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News: New York Times, 10-1-2020 : As China and the U.S. vie for tech dominance, Taiwan’s chip companies are feeling the heat. They are forced to heed American tech policy, but many of their customers — and their customers’ customers — are in China. Hudson.org, 9-23-2020: Senator Marco Rubio : Helping Taiwan to win an all-out conflict against China would not be a way to reach that goal, “That’s not possible.” Instead, Washington should assist Taipei “to have the capability to raise the cost of military adventurism there to a level that China’s not willing to pay...". National Interest , 9-12-2020: Washington would establish “a new bilateral economic dialogue” with Taipei to “explore the full spectrum of our economic relationship—semiconductors, healthcare, energy, and beyond, with technology at the core.” . Financial Times (UK), 8-28-2020: Taiwan has removed a hurdle to a bilateral trade deal with the US, pledging to ease restrictions on American pork and beef imports as it aligns itself more closely with Washington in the face of the growing military threat from China. N.Y. Times, 8-17-2020: U.S. Tries to Bolster Taiwan’s Status, Short of Recognizing Sovereignty. New York Times, 8-15-2020: Beijing continues to take a tough stance on Taiwan, but is dialing down its belligerence to avoid provocative moves that might give President Trump more opportunities to attack. CNN, 8-14-2020: What Taiwan needs form the US is a strong stable marriage not a hot passionate romance ... a long-term antagonistic relationship between the US and China wasn't sustainable after November... Taiwan needs to think about it. MirageNews (Australia) 8-11-2020: Q: red line for the U.S. in terms of us going in and defending Taiwan? Pompeo: We thoroughly intend to uphold our obligations and commitments with respect to the historical understandings between the United States and China on Taiwan.
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The People’s Daily, 10-15-2020 , Global Times, 10-15-2020: “Don’t say we didn’t warn you" (「勿謂言之不預」)...

http://www.nexttv.com.tw/NextTV/News/Home/LatestNews/2020-10-17/275597.html

Taiwan, Next TV, 壹新聞, 10-17-2020The People’s Daily《告台灣情治部門書》full text : http://js.people.com.cn/BIG5/n2/2020/1015/c359574-34350271.html

● Economist,10-22-2020: The People’s Daily, (CCP’s mouthpiece《人民日報》), carried a commentary... using a phrase—“Don’t say we didn’t warn you (ps: Taiwan intelligence)” — that has preceded Chinese military action against other countries in the past
● Washington Post, 10-26-2020: ... jingoistic editorials in China's state-run press — have raised concerns in the West that Xi is readying China for a new war. The target in this case would be Taiwan
● After China's mouthpiece, People's Daily or XinHua editorial issued a severe warning "Don’t say we didn’t warn you" in 1962、1967、1978，Chinese PLA started military operations against Indian and Vietnamese troops respectively.
● The People's Daily in Nov. 2019 sent a warning "Don’t say we didn’t warn you" to Hong Kongers, in the next year China cracked down HK, and passed a national security law on Hong Kong.
● This time the People’s Daily put its warning to Taiwan's intelligence in "opinion/commentary" , instead of "editorial" column as before, and on "7th edition" instead of 1st~4th edition as before, ... therefore, it's serious but not as severe as before, probably a warning for coercion or "gray zone" actions such as blockage or economic intervenes, or pressuring Taiwan into giving up ... those sort of psychological war.
● SCMP (HK), 10-20-2020: ... unusually strong language in a recent commentary in People's Daily invoking the phrase “don’t say we didn’t warn you”, serves as a reminder, which was targeting a big rise in the number of Taiwanese intelligence agents active on the mainland, but was aimed at a much wider audience.
● Washington Post (7-22-2020) : In 2019, Xi (Chinese president) offered an ultimatum to Taiwan to come to the table for unification talks or face annexation by force. Soon later PLA's warplanes crossed the Taiwan Strait "median line" ( "the de facto cease-fire line") first time ever since 1949, according to Newsweek 8-12-2020, and the PRC deliberately ratcheted up tensions till now.
　
　

