism of ECFA as first step in annexation.
• Patrick Cowsill looks into Chinese immigration to Boise, Idaho
• Tainan City Guide with another excellent post, on Oyster Shell Cement
  
• USTDC on Congressional approval of Carter's recognition of the PRC
• The Wild East does A Night at the Brothel.
• Craig talks about his life as a photographer
• Wild at Heart: it's not possible to mitigate the effects of the petrochemical complex on the dolphins
• Tea Masters That Tea is too fresh!
• Taiwan in Cycles on attitudes toward road bikes.
• Frozen Garlic notes that all DPP legislators have signed on supporting Tsai for re-election as Chairman of the DPP
• Facing China on Taiwan's Nuclear Ambitions
• Darren Melrose: one hour, 9 lenses, 11 photos
  

MEDIA:

• East Asia Forum has a piece on South Korean twenty-somethings that shows some of their similarities to young Taiwanese.
• Montreal Gazette travel piece on Taiwan made the rounds. Quite flattering, but it shows the government's purblind vision of tourism in Taiwan which consists of CKS, Taroko, the HSR, the National Palace Musuem, and S&M Lake. Will someone take the next reporter biking? Or scuba diving? ADDED: Another great article about Taiwan tourism.
  
• Taiwan, Emirates sent home most of their Filipino workers.
  
• As an expat, you can file your taxes online to avoid having to go down to the local tax office. You can get the relevant software by....going down to the local tax office.
• Don't miss: John Tkacik's review of Peter Chow's excellent edited volume on One China.
• NYTimes on the last of the Asian godfathers. Don't miss the bonus 14K reference.
• Taiwan News explains why Taiwan must back PRC dissidents
• China pact will lead to more FTAs. Sure. I know this great bridge in NY I can get you at a cut-rate price, too.
  
• Taiwan plans 900 ton stealth warships
• ECFA early harvest list to be drafted soon
• From Manila, about Kaohsiung
• CIER says Taiwan's growth rate will hit nearly 5% this year, highest among all forecasts.
• This is not a joke: Premier Wu claims Ma never opposed referendums. Be blogging on that one tonight.
• Commonwealth English on the continuing university crisis in Taiwan: My university has disappeared, about the first university merger.
• More on China's pan-Asian HSR network. China leads the world in HSR construction, the US leads the world in smacking helpless third-world nations upside the head. Go Team USA!
• China legal expert Jerome Cohen, who has done great work for the good guys since the election of Ma Ying-jeou, comments on China's treatment of dissidents.
  

BIKING THE WORLD'S GREATEST PLACE TO BIKE:

• Michael C's post on riding the rift valley.
• Drew on our 180 km ride yesterday. "We crossed the Cho Shui River, which meant two things... the first was that we were in Yun Lin County and the second was that none of us could possibly be Ma Ying-jiu.
  
• Drew with collection of Taiwan cycling links here
• Awesome Alishan ride.
  

VIDEO: Kill Pig Day

TOURS: Barking Deer with awesome mountain tour. Check it out!

VOLCANO VIEWS: Real time video, there are three cameras. So far I can't seem to get the server to work. Hope you have better luck

• Eyjafjallajökull frá Þórólfsfelli
• Eyjafjallajökull frá Hvolsvelli
• Eyjafjallajökull frá Valahnúk

EVENTS:
There will be an International Taiwan Studies Workshop 2010:
“‘Whither Taiwanization?’ State, Society and Cultural Production in the New Era”
at Chang Jung Christian University from 23-24 April 2010.
For more information and registration, please visit
http://www.cjcu.edu.tw/taiwan/en/news.html
All presentations will be given in English.

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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!

Continued Regression in the Judiciary?

...and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was....

Since Ma came to power there has been a steady stream of complaints both at home and abroad that the judicial system seems to be deployed in the ruling party's favor, including letters from academics and experts abroad, and condemnation from foreign human rights organizations (oh, but you won't read that in any "why is Ma unpopular?" pieces in the foreign media). J Michael Cole ran an interesting piece in the Taipei Times the other day about yet another suggestive case.

“They didn’t have a warrant and had no cause to take him in,” Tsay’s counsel Billy Chen Da-cheng (陳達成) told the Taipei Times on Thursday. “This is the Legislative Yuan. There’s no need to apply for a permit to be there.”

Chen said that while footage shot by police, as well as 64 pictures, was submitted to the court, the judge relied solely on witnesses — police officers, as well as the driver of the vehicle with which Tsay collided at 4:08pm — to support the charges.

Prosecutors said Tsay “threw himself” at the vehicle, a claim that the footage does not support. While in court, the driver of the vehicle initially said Tsay had not thrown himself at the vehicle, only to retract his comment and claim that he did, Chen said.

Tsay and his counsels have laid charges against the police witnesses, the driver and the judge for what they claim was “fabricating evidence.”

“This is a clear example of how warped the judiciary has become under the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration,” Chen said.

Since Ma came to power, other cases involving police allegedly fabricating evidence — sometimes with judges fully cognizant that this was happening — have occurred, Chen said.

Tsay said he does not have any bad feelings toward the police.

“They privately told us they had the pressure from above, even if they could not find any wrongdoing in our activities. They are also victims of the oppressive system,” Tsay said.

J Michael has video links on his blog where additional information can be found. Tsay is not some lunatic but a credentialed scientist well known in his profession.
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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!