CNN, 8-11-2020 : Beijing's warplanes have only crossed Taiwan Strait "median line" ( "the de facto cease-fire line")intentionally three times since 1999 (ps: Newsweek, 8-12-2020: since 1949) -- once in March 2019, in February of this year, and again on Monday (Azar met with Taiwan President Tsai). aljazeera, 8-11-2020: Taiwan's top diplomat tells visiting US health secretary that Chinese pressure is making 'life increasingly difficult' . Politico, L.A. Time, 8-10-2020: warmer relations with Taiwan are largely a result of strong bipartisan support in Congress... appear to show how the Trump administration is willing to defy Beijing’s threats and promote an alternative to Chinese Communist Party authoritarianism. Foreign Policy 8-4-2020: CCP may be increasingly tempted to act against Taiwan. Helping to deter any such aggression doesn’t require nukes, but it should nonetheless be an urgent national security priority for Washington . CNBC, 8-5-2020: Taiwan is in a ‘delicate’ situation with China as military drills intensify... in the near-term, they do not have the capacity to really ‘retake’ Taiwan, ... over the years ... not a scintilla of evidence of flexibility on these kinds of core interest questions, and that’s what makes Taiwan so dangerous. CNN, 8-5-2020: Taiwan has emerged as one of the focal points of the escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing. The Australian 8-4-2020: Xi has made it clear that taking back Taiwan would be the crowning achievement in his vision to restore China’s place as a great power. we tend to underestimate the importance the US puts on the defence of Taiwan. CNN 8-1-2020: Taiwan could become the next flashpoint in the global tech war. Daily Express (UK), 7-29-2020: Harvard prof. Ezra Vogel: Unfortunately, there is possibility of an armed confrontation. Nobody wants it, and everybody would lose if a war erupts. LOWY Institute 7-17-2020: Taiwan tiptoes in cross-strait relations. Washington Post, 7-22-2020: Inside China, the government has faced growing calls from hawkish military pundits and nationalist commentators to grasp the current strategic window to seize Taiwan... in January 2019, Xi offered an ultimatum to Taiwan to come to the table for unification talks or face annexation by force...Taiwan would be an extremely convenient sacrificial lamb. TIME, 7-22-2020: President Xi Jinping pursues an increasingly assertive foreign policy, leading to speculation he may attempt a military confrontation in the region. NewsWeek, 7-21-2020: Once military conflict breaks out - A slight plurality of 31 percent assigned blame to Chinese President Xi Jinping, while 30 percent of respondents said they believed both Xi and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen were responsible and 24 percent blamed Tsai. VICE 7-24-2020: facing a CCP congress in 2022 that will determine the renewal of his chairmanship of the party — Taiwan could become a bargaining chip. Morning Star (UK), 7-27-2020: If you think China’s claims in the South China Sea are irrational, think again: the problem for Britain and the US is that the wrong side won the Chinese civil war. We always have a righteous cause to defend... Washington Post 7-7-2020: The Hong Kong security law could be China’s blueprint to deal with the ‘Taiwan problem'...China has arguably moved a step closer to preparing for war with the island democracy . New York Times, 7-2-2020: The possibility of a military conflict between China and Taiwan remains remote, experts say, because the costs for Beijing would be extraordinary, including significant casualties and damage to its international standing. Yet the two sides are moving farther and farther apart, with little appetite for compromise. Foreign Affairs, 6-18-2020: A strategic miscalculation might involve Chinese leaders choosing to blockade or attack Taiwan in the near term or midterm based on a set of strongly held beliefs about the United States as a declining power ... New York Times, 6-26-2020: When China views it is being challenged in these other sovereignty disputes in this era, it will respond with a very tough line, ... the possibility of confrontation would increase as the U.S. presidential campaign heated up. New York Times, 6-21-2020: It’s a quite deliberate Chinese strategy to try to maximize what they perceive as being a moment of distraction and the reduced capability of the United States to pressure neighbors... Pew Research , 6-10-2020: In Taiwan and across the region, many support closer economic ties with both U.S. and mainland China... (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/10/in-taiwan-and-across-the-region-many-support-closer-economic-ties-with-both-u-s-and-mainland-china/) L. A. Times, 6-8-2020: China reins in nationalists clamoring for an invasion of Taiwan. New York Times, 6-6-2020: Voters in Taiwan Oust a Pro-China Mayor ... reflects a stunning reversal and a hardening of Taiwan’s attitude toward China. NewsWeek 6-5-2020: If Washington does not act comprehensively and urgently, it could be Hong Kong today and Taiwan next. The diplomat 6-3-2020: the 3 flashpoints (Taiwan, HK, S. China Sea) that could turn a US-China cold war hot ... dangerously close to a tipping point where even a small action would serve as a catalyst that lets slip the dogs of war. Express (UK), 6-3-2020: South China Sea warning: All-out war fears erupt as Beijing rejects Taiwan peace plan. Financial Times 6-3-2020 : shrill rhetoric would make many believe that an assault on Taiwan could be imminent... Taiwan remains sanguine despite Beijing sabre-rattling. Washington Post, 5-30-2020: The threat, China's vows to 'smash' any Taiwan independence move as Trump weighs sanctions, raised the prospect of a regional conflict that could draw in the United States...... the rapid deterioration in relations, already at their worst in decades. Economist: 5-29-2020 How far will China go? China has launched rule by fear not just over Hong Kong, but also over the South China Sea and Taiwan. Epoch Times, 5-30-2020, S. Bannon: there are forces in Washington DC pushing the United States to establish formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Reuters 5-22-2020: In the annual meeting of China’s parliament, there was no mention of the word "peaceful" in front of “reunification”, departing from the standard expression Chinese leaders have used for at least four decades, an apparent policy shift that comes as ties with Taipei continue on a downward spiral. New York Times, 5-12-2020, Pew Research Center : (Taiwanese) 52% support closer economic ties with China, only 36% favor closer political ties. Washington Post, 5-21-20: As U.S.-China rhetoric grows harsher, new risks emerge with Taiwan drawn into the mix. L.A. Times 5-20-2020: the ruling Democratic Progressive Party advocates Taiwan’s formal independence, something Beijing says it will use force to prevent. Foreign Policy 5-20-2020: Taiwan would reject being ruled by China in the same way Hong Kong is now. The Guardian, 5-20-2020: Beijing also responded swiftly to Tsai’s speech and said China would never leave any room for “Taiwan independence separatist activities”. Financial Times 5-19-2020 : Taiwan fears uptick in military threat from China in wake of coronavirus epidemic. Foreign Policy 5-15-2020: Beijing were to interpret ...... coronavirus as a uniquely advantageous moment, a Chinese military strike on Taiwan at this moment is unlikely. Guardian UK, 3-28-2020: U.S. increases support for Taiwan internationally by a new law Taipei Act, China threatens to strike back. Le Monde (France), 4-30-2020: engrange peu à peu les dividendes géopolitiques de sa performance dans la lutte contre le coronavirus. (Foreign Policy 5-15-2020 : Beijing is concerned Taiwan will benefit from the pandemic.) Bloomberg 1-9-2020: Slow income growth and aging society post challenge ahead, Taiwanese income-per-person, income per capita, lowest of Four Tigers. L.A. Times 1-10-2020 ~ 1-11-2020: Taiwan election... a vote guided by anxiety about China ... Taiwan's president sweeps to reelection, setting the stage for chilly relations with China . Diplomat 1-3-2020: Taiwan anti-infiltration act targets at curbing Chinese influence but critics say it threatens the country's democracy. (brief) New York Times, 12-3-2019: China Has Lost Taiwan, and It Knows It . New York Times, 11-25-2019: The US is the largest source of military equipment for Taiwan, Taiwan is the largest beneficiary of "trade diversion" with $4.2 billion in additional exports to the US (1st half yr. '19). The Independent (UK),11-25-2019: Taiwan president Tsai's ruling party denounced “The enemy of democracy is China. At present Taiwan's most ambitious opponent, competitor, is also China”. WSJ (Wall Street Journal) 9-20-2019: It’s clearly a big win for China having the two largest allies of Taiwan in the Pacific drop so quickly... New York Times 9-20-2019: As Taiwan Loses Influence, China Gains Ground in Race With U.S. ; Washington Post 9-25-2019: China’s growing dominance in the South Pacific is a defeat for an America in retreat. WEF <Travel and tourism competitiveness report> of 2019 shows Taiwan had the sub-region's largest decline in competitiveness, Taiwan ranks 10th in Asia, Taiwan's prioritization of travel & tourism ranks world No.75; L. A. Times, 8-1-2019: The indefinite suspension (Chinese individual tourists to TW) is likely to prove a major economic hit to Taiwan, as well as a blow to cultural interplay. New York Times 4-10-2019: The US considers Taiwan's political status to be undetermined ... Taiwan Relations Act. calls for Taiwan's status to be determined by peaceful means. Bloomberg 7-15-2019: the island provides a vital link in a chain of American security partnerships in Western Pacific. Washington Post, 3-28-2019: in Taiwan, it’s China that dominates every discussion. Beijing’s malign influence is apparent everywhere, while the United States is seen as largely absent. Bloomberg news 3-14-2018: Taiwan will suffer even more, as it gets caught in the middle between a stronger China and a inward-looking US... CNN 6-17-2019: mass protests (in Hong Kong) emboldened anti-China elements in Taiwan. Daily Mail (UK) 4-1-2019: Taiwan blasts China for "reckless and provocative" incursion by 2 fighter jets across a largely respected line dividing the 2 sides in the Taiwan Straits. Japan Times, 4-1-2019: China's move also comes less than a week after the U.S. sent ships through the strait ( mission was unusual) — the third time in as many months...those sailings have likely been interpreted by China as implicit support for self-ruled Taiwan. Reuters 2-25-2019: US Navy ships ... riling China. ABC.net Australia: Chinese fighter jets cross Taiwan Strait after Tsai urges Pacific pushback against Beijing. New York Times 1-19-2019: Most of Taiwan’s 23 million people are in favor of maintaining the island’s de facto independence without taking any formal moves that might bring a military response from China. Le Monde France 1-2-2019: Le président chinois « n’exclut pas » la force pour récupérer Taïwan. BBC UK 1-2-2019: The US is by far Taiwan's only ally...most other countries seem happy to accept the current ambiguity... New York Times 11-28-2018: Will Taiwan Be the First Domino to Fall to China? Washington Post, 8-20-2018: Taiwan's precarious role in the China-US spat (Trump adm.'s Taiwan policy is unpredictable, situation is undeniably risky for Taiwan); CBS News 11-14-2018: If the United States had to fight China in a war over Taiwan, Americans could face a decisive military defeat. / National Defense Strategy Commission ; Annual Report to US Congress ( Military and Security Developments Involving the PRC ), 8-17-2018: Much of Beijing’s defense budget is focused on developing the capability to unify Taiwan by force; USA Today 5-18-2018: Xi JinPing has signaled that China will seek to reclaim its historical properties by 2049. New York Times at 11-4-2017, the Pentagon report, May 2017: China’s military modernization has “eroded or negated many of Taiwan’s historical advantages (geography and the US support) ” in deterring a potential attack.