Shih Ming-te lashes out

The Taipei Times reports that Shih Ming-te, the former DPP Chairman and democracy activist who switched sides and went to work for the KMT a decade ago has again accused prominent DPP politicians of being KMT spies.

Shih said he “reasonably suspects” that more than one of the attorneys who defended the political prisoners in court was a KMT spy.

“I’ve said earlier that Hsieh was a KMT spy, and now I suspect that Chen, Su and Chang were also undercover KMT agents because the DPP did not make public all the state files about the incident, and could not provide me with information about the incident when I asked for it,” Shih said.

Shih said he was convinced spies were involved, not only because several former intelligence officers had said so, but also because Hsieh did not seem very eager to defend his name.

“If you [Hsieh] were a mercenary working for a foreign regime in its repression of the opposition at the time, then you are a traitor to Taiwan,” Shih said.

“I’ve said it openly before and it’s a very serious accusation against you, Mr Frank Hsieh, so you should have filed a [slander] lawsuit [against me],” he said.

Shih has arrested as one of the Kaohsiung 8, prominent activists who put together a mass demonstration on Human Rights Day in Kaohsiung in 1979. They were defended by Frank Hsieh, Chen Shui-bian, and Su Tseng-chang, among others, all DPP heavyweights. It was Shih who led the KMT demonstrations in Taipei against President Chen Shui-bian a few years ago. He has just published a book and appears to be drumming up publicity for it.
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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!

Rising Germany = Rising China

FT hosted a rather strange commentary from Wen Liao, "chairwoman of Longford Advisors, a political, economic and business consultancy." Its central comparison is between China of today and Germany of Bismarck....

China’s rapid economic growth over 30 years, combined with its military build-up, has made it Asia’s strongest power. After centuries of dominance by powers outside Asia or on its periphery – Russia, Britain, the US and Japan – China is reasserting the sway it held for most of its history and is exerting pressure in new areas, as in Sri Lanka.

Leaders in Beijing will need to become foreign-policy jugglers as they seek to prevent regional coalitions to keep China in check, maintain tolerably amicable relations with the US and develop an “Ostpolitik” to keep smaller neighbours – such as members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations – happy.

This juggling act is reminiscent of that required of Otto von Bismarck, the 19th century’s master diplomat-conjuror, after he united Germany. Bismarck strove ruthlessly to achieve unification and what he considered Prussia’s rightful place among the great powers. Having achieved these aims, he sought to preserve a new European equilibrium through prudence and restraint. But Germany had so mobilised its resources and nationalist sentiments that it terrified its neighbours. Soon, Bismarck was speaking of “the nightmare of hostile coalitions”. For all his efforts, it was a nightmare that would come true.

China’s dilemma is that, like Bismarck’s Germany, it surpasses in power all its neighbours combined (save for Russia with respect to its nuclear arsenal). To avoid the fate of the Second Reich, China must recognise and publicly accept that it is no longer a developing country but a global power with responsibilities that extend beyond its immediate national interests. It will need to explain its actions and factor other countries’ interests into its policies.

The interesting thing about it, as the friend who sent it to me and I discussed in a back-and-forth email series, is what her choice of Germany means. Is it a signal to Beijing (this is where we're headed!) or to the world (give us our lebensraum, dammit!). Is it all there on the surface, or is there another message? Note that it lives in a world of victimhood -- it is China's rising power that makes everyone nervous, not China's aggressive, belligerent, expansionist attitudes. The sun is setting on "centuries" of western interference in China. You know the drill.

Another piece of hers argues that China is worried about creating stability on its borders. Again no mention of the fact that so much instability is due to Chinese interference and aggression. And that one contains some truly loony claims....

From China's standpoint, however, the Soviet collapse was the greatest strategic gain imaginable. At a stroke, the empire that had gobbled up Chinese territories for centuries vanished.

it has now demonstrated its strategic effectiveness in a region traditionally outside its orbit. On Sri Lanka's beachfront battlefields, China's "peaceful rise" was completed.

Have fun interpreting these....
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Jamestown Brief on the Navy

Today I celebrated my birthday in the proper manner for a cyclist: a Century (100 mile) ride with two of my friends. Tanzi - Taichung - Lukang - Mailiao - Shiluo - Yuanlin - Changhua - Taichung - Tanzi. Drew's post on it is here. The Wolf Spider above is a special gift for my friend Joe C, who came along for the ride. I snapped it crawling around our gate; it is no bigger than my fingernail in real life.

Out there this week are two good pieces on naval stuff from Jamestown Brief. One explores Taiwan's naval inadequacy:

The first installment of this series on the Republic of China Navy (ROCN), or Taiwan Navy, presented a skeptical assessment of the ROCN’s ability to fulfill the expansive requirements set forth in its “ROC Navy Vision” (Xin shiji haijun), which in essence directs the navy to network its operations, extend its reach and amplify its combat punch in order to take control of offshore waters [1]. Yet the Taiwan Navy submarine fleet barely rates the name, the surface fleet is ill-suited for sea control, and even according to a recent Taiwanese Defense Ministry assessment, the tactical air power on which its surface operations depend is also in serious decline (Defense News, March 8).

The second explores PRC Naval Modernization...