★ No. 1 "comment Taiwan" on Yahoo Japan ( most popular search engine in Japan ), 10-30-2020, 10-11-2020, 10-1-2020
, 8-13-2020, 8-5-2020, 6-12-2020, 5-19-2020

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★ No. 1 "comment Taiwan" on US Google, 10-10-2020

★ No. 1 "comment Taiwan" on Google, 9-1-2020, 8-13-2020, 7-1-2020, 6-19-2020
　

★ No. 1 "comment Taiwan" on US Google, 10-3-2020,
9-1-2020, 8-28-2020

★ No. 1 "comment Taiwan" on ecosia (Berlin Germany), 10-1-2020

★ No. 1 "comment Taiwan" on swisscows ( Switzerland search engine ), 10-1-2020, 8-13-2020

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12-18-2019, 12-1-2019, 11-26-2019, 11-7-2019

★ pic. left: No. 1 "comment Taiwan" on Baidu ( largest search engine in China ), 8-13-2020
★ pic. right: No. 1 "comment Taiwan" on Yahoo Taiwan, 10-1-2020, 8-13-2020

★ No. 1 "comment Taiwan" on QWANT ( most well-known French search engine ), 10-3-2020, 8-13-2020

★ pic. right : This websites-group was ranked No.1 by keyword "comment Taiwan"
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★  pic. left: No. 1 "comment Taiwan" on ecosia of Europe (Berlin Germany), 10-1-2020, 8-13-2020, 6-12-2020, 5-19-2020, 1-10-2020

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★ pic. left: No. 1 "comment Taiwan" on Webcrawler, 10-3-2020, 8-13-2020
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Michelin Stars (2020) comparison among Asian cities
Michelin Guide cities	number of starred restaurants	number of 3-stars restaurants	number of 2 stars	1 star
Tokyo (Japan)	226	11	48	167
Hong Kong, Macau	85	10	19	56
Kyoto (Japan)	100	8	21	77
Osaka (Japan)	111	3	16	79
Seoul (Korea)	31	2	7	22
Singapore	44	2	5	37
Taipei (TW)	26	1	6	19
Shanghai (China)	23	1	2	20

　

　

Taiwan's soft power vs. Asia's soft power

Till 2020, Taiwan has not been included in Monocle's Soft Power survey top 25 ranking list and Top 30 Soft Power by Portland, etc, Taiwan's soft power is behind Asian's "world top 20" nations , including Japan, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, China, India, UAE. for details : click Soft Power

world best surveys Taiwan's rankings
in top 25~30 list comparison with
other Asia & Pacific countries

2019/2020
Top 30 SOFT POWER by Portland failed No. 8 Japan, No.9 Australia, No. 17 New Zealand, No. 19 S Korea, No. 21 Singapore, No. 27 China

US News: 2020 Best Countries Overall
The Best Countries in the World not included No.3 Japan, No.5 Australia, No. 11 New Zealand,
No. 15 China, No. 16 Singapore , No. 20 Korea,
No.22 UAE , No.25 India, No. 26 Thailand,
No. 30 Qatar

2018/2019 Monocle's Soft Power survey failed No. 3 Japan, No.8 Australia, No. 11 New Zealand, No.15 Korea, No. 19 China, No. 21 Singapore, No. 25 India

2018/2019 Soft Power 30 Study by USC Center on Public Diplomacy failed No.5 Japan, No. 10 Australia, No. 18 NZ, No. 20 S. Korea, No. 21 Singapore, No. 27 China

2017/2018 Monocle's Soft Power survey failed No. 4 Japan, No.9 Australia, No. 13 New Zealand, No.17 Korea, No. 19 China, No. 22 Singapore, No. 24 India

2017/2018 Soft Power 30 Study by USC Center on Public Diplomacy failed No.6. Japan, No. 8. Australia, 18. NZ, No. 20 Singapore, No. 21 S. Korea, No. 25. China

2016/2017 Monocle's
Soft Power survey failed No. 3 Japan, No.6 Australia, No. 13 New Zealand, No.17 Korea, No. 20 China, No. 23 Singapore, No. 24 India

2015/2016 Monocle's
Soft Power survey failed No. 4 Japan, No.6 Australia, No. 13 New Zealand, No.15 Korea, No. 21 China, No. 23 Singapore

Monocle's
Soft Power survey 2010 ~ 2015 failed Japan, Australia, New Zealand, S. Korea, Singapore, China, UAE , India, etc, were in the top 25 list

　

　

　

★ According to a survey of 2020, Singapore ranks No.1, Japan No.7, Korea No. 9 on "enterprise", Japan ranks No. 5, China No.10 on "engagement", Korea ranks No. 5 on "digital", Japan ranks No.6, China No. 8 on "culture", No any Asian country ranks top 10 on "education" and "govt."
　

★ Best Countries overall in 2020: 1 Swiss 2 Canada 3 Japan 4 Germany 5 Australia 6 UK 7 USA 8 Sweden 9 Nederland 10 Norway 11 NZ 12 France 13 Denmark 14 Finland 15 China 16 Singapore 17 Italy 18 Austria 19 Spain 20 Korea 21 Luxembourg 22 UAE 23 Russia 24 Portugal 25 India 26 Thailand 27 Greece 28 Brazil 29 Israel 30 Qatar 31 Saudi Arabia 32 Malaysia 33 Mexico 34 Poland 35 Turkey

　

　　
　

　

　　
Taiwan's travel & tourism - 10th in Asia

World Economic Forum (WEF) <Travel and tourism competitiveness report> released at 9-4-2019 shows Taiwan had the sub-region's largest decline in competitiveness from 30th down to 37th. Taiwan ranks No.10 among Asian countries. for details : click tourism
　

WEF travel & tourism category Taiwan's rankings and/or score comparison

prioritization of travel and tourism No75 Singapore No.6 , Hong Kong No. 11

Natural & cultural resources No.58 score 2.6 China No.1, score 6.0 , France No.2, 5.0, Spain No.3, 5.7, Japan No.7, 5.3, Indonesia No.18, Thailand No.21, Korea No.24, Vietnam No.26, Malaysia No.31, HK No.40, Philippines No.46, Sri Lanka No.52, Nepal No.56

Natural resources No. 87 Hong Kong No. 42, Singapore No.120
　

cultural resources & business travel No. 36 score 2.6 China No1, score 7.0

price competitiveness No. 78 China 5.7

Health & Hygiene No.43, score 6 score worse than Korea, Japan, Mongolia

international openness No. 60 only better than China, Mongolia

Safety & security No. 26 human resource & labor market: Taiwan No.18

ps: Compared to the report of 2017, Taiwan significantly tightened visa requirements (37th down to 119th), waning cultural resources and business travel (26th to 36th) and recalibrated figures showing a drastic reduction in protected areas (20th to 118th).

For full details : http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TTCR_2019.pdf

　

According to World Economic Forum (WEF) <Travel and tourism competitiveness report> (released at 4-6-2017), Taiwan's most important indexes for promoting tourism, like "Attractiveness of Natural Assets" (parks, beaches, mountains, wildlife, etc) ranks world No.87, "Natural Resources" ranks No.55, "Environmental Sustainability" ranks No.75 (No.69 in 2015), "Price Competitiveness" ranks No. 46, "Hotel Price Index" ranks No. 89 (82 in 2015), Taiwan got "n/a" on China's world top 5 indexes such as "World heritage natural sites" as well as "World heritage cultural sites".
comment Taiwan travel and tourism, No.1 on internet, pls. click for details

　　

　

　

world's most livable cities ... include Taiwan's ?

Till 2020, Taiwan has not been included in the top ranking list of the world's most livable cities
　

world's most livable cities

world best surveys Taiwan's rankings
in top list comparison with
other Asia & Pacific countries

The EIU's Global Livability Index Ranking   2019 failed in the top 50 No.2 Melbourne, No.3 Sydney, No.4 Osaka (Japan), No. 7 Tokyo, No.10 Adelaide, No.12 Auckland (NZ),   No.15 Wellington (NZ),   18 Brisbane (Aus) ,    No. 38 Hong Kong, No. 40 Singapore,   No.57 Seoul (Korea), Taipei behind

Monocle's Quality of Life survey 2019 failed in the top list
https://monocle.com/film/affairs/quality-of-life-survey-top-25-cities-2019/
No.2 Tokyo (Japan), No.11 Melbourne (Australia), No.13 Sydney, No.16 Hong Kong, No.17 Kyoto (Japan), No.21 Auckland (NZ), No.22 Fukuoka (Japan), 23 Brisbane 25 Singapore

Deutsche Bank Liveability Survey 　
failed in the list https://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/RPS_EN-PROD/PROD0000000000494405/Mapping_the_world%27s_prices_2019.pdf
　
No. 2 Wellington (NZ),    No. 7 Melbourne ( Australia ), No.10 Sydney,   No.14 Tokyo No.16 Auckland (NZ), No.17 Dubai (UAE), No. 23 Singapore,   No. 26 Saudi Arabia Riyadh, No. 29 Seoul (Korea), No. 33 India Bangalore, No. 39 Malaysia Kuala Lumpur, 44 Hong Kong,   46 India Delhi, No. 48   Shanghai (China), No. 55 Beijing

Safe Cities Index (SCI) 2019,   EIU (Economist UK), NEC failed in the top 20 No.1 Tokyo, No.2 Singapore, No.3 Osaka (Japan), No.5 Sydney (Aus), No. 8 Seoul (Korea), No10 Melbourne, No. 20 Hong Kong 　