China’s navy thus far has been focused largely on developing a variant of regional anti-access to prevent Taiwan from declaring independence, in part by achieving credible capabilities to thwart U.S. forces should Washington elect to intervene in a cross-Strait crisis. To assess related scenarios, one must compare the actual assets that relevant militaries could deploy; overall comparison of Chinese and American defense budgets is misleading unless one envisions an all-out conflict between the two, which fortunately is not a realistic possibility. The PLAN’s current order of battle is still clearly sized and shaped primarily for defending claims on China’s disputed maritime periphery as opposed to conducting extra-regional blue water sea control operations.

Go thou and read! Also on tap: State Dept Testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review commission.
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US Representative calls for F-16 sale to Taiwan

FAPA's press release on the subject:

++++++++++++

For Immediate Release
April 15, 2010, 2010
Contact: Iris Ho at (202) 547-3686


U.S. REPRESENTATIVE URGES ADMINISTRATION TO IMMEDIATELY SELL F16s TO TAIWAN

(Washington) -- In an extension of remarks, inserted into the Congressional Record on April 14, Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) urged the Obama administration to “immediately move ahead with the sale of F16’s to Taiwan.” Rep. Granger whose Congressional Fort Worth, TX district harbors the Lockheed Martin plant where the F16’s are built, concluded her remarks with “One of the main reasons to move now is that the production of the F-16's is nearing its end, as more countries are switching to the advanced F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.”

In November 2009, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) of the neighboring district introduced House Resolution 927 encouraging the sale of American made F-16 C/D fighter jets to Taiwan.

At the time, Rep. Barton stated “If we don't act quickly Lockheed Martin will be forced to shut down production of the F-16 and that would put almost 1,400 Texans out of work. This is a simple, smart way to save hundreds of jobs in Tarrant County during these tough economic times.” “Lockheed's F-16 program is responsible for more than 7,100 jobs at almost 200 locations nationwide,” he said.

FAPA President Bob Yang, Ph.D. says: “Moving forward with the F16s sale to Taiwan will help boost Taiwan’s dwindling air force and arrest the worrying trend of the cross-Strait military imbalance favoring China. The recent Defense Intelligence Agency’s report on Taiwan’s air force has indeed warned of Taiwan’s diminished ability to deny China’s efforts to attain air superiority. A militarily weak Taiwan would embolden China to wreak havoc on U.S. foreign policy goal of maintaining peace, security, and stability in the Western Pacific. In addition, the sale will help save a significant number of American jobs. It is a win-win situation.”

2010年4月15日

德州眾議員呼籲美國政府立即出售台灣F16戰機


德州共和黨籍眾議員凱瑞吉兒(Kay Granger, R-TX)於昨日(14日)在國會記錄內載入聲明，呼籲歐巴馬政府立即出售F16戰機給台灣。F16戰機的製造商洛克希德馬丁公司(Lockheed Martin)位於凱瑞吉兒議員選區內的沃思堡市(Fort Worth)。她在聲明內表示：「現在這個時候推動這項議題的主要原因之一是有鑑於F16的生產線即將進入尾聲，尤其當越來越多的國家開始轉換到F35聯合攻擊機。 」

與凱瑞吉兒議員選區相鄰的巴頓眾議員(Joe Barton, R-TX)在去年11月曾引進眾議院第927號決議案，鼓勵出售美製的F16 C/D型戰機給台灣。

巴頓眾議員當時表示：「如果我們不儘快採取行動，洛克希德馬丁公司會被迫關閉F16的生產線，近一千四百位德州居民則將被迫失業。在當前經濟不景氣的時候，這是一個簡單、聰明的方法來拯救泰潤郡(Tarrant County)的工作機會。洛克希德馬丁公司的F16計劃橫跨全國近200個地區，涵蓋超過七千一百個工作機會。」

FAPA會長楊英育表示：「出售F16給台灣將幫助台灣增長其每況愈下的空軍戰力，並能夠遏止向中國繼續傾斜的台海軍事失衡。日前美國國防情報局針對台灣空軍戰力所做的評估裡也警告台灣逐漸失去阻止中國獲取空軍戰力優勢的能力。一個軍力上薄弱的台灣將助長中國破壞美國在西太平洋維持和平、安全與穩定的外交方針。此外，這項軍售案將可幫忙挽救美國就業機會。對我們來說，這是一個雙贏的情況。」###


* * * *

HON. KAY GRANGER

OF TEXAS

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

* Ms. GRANGER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to talk about an issue of concern to me and to my Taiwanese American constituents.

* Today's Taiwan is a strong ally of the United States that shares with us the ideals of freedom, democracy, and self-determination. Taiwan enjoys elements of independence, although Taiwan continues to be under an ominous shadow cast by the over 1400 short and medium-range ballistic missiles that the People's Republic of China (PRC) has aimed in its direction. China continues to refuse to renounce the use of force against Taiwan, continues to claim Taiwan as a renegade province, and in 2005 passed an “Anti-Secession Law” that mandated military action if Taiwan moves towards formal and legal independence. The U.S. Congress quickly and strongly condemned China for this action with a vote on the House Floor.

* A 2009 Pentagon report on the military power of the PRC stated that “in the near-term, China’s armed forces are rapidly developing coercive capabilities for the purpose of deterring Taiwan’s pursuit of de jure independence.” It added that these “same capabilities could in the future be used to pressure Taiwan toward a settlement of the cross-Strait dispute on Beijing’s terms while simultaneously attempting to deter, delay, or deny any possible U.S. support for the island in case of conflict.”

* Madam Speaker, the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act is the cornerstone of United States-Taiwan relations and the “Law of the Land.” It declares that it is the policy of the United States “to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.”

* Furthermore, section 3(b) of the Act stipulates that both the President and the Congress shall determine the nature and quantity of such defense articles and services “based solely” upon their judgment of the needs of Taiwan.

* On January 29, 2010 the Obama Administration notified Congress of a long-awaited package of arms sale to Taiwan, totaling US$ 6.4 billion. The package included 114 Patriot PAC-3 missiles, 60 Black Hawk helicopters, 12 Harpoon missiles for training purposes, two Osprey-class refurbished mine hunters and military communication equipment. However, not included in the package were 66 F-16 C/D fighter aircraft, which Taiwan requested in 2006.

* Prior to the notification, in a report dated 21 January 2010, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency made an assessment of the status of Taiwan’s air defense. It concluded that Taiwan’s air defense is showing increasing vulnerability due to the aging of the air force fighter aircraft.

Madam Speaker, let me conclude my remarks with urging my esteemed colleagues to join me in requesting the Obama administration to immediately move ahead with the sale of F-16s to Taiwan at this time. One of the main reasons to move now is that the production of the F-16s is nearing its end, as more countries are switching to the advanced F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

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In which Taiwan News rips the China Post which compares Tsai Ing-wen to Hitler and can't get a single thing right

China Post editorials often pathetically attempt to get your attention like a skanky, three dollar whore motioning to you from a dark street corner, but on Monday the Post went all out for the consumer dollar with a piece so bad it makes a skanky, three dollar whore look downright geisha-like by comparison. Yes, that's right: Not only did the Post apparently utterly misrepresent the facts, it even offered a bonus comparison of DPP Chairman Tsai Ing-wen to Adolf Hitler and southern and central DPPers to his mesmerized followers. The CP wrote:

The opposition party has prepared a booklet, titled “Unspeakable Secrets of the ECFA,” which lists all the points of debate for its chairwoman to argue against President Ma, who wants to have the agreement concluded before the end of next month, if at all possible to prevent Taiwan from being marginalized in the emerging Asian free trade zone. The only line of argument against the ECFA, as revealed by the little book on her debate strategy, is that it is a conspiracy of the Kuomintang to let its Chinese born chairman sell out the native-born islanders of Taiwan.

It is ludicrous to argue that Ma is planning a sellout of Taiwan. Even if he dreamed of presenting Taiwan to the People's Republic on a silver platter, he couldn't make his dream come true. The plain truth is that nobody in the world can sell out Taiwan to China. But it makes sense for the opposition party to continue to accuse Ma of the conspiracy to win the upcoming mayoralty elections in five special municipalities and pave the way for Tsai to bear its standard in the presidential election of 2012. Like Adolf Hitler endlessly chanting Nazi mantras to mesmerize the Germans into following him, the DPP chairwoman simply has to drone on Ma's conspiracy to consolidate the party's power base in central and southern Taiwan.

The English cheerleader of a party that has killed as many people as the KMT has, led by a politician who spent the formative years of his political career fighting democratization, simply isn't the position to spew like that. Absolutely shameful. Fortunately, Taiwan News came out with a ripping hot editorial on this today -- why not a bit earlier in the week, like Thursday or Friday, when events were a bit fresher? But never mind that. Here it is in all its restrained but penetrating glory:

+++++++++++++

The war of words over the drive by President Ma Ying-jeou's rightist Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) government to sign a bitterly controversial "Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement "with the People's Republic of China reached a new nadir this week.

In an editorial published Monday entitled "Is the ECFA debate necessary?", the China Post claimed that opposition Democratic Progressive Party Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen, who is scheduled to debate the wisdom of the so-called ECFA with Ma April 25, would primarily focus her objections by `equating the pact with an act of selling out Taiwan."

The editorial indicated that its judgment was based on a booklet, "Unspeakable Secrets of the ECFA," which it claimed was prepared by the opposition party and "lists all the points of debate for its chairwoman to argue against President Ma."

According to the China Post,"the only line of argument against the ECFA, as revealed by the little book on her debate strategy, is that it is a conspiracy of the Kuomintang to let its Chinese born chairman sell out the native-born islanders of Taiwan."

Regretfully, with these statements, the China Post editorial writer revealed that he or she had not even bothered to glance at the actual document, a book whose title is more correctly translated as "ECFA: Unspeakable Secrets?", which has been published not by the DPP headquarters but is now being published in its third printing by the independent if pro-green Taiwan Thinktank.

In fact, nowhere in this 220-page book can a diligent reader find any mention of what the China Post calls the "only line of argument against the ECFA" and Tsai herself has never issued such an ethnically loaded charge.

Go read a book

If the China Post editorial writer had bothered to even examine its table of contents, he or she would have discovered that the Taiwan Thinktank book mostly concerns economic issues, notably the potential negative impact of the ECFA on worsening Taiwan`s dependence on the PRC's unstable economy, the likely negative impact on wages and employment and tangible risks to domestic market oriented industries and even high technology sectors such as electronics.

Only 13 of 69 "questions and answers" in an introductory section, evidently the so-called "debating points," are concerned with the pact's political implications and none speak of "conspiracy."