ArchDaily / The World's Most Livable Cities in 2019 failed in the top 20 No. 3. Auckland, New Zealand, 11. Sydney, Australia, No.15. Wellington, New Zealand , No.17. Melbourne, Australia

Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI )
, Z/Yen. Mar 26, 2020 No.75 top 7: NY, London, Tokyo, Shanghai, Singapore, HK, Beijing; Taipei No.34 in 2019

The EIU's Global Livability Index Ranking   2018 failed in the top 50 No.2 Melbourne (Australia), No.3 Osaka (Japan), No. 7 Tokyo (Japan) , No.10       Adelaide (Australia),   No.12 Auckland (NZ)    Wellington (NZ) ... ... (omitted), Taipei 58

The EIU's Global Liveability Index Ranking   2017 failed in the top 50 No.1 Melbourne, No. 5 Adelaide, No. 7 Perth,
No. 8 Auckland (NZ), No.11 Sydney, No.13 Tokyo, No. 14 Osaka, No.16 Brisbane,   No. 20 Wellington (NZ), No. 35 Singapore, No.45 Hong Kong, No.58 Seoul (Korea), No.60   Taipei

　　　

EIU (Economist UK)'s Global Liveability Index evaluates stability, healthcare, culture&environment, education,   Infrastructure

　

　

　

　

　


● Taiwan's university rankings in Asia,
Quacquarelli Symonds，QS UK, 2021
　

　 ranks Taiwan Malaysia China Korea Hong Kong, Macau Singapore
　 Japan

　 1~15 　　
　
15. Tsinghua University Beijing
　

　

23.   Peking University Beijing
　

　

　

22.    University of Hong Kong

　

　

　
No. 11.   National University of Singapore
　
　
No.13 Nanyang
Tech. Univ. Singapore
　

24 University of Tokyo
　

　

　 26~50 　　 34.   Fudan University, Shanghai
　
　
47.    Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai
37. Seoul National University, Seoul
　

　

　

39. KAIST Korea
　
27 Hong Kong Univ. Science & Tech.

　

　

43 Chinese Univ HK

　

　

48. City University of Hong Kong

　
　
38. Kyoto

University

　 51~60 　 No. 59 Universiti Malaysia 53. ZheJiang Univ. 　
　

　

　

　
　　　
　
56. Tokyo Institute Tech.
　

　 60~80 66.   National Taiwan University
(台灣大學)　　
　　 69. Korea Univ.
　

　

77 Pohang U Science Tech
75. Hong Kong Polytechnic University 　 72. Osaka U Japan
　

79. Tohoku U Japan

　 80~100 　　　
93. U Science & Tech China

　
85. Yonsei U Korea
　

88. SKKU Korea
　
　

　

　

　
　　

　
https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2021

QS Quacquarelli Symonds，QS UK
QS 2020 Asia universities, top 15 rankings :
subtotal number : Singapore ( 2 ), Hong Kong ( 3 ), Japan ( 2 ), Korea ( 3 ), China ( 4 ), Malaysia ( 1 ), Taiwan ( 0 )
★ In <Nature Index> , "2019 Tables: Institutions,  about 32 universities in China, 8 universities in Korea, 6 Hong Kong universities, 9 univ. in Japan,
2 universities in India, 2 in Singapore, one in Saudi Arabia
ranked higher than all Taiwan's
Taiwan's higher education
　

　

　

● Taiwan's hard power
● Foreign Policy, 10-19-2020: Taiwan needs huge arsenals of mobile missile launchers, armed drones,
and mines; developing an army that can surge
tens of thousands of troops to any beach in an hour backed by a million-strong reserve force trained to fight guerrilla-style in
Taiwan’s cities and jungles.
it could take a decade to retool the Taiwanese and U.S. militaries to mount an effective defense of the island.
With China’s rapid military buildup, that may be time that Taiwan does not have
● New York times, 8-30-2020: Taiwan's Lawmaker said Taiwan’s military needs to improve a lot
● Forbes, 8-30-2020: Taiwan simply does not have enough firepower to defeat a Chinese invasion without the help of the U.S. military
　