Only one answer stated that the reason why he Ma government has refused to consider contingency alternatives to the ECFA could be "perhaps stupidity or perhaps for the sake of eventual unification."

In the interests of fairness, the book also reprints the July 31, 2009 presentation by the Chung-Hwa Institution of Economic Research of an ECFA feasibility study commissioned by the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Moreover, the book includes a lengthy section on alternatives to the Ma-brand ECFA drafted by Taiwan Thinktank Chairman and former Council for Economic Planning and Development chairman Chen Po-chih, a former economic adviser to former president and ex-KMT chairman Lee Teng-hui as well as to the former DPP governrment.

Chen's six alternatives range from delaying negotiation of an ECFA until the formation of a domestic consensus on a negotiating and adjustment strategy, holding negotiations with the PRC on tariff reductions on individual sectors and encouraging Taiwan manufacturers to invest in Association for Southeast Asian Nations member countries to gain tariff free entry into the PRC market.

Moreover, Chen provides a rigorous critique of the questionable economic assumptions underlying Ma's ECFA strategy and sketches the outlines of an alternative "Taiwan-centric economic strategy."

De-legitimizing dissent

Ironically, the China Post editorial provides far more tangible evidence than the Taiwan Thinktank book of the Ma government's intentions to dispense with Taiwan's sovereignty with its bald statement that "ECFA is not an agreement between two sovereign states in international law" but is instead "an arrangement between two political entities which have been engaged in a civil war."

Such a definition could well confirm the fears of many Taiwan citizens that the ECFA is not an agreement between two sovereign states or even between two equal member economies of the World Trade Organization but will be a "domestic arrangement" similar to the "closer economic partnership arrangements" signed between Beijing and the PRC's "special administrative regions" of Hong Kong and Macau.

Indeed, such an domestic "arrangement" would actually assign to Taiwan a level of dignity even less than Hong Kong and Macau are granted in their CEPAs with Beijing since the positions of the two former colonies as PRC "special administrative regions" are guaranteed by international treaties between the PRC and Great Britain and Portugal, respectively.

Acceptance of such an "arrangement" would not merely "sell out" but give away the hard-won people`s sovereignty won by the 23 million Taiwan people through our "quiet revolution" of democratization after four decades of KMT authoritarianism.

Finally, there is the question of the purpose of this transparent and unprofessional distortion.

The obvious aim is to discourage readers from even looking at the Taiwan Thinktank book or familiarizing themselves with the DPP's actual discourse on the ECFA and to block our citizens from realizing that there are feasible economic alternatives to the Ma government`s blind rush to sign this dangerous pact by June.

Ultimately, there is only one statement in this editorial that we can wholeheartedly concur, namely that the April 25 debate should be "over how the two leaders envision Taiwan`s future."

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Daily Links:

• Tung Blossom Festival info page
• Chen Shui-bian, detainee, detention extended two more months, because he might flee, collude, etc. Thanks, KMT, you've saved the DPP a ton of Chen-induced headaches
• Meta-linking: Taiwan in Cycles with links to recent rides on Taiwan blogs.
• Taiwan dollar hits 20 month high
  
• Obama Justice Department: no trials for those who tortured or for other potential war criminals. We must look forward, after all. But if you were a whistleblower who exposed the NSA's abuses? 10 years for ya.

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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!

Seeding the way out of our continuing water problems

Taiwan is a land of water contradictions. Although we get far more water than we can use, the southern part of the island actually gives up more water to the air than it gets seven months out of the year, meaning that drought is in fact more or less normall. In recent days the government has been attempting to alleviate drought in southern Taiwan, where in some places it hasn't rained since typhoon Morakot in August of last year. Water is so scarce that in some places in southern and central Taiwan the spring rice planting was suspended. The China Post reported last month:

Although Taiwan has already entered the wet season of spring, until March 22, the total rainfall of Tainan in March is only 0.3 mm. Tainan's average rainfall in March in previous years is 35.4mm. Kaohsiung records only one mm of rainfall in March till March 22. If there is no rain before the end of March, the two areas will have the lowest amount of rain in history, according to Central Weather Bureau (CWB).

In Hengchuen (恆春), there were only 0.2 mm of rain in Feb., the second lowest amount of rain in Feb. in a century. Dawu (大武) had 11.3 mm of rainfall in Feb., the third lowest record of rainfall in Feb. since the station set up 70 years ago.

The CNA via Taipei Times described the cloud seeding attempt, which failed:

At 11am on Friday, a squad of C-130 transport aircraft released about 4,000 liters of water from an altitude of 4,500m and targeted it at the water catchment areas of Tsengwen, Wushantou and Nanhua reservoirs in Tainan and Chiayi counties. At the same time, a team from National Taiwan University (NTU) tried to seed clouds to create rain over the same areas, but neither approach worked.

The CNA report said a calcium chloride based aerosol was used in the attempt. The China Post report above noted that the problem is global warming:

Liu said the decrease in rainfall in Taiwan is influenced by the global climate change. In the past century, the surface temperature of the earth had increased by 0.6 degree Celsius and that had changed the raining patterns.

“The most pressing impact of climate change in Taiwan is the extreme rainfalls,” said Liu. “Central and southern districts of Taiwan had already suffered from draft for eight years in the last decade.”

According a research done by Liu and his team, in the last 45 years, the days with drizzles in Taiwan are halved. For central and southern districts in Taiwan, where the main water source is drizzles, would face drought much more often. And as the days with torrential rain are doubled that of 45 years ago, the risks of water hazard and landslides are also doubled.

The number of rain days annually is also declining in the north, though it is not as obvious.

REF: Wiki on cloud seeding.
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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's Awesome Health Care System

My wife just finished a round of surgery. The problem was serious, but it appears to be taken care of.

We are grateful beyond words for Taiwan's incredible health care system. Here in Taiwan the cost of this complex care for my wife appears unlikely to exceed several hundred US dollars for surgery, pre-surgery tests, and ten days of post-surgical care. A third of that charge is a $6000 NT charge for the morphine drip (I got the expensive version) which the patient must pay for. Heaven knows what would have happened had we faced this problem in the crapshoot that Americans call a health insurance system.

I can't say enough good things about everyone involved -- the nurses were great, the doc totally professional and talented -- and caring, he works 14 hour days yet still spends the time to talk with each patient. We did spend months prior with misdiagnoses, but that occurs in all systems. I don't really think it is a doctor issue so much as a specialist issue; misdiagnoses are common in all professions. The difference is that when a car mechanic or a computer repairman misdiagnoses your car or computer, it doesn't scream at you in pain or wake up in the middle of the night bleeding all over the sheets.

An interesting wrinkle we discovered is that when you have a serious illness the government gives you a special health insurance card, the Serious illness Card, which means that you get lower health fees forever after. Shouldn't we have to pay slightly more, to help amortize system costs? No wonder the system is suffering funding problems.

In Taiwan patients' families must stay with them in the hospital to help out with the care. This saves the NHI a bundle of money on patient care, since fewer nurses, assistants, and volunteers are required as a result. A whole system has evolved for this. In the hospital we stayed at the chairs in each ward folded out to become beds for family members, and the nurses are used to cooperating. If the patient has no family available, there are people who hang out around the hospital and hire themselves out as patient caregivers. So my kids and I took turns sleeping at the hospital to care for my wife.

I was here in Taiwan before this system was implemented. After using it for more than a decade, all I can say is that single payer is the only rational choice.
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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!

Siaolin Village Geological Probe Report

Typhoon Morakot buried Siaolin Village, killing hundreds. Many victims claimed that tunneling for a nearby diversion project was a cause of the disaster. This week the geological assessment was released....

“More than 30 million tonnes of mud rushed down from nearby Mount Siandu [獻肚山] at a speed of 180kph when the mountain collapsed,” Chen Chien-chih (陳建志), a professor at National Central University’s Graduate Institute of Geophysics, told a press conference yesterday. “The massive mudslide was divided into two ... only 30 seconds after it began — the larger mudslide continued on until it hit the Cishan River [旗山溪] valley, wiping out the northern part of Siaolin. This explains why some survivors said they heard two large bangs that morning.”

He said it was only 110 seconds from the beginning of the mudslide until the northern part of the village was wiped out.

The smaller mudslide went down the valley of a smaller, unnamed creek and formed a barrier lake, Chen said.

“As the mud, sand and stones built up, the barrier lake eventually collapsed 30 to 50 minutes later, burying the southern part of the village,” he said. “Most of the survivors came from the south of the village — they made it out in time, before the second mudslide buried the southern part of the village.”

National Taiwan University geosciences professor Hongey Chen (陳宏宇) said that long-term unstable geological composition was one of the causes of the tragedy.

“Field research found the geological composition of Mount Siandu to be quite unstable as it’s located on the border between shale and sandstone composition, and many geological layers there are actually leftover debris from ancient mountain collapses that occurred thousands of years ago,” Hongey Chen said. “If nothing happens, nothing happens — but if exceptionally heavy rainfall occurs, unstable layers can be washed down at any time.”

He said that as many as 92 other communities in Nantou, Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Pingtung and Taitung counties are also under threat from unstable geological compositions.

I posted on Siaolin last year, translating a presentation on the diversion project many villagers claim to be the cause of the disaster. The Public Construction Commission reported earlier this year, saying that rainfall, not construction, caused the disaster. To wit:

Lee said the report’s conclusion was also based on the fact that the amount of explosives used to blast the tunnel was insufficient to have caused tremors large enough to lead to disaster.

The largest amount of explosives used at any one time was 182kg, less than the tremor caused by the 2006 Hengchun Earthquake, the equivalent of 475 million kilograms of explosives.

Commonwealth Magazine had an in-depth piece on the region's complex geology shortly after the disaster....

When there is too much precipitation, the environment's capacity to absorb it becomes overwhelmed.

"That's especially true in the Gaoping River's midstream and downstream areas, where the geological structure is a mix of sandstone, mudstone and shale. The terrain is not only easily loosened and vulnerable to collapse, it features dip slopes and multiple faults and is traversed by a fracture zone, conditions conducive to the entire side of a mountain sliding down," Chen explains. The result was widespread flooding, from the Cishan River Valley, encompassing Namasia Township and Siaolin Village, where hundreds were buried alive during Typhoon Morakot, to the Laonong River Valley, including Liouguei Township and the hot spring resort town of Baolai.

And a warning for the future....