　
Taiwanese military
opinions

　 personnel ( soldiers, officials ) ◆ Taiwan’s Military Is a Hollow Shell. US Defense Department officials have privately expressed dismal assessments regarding Taiwan's current force level and reserve system.
◆ armor, mechanized infantry, and artillery units are always in desperate shortage of enlisted soldiers
◆ few front-line units have more than 80 percent of their positions filled / Foreign Policy, 2-15-2020; https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/15/china-threat-invasion-conscription-taiwans-military-is-a-hollow-shell/
◆ Taiwan's active force down to under 200,000 (the exact number is classified). The nearly two million reservists exist in name only... / New York times, 5-18-2017
◆ The ROC (Taiwan) Armed Forces number approximately 300,000, and reserves reportedly total 3,870,000. / Wikipedia, May 2020
◆ Taiwan began to phase out mandatory conscription for all young men, which was deeply unpopular, in favor of an all-volunteer force; 4 months of compulsory service ... training is "insufficient to meet the challenges posed by the increasing threat (RAND, '17) / New York times, 8-30-2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/world/asia/taiwan-china-military.html
◆ Only 310 thousands out of 770 thousands of qualified reservists were called up for short-term military training, from 2015 to 2017, 61 thousands of those escaped the duty / Formosa TV news, 8-3-2018, storm.mg 10-15-2019
◆ only 84,000 are demobilised volunteer force soldiers, the best-trained and most motivated group /   Financial Times, 7-12-2020
◆ Taiwan’s military is also not in the most optimal state. For instance, Taiwanese males serve only four months of conscripted military service, in comparison to over 20 months for Singaporean men and at least 18 months for South Korean men. /   Hong Kong Free Press 7-15-2020
◆ Reserve force is short of both officers and sergeants, their speciality far match the position / United Daily, 10-2-2020

　 strategy ◆ To against the threats of cyber warfare, cognitive warfare, and ‘unrestricted’ warfare from China , Taiwan we work to bolster our defense capabilities, future combat capacity development will also emphasize mobility, countermeasures, and non-traditional, asymmetrical capabilities (unconventional arms)” / Taiwan president inauguration speech, Voice of American, 5-20-2020
◆ so called asymmetrical capabilities in Taiwan is only skin-deep /   United Daily , editorial, 6-6-2020
◆ Taiwan's weird strategy: Facing PLA's attacks, Taiwan's warplanes stay inside tunnels, warships leave Taiwan, await till the US military comes to rescue, they will return and join the war / Apple Daily, 8-14-2020 tw.appledaily.com/headline/20200814/KDQ5JJAYQUR5JLE6EIIXK5VJM4/

　
firepower
◆ China could wipe out Taiwan’s navy and air force ... Many insiders are accordingly pessimistic about its ability to hold out. / Economist,10-9-2020
◆ the PLA could, without invading, destroy Taiwanese military, power and telecom facilities, embargo oil imports, cut cyber connectivity, then take advantage of the psychological impact on Taiwan to press for negotiations   / Politico,10-8-2020
◆ France forced Taiwan to withdraw its request to upgrade 20-year-old Mirage fighters ... F-16 A/B and F-CK-1 fighters are growing tired; 60 or 70 new fighters and a few missiles won’t really change the balance of power. And heavy tanks – especially if they lack trained crews – won’t do much to stop a Chinese invasion / Forbes, 8-30-2020
◆ A whole lot of Taiwan’s weapons don’t work. / Forbes, 9-4-2020 forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2020/09/04/which-of-taiwans-old-weapons-still-work/#340d2ee156a2
◆   Three Taiwanese presidents Lee (李登輝後期)、Chen(陳水扁)、Tsai(蔡英文) squandering those "bonus for peace" military budget and underestimating the demand of national defense, lead to shortage of arms-deal budget. /   United Daily , editorial, 6-6-2020
◆ Today China has more and better conventional forces than Taiwan.   / Forbes, 6-3-2020    China has ｎｕｃｌｅａｒ　ｂｏｍｂ，Neutron bomb， hydrogen bomb, Taiwan has none of those. / Next TV news, 5-8-2020
◆ A major obstacle is that countries that might sell it the most sophisticated weaponry are increasingly reluctant to do so for fear of provoking China, ... / New York times, 11-4-2017
◆ Taiwan military strength is ranked No. 26 , China PLA No. 3 / Global FirePower, 2020

　
military logistics system
◆ The logistics inside the military remain so abysmal ... The army likely has no clue how many tanks or guns actually mission-capable ...     / Foreign Policy, 8-20-2020
◆ Taiwan lacks enough supplement of all items of military equipments /   United Daily (聯合報社評), opinion, 5- 7- 2020

　
morale
◆ Taiwan’s preparedness and its will to fight both look shaky / Economist,10-9-2020
◆ “Their underlying thinking is that PLA has grown to be too strong for us to fight militarily anyway... Taiwan should just focus on putting up a good show of being tough, buy enough U.S. weapons for display, and pray that Americans come to our rescue / Foreign Policy, 8-20-2020 https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/20/taiwan-military-flashy-american-weapons-no-ammo/
◆ Policies put forward by the Kuomintang and the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party have left the military understaffed and in a state of low morale... / New York times, 5-18-2017
◆ Taiwan fears uptick in military threat from China in wake of coronavirus epidemic ... / Financial Times 5-19-2020

　
combat experience
◆ Taiwan’s army has trouble with training across the board. Many insiders are accordingly pessimistic about its ability to hold out. / Economist,10-9-2020
◆ The military combines 4 drills to one per year for battle and propaganda-show, affecting training effect , high percentage of military officers hence are not familiar with combat mission. / ref to China Times, 7-7-2020, opinion www.chinatimes.com/opinion/20200707004603-262105?chdtv 蘭寧利》; https://www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20200707006231-260417?chdtv

　
discipline
◆ The practice of judicial system has proved not as good as military criminal code to educate and train the military discipline. A soldier's 洪仲丘 'torture to death" sparks massive protest around 2013, the military court was hence no longer to judge the troops .   / The China Times, 7-17-2020, editorial

　
budget
◆ High personnel expense pushes aside the logistics and maintenance budget,   the govt. needs to plan special budge to purchase arms. / The China Times, 7-17-2020, editorial
◆ Taiwan would increase Taiwan’s defense budget by 10 percent, on top of a 5 percent increase the year before. That would raise military spending to more than 2 percent of gross domestic product   / New York times, 8-30-2020