Dr. Huei-long Wu, the director general of the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau, estimates that the flooding last August created about 1.2 billion cubic meters of debris in the disaster area that stretched south of Jiayi County and into Taidong County. But only about a third of that, or 400 million cubic meters, actually made its way into rivers, with the rest remaining upstream or at midstream. Thus, the next big storm could trigger even bigger debris flows, Wu believes.

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Daily Links

• Cilantro, that ubiquitous spice in Taiwan: why you might hate it
• The Economist asks what makes a country
• China is probing possible iron ore supplier monopoly. Because there is nothing like a one-party state complaining about monopoly behavior.
• Big anti-ECFA rally slated for June 6
• Taiwan should welcome Chinese students to boost competitiveness, says the MOE, even though it is unlikely that Taiwan students will study in China, says MOE.

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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!

Sinotruk to build bus assembly plant in Taiwan

From the China Times via Taiwan Today, news about a Chinese state-owned vehicle maker that wants to build a bus assembly plant in Taiwan:

According to the officials, state-owned China National Heavy Duty Truck Group Co. Ltd. has fixed its sights on establishing a bus assembly plant in the Changhua Coastal Industrial Park in west central Taiwan.

The state-owned enterprise, also known as Sinotruk Group, plans to invest NT$5 billion (US$158.7 million) in establishing the factory. The project, if approved, would represent the largest investment in Taiwan by a mainland Chinese company since the government opened the island up to mainland investment in July of last year.

MOEA officials stated that top executives of Sinotruk visited Taiwan late last year to study the planned investment project and that the company is currently carrying out a more detailed assessment of the plan.

The kicker is at the end of the article:

The officials pointed out that Taiwan’s bus market is nearly saturated, so most of the buses produced at the planned factory in Changhua would be exported to the U.S. and Southeast Asia.

The higher value of “made in Taiwan” products compared to “made in China” goods was an important factor in Sinotruk’s decision to move to set up a production plant on the island, the officials said.

The investment is nice, but does not do much for the island's technology base, since it is merely an assembly plant with the high value technical work done elsewhere. Sinotruk was actually founded in 1935 under the KMT government based on an earlier automobile firm in Jinan, Shandong.
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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!

Daily Links, April 12, 2010

Practicing for a dance contest in Taichung. Who is performing on the blogs today?

BLOGS:

• MJ with excellent pics and commentary on his friend Gunnstein's purchase of a two-wheel recumbent bike at the Taiwan factory. Michael C took Gunnstein around Hualien, lucky man.
  
• An awesome post on an awesome ride, Taiwan in Cycles on his long ride through southern Taiwan this weekend, with social and cultural commentary to boot. Well worth a look. He also comments on Taiwan Review's piece on Taiwan's future in cycles
  
• Neil Wade on hiking in Taiwan's central mountains, with fabulous pictures.
• Wandering in Taiwan with another excellent trip, to a historic train station.
• Stocks and Politics on the new film Formosa Betrayed
• Global Views on the protest against mobile phone maker HTC
• Danshui History blog has a thought provoking discussion on Who are the Taiwanese?
• When FCA doesn't write on religion, his stuff is excellent, like this recent piece on learning Chinese. More!
• That's Impossible points out that hilariously, the Ma government won't provide the DPP with any information on ECFA for the upcoming debate. Just the usual raised middle finger to the public.
• Frozen Garlic looks at the DPP's nomination strategy for Taichung
• The shape of things to come: the SEC confirms the problems with the individuals behind the Nanshan bid.
• Red A on the rise in steel prices.
• Stocks and Politics notes, as I have, that ECFA optimism won't pass the reality test of actual Chinese behavior
• Taiwan Matters! on the crackdown on illegal radio stations
• Fixed Gear Girl at the Chungshan Hall
• Taiwan: Travel writer writes on travel: Taiwan
• Video on GPS companies, why they are based in Taiwan.
  

MEDIA:

• Letter from Taiwan's rep in Ireland says Taiwan is left out of climate change efforts. That's just noise: there's nothing to stop us from ceasing construction of our awful coal-fired power plants.
  
• There never was a Bob Dylan tour of Asia; it was just a con.
• Economist Peter Chow on annexation via ECFA; the whole point gutting Taiwan's sovereignty using economic integration is that the public never has an identifiable moment when it can say that sovereignty has been lost, to prevent any awakening of Taiwan's formidable powers of resistance.
• Taiwan ending conscription.
• China offers to help the US build an HSR system
• US lawsuits against Chinese drywall: billions of dollars.
• Jerome Cohen writes that the Rio Tinto case shows how China steamrollers its international legal commitments. Go, ECFA.
• Haha. Asia Sentinel with a truly excellent piece on instant noodle trickery... "...putting a stop to practices by some producers who reportedly even went so far to print the "pictures shown are for reference purposes only" warning in the same color as the background on the label, rendering the warning invisible."
• Commonwealth Magazine says 1.5 million babies are needed in Taiwan. Good stuff, as always from that magazine.
• Taipei's last green area to disappear.
• Taiwan's export competitiveness falls in last nine years, claim KMT gov't officials.
• DPP motion to link FTA promise to ECFA fails, practically a confession that China will not let Taiwan have FTAs with other nations.
• PRC targets services, says TSU
• Taiwan developing carrier killer
• Scantily clad babes scam gamblers, 11 arrested
  

SPECIAL: Dans, the well known photographer, has a copyrighted photo used without permission by Taipei City government website. Verdict says "it's ok."

RIDES: Apr 24/25 we'll be reprising the ride in Nantou last month. This ride has two starting possibilities. If you like, you can get to Taichung and bike with us on Friday down to Jiji or Shuili and overnight there, meeting up with more people on Saturday morning. If that doesn't work, you can come down on Saturday morning from Taipei and take the local train to Shuili, meeting us at 10 in Shuili. If you'd like to come, contact me.
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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!

Obama steps forward in China relations

Karl at Liyutan. Yeah, I bring all my dates there.

An look at recent progress in China-US relations from John Pomfret, the former veteran Beijing correspondent, appeared in WaPo this week, generating much commentary around the blogosphere. An excerpt:

"It was exceptionally deft handling of the Chinese. It was a choreographed diplomatic deal," said Bonnie S. Glaser, an expert on China at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "There was a recognition on the part of U.S. officials that China was ready to reengage but needed help to get out of the corner that they'd put themselves into."

The "handling" began days after Obama's Feb. 18 meeting with the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing has described as a "splittist" intent on fragmenting China. Weeks before, the United States had announced that it was going to sell $6.4 billion in weapons to Taiwan, China's nemesis, sending relations into a tailspin.

......

Steinberg and Bader visited China from March 2 to 4 and were confronted by angry Chinese officials making demands. First was that Obama never again authorize the sale of weapons to Taiwan. Second was that the president never again meet with the Dalai Lama.

But behind the Chinese bluster, the two Americans sensed that Beijing was looking for a face-saving way for Hu to attend the nuclear summit. Once they returned to the United States, more talks were held with China's outgoing ambassador, Zhou Wenzhong, and its new one, Zhang Yesui, even before Zhang formally presented his credentials to the U.S. government.

To mollify Beijing, the United States offered to reaffirm, in a public setting, its policy that there is "one China." At the same time, it also agreed to China's request that the new ambassador be granted a meeting with Obama. In return, U.S. officials requested that China take part in talks on imposing sanctions on Iran -- which it had refused to do.

The US did reiterate the One China policy, which is different from China's -- it doesn't include Taiwan in that. The requirement that the US reiterate the One China policy shows how much China's bluster is aimed at satisfying its domestic critics, as is the fact that the tensions -- which it is almost wholly responsible for -- had to be handled privately.

Note that the media once again forthrightly failed to pinpoint the source of tensions: it is China, not weapons sales to Taiwan. So often when China-Taiwan-US tensions occur in the mainstream media, they are referred to in the passive voice. Sad.

As for China, Zhu Feng, director of the international security program at Peking University, said he thinks Beijing needed to calibrate its responses better. "Yes, Taiwan and Tibet are both Chinese 'core interests,' " he said, "but if an arms sale is strictly defensive, why is it automatically counted as a grave violation to China's core interests?

New media propaganda theme being pushed out of China: Taiwan is a "core interest" -- yea, Beijiing has the same interest in Taiwan that a thief has in his neighbor's television...

Pomfret made a significant error in quoting Steinberg as saying the US "opposes" Taiwan independence and in representing his remarks. Steinberg said, with practiced diplomatic nuance.

Indeed, this past year we just marked the 30th Anniversary of the normalization of our relationship with the People’s Republic of China under that one China policy. We’ve made clear that we do not support independence for Taiwan and we oppose unilateral attempts by either side to change the status quo. And we in particular welcome recent improvements in cross-Strait relations and hope that they will continue to expand, and we urged our counterparts in Beijing to continue to work to that end. That PRC-Taiwan dialogue contributes to the objective of a peaceful resolution that has been long central to our approach.

The US does not support Taiwan independence, which is diplomat-speak to avoid saying that the US opposes it -- since we do not oppose it. Beijing correspondents... *sigh*

Also on tap on US-China relations was a good piece from Nat Bellocchi in the Taipei Times today on what Obama should tell Hu when they meet.
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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!

Out of Taiwan: It's more complex than thought

New article out of Australia challenges the current view that Polynesian agriculture and language arrived together from Taiwan. A cite from the news article:

A detailed look at the linguistics of the region also casts doubt on the explanatory power of the “out of Taiwan” model, according to Donohue and Denham. Languages change over time and as populations move around. If the Austronesian languages came to the region through a southward Taiwanese migration of peoples, one would expect that the languages spoken in the northern part of the region would be more similar to the original source language than the ones spoken in the southern part, which matches the dispersal of some archaeological markers. But that is not the linguistic pattern in Island Southeast Asia. According to Donohue and Denham, there is no linguistic evidence for an orderly north-to-south dispersal.

Irregular patterns in the vocabulary and grammar and other linguistic anomalies throughout the region call into question the idea that the language came to the region through mass migration. Rather, Donohue and Denham suggest that the profile of the Austronesian languages in Island Southeast Asia is “consistent with the mechanisms of language shift and abnormal transmission.”

Taken as a whole, the evidence from genetics, archaeology and linguistics calls into the question the idea that agriculture and language spread together, Donohue and Denham conclude.

“The demonstration that farming and language did not reach Island Southeast Asia together has implications for other places where that idea has been applied, including Europe and sub-Saharan Africa,” Denham said.

Here's a link to the journal article: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/650991
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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!