　 For full text click Taiwan military

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Taiwan in full aspects ★ this site's world No. 1 in 2020, 2017~19, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2010~12 ★ Top rankings since 1998 ★

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The ROC on Taiwan, has its own constitution, independently elected president and military forces, However, Taiwan's image and brand personality were tarnished or damaged for having benefits by any means, and having principal human rights problems.

● Ethics of Taiwan politicians : The Liberty Times, editorial (7-21-2020) reports only 2.3% Taiwanese politicians are trustworthy and have professional ethics, according to a survey half year ago, 56% Taiwanese note elected representatives (lawmakers, councilman, etc) care their own interest, only 9.3% think they care "national interest". Washington Post (7-22-2020) reports: In a major speech in January 2019, Xi (Chinese president) offered an ultimatum to Taiwan to come to the table for unification talks or face annexation by force. However, Taiwan's government was tight-lipped about this ultimatum, so that even famous commentator and analyst know nothing about it, otherwise pro-Independence Tsai I. W. may not easily continue in presidential office in Jan. 2020, because, according to National Interest (6-16-2020): more than 60.3 percent of the respondents opposed Taiwan's independence if it is followed by China’s military invasion...

● corruption : United Daily, opinion, 8-3-2020: Corruption in parliament seems never end. Apple Daily, headline editorial, 8-3-2020 (https://tw.appledaily.com/headline/20200803/BQXMSWTYOVERHBPGLUKPXAA5LQ/) lawmakers of same party shared illegal benefits or covered each other, and usually won't disclose political rivals' greasy palms, that's Taiwan's political culture and 'ecology'. Transparency International 1-29-2019: Taiwan has stagnated in the Corruption Perspective Index rankings since 2011 with its score 61~63 (dropped 2 spots this year), in contrast, South Korea improved by 3 points in 2017. Liberty Times, 1-12-2020, editorial: The administration's rottenness (腐壞氣息) was exposed already. In platform presentation at 12-25-2019, Nationalist Party Presidential candidate Han criticized President Tsai has allowed top officials around grow very corrupt, Tsai refuted KMT was more serious, People First Party candidate Song said that speaking of corruption and unfair judiciary, KMT and DPP are about the same. Apple Daily (12-7-2018) editorial : Taiwan's corruption is off the charts by collusions between government officials and business owners, furthermore, Taiwan's underworld going wild to assist government officials, business and some elected representatives (e.g., legislators) in corruption has been ahead of most corrupt countries, e.g., China, Indonesia, Brazil, Philippines, Vietnam, the stinky rotten food-chain crossing pan-Blue (Nationalist, KMT) and pan-Green (DPP) resurges after Taiwan's elections... corruption

● freedom of speech : USA Country Reports on Human Rights practices, 3-11-2020: Journalists said they faced pressure from management to submit news stories to complement or support the content of paid advertisements. < Reporters Sans Frontieres> (RSF, France) , 4-18-2019: Taiwan’s journalists are suffering from a very polarized media environment dominated by sensationalism and the pursuit of profit. Although President Tsai Ing-wen has said she wants to continue developing press freedom in Taiwan, few concrete measures have been taken to improve journalists’ editorial independence and encourage media to raise the quality of the public debate. Beijing is exploiting this weakness by putting pressure on Taiwanese media owners, who often have business interests on the mainland. ● China Times, editorial <中時社論> , 3-9-2020: Political power forms threats (penalty fine and suspending the license) to certain media ... Secretly bullying by (gov.-related) cyber force. ● The China Times 12-14-2019 editorial : the gov. seriously harmed free speech by investigating those messages shared or published on the net by the masses; The China Times 3-29-2019 headline news: Democracy on the surface, anti-democracy to the bone is not allowed. ● Apple Daily 12-4-2019 editorial : All political parties and many politicians found cyber-forces who are mean, base, cruel and dark to destroy target's image and reputation by secretly ways, without moral bottom line ... Taiwan Cyber bullying ● United Daily, 3-27-2020: Coronavirus (CovID-19) in Taiwan - Taiwanese government covered basic facts, delivered misleading message, endangered civilians ... https://udn.com/news/story/7338/4446968 ● UDN 12-7-2019 editorial: The number of fake news spread by Pan-Green coalition (ruling party) is far more (and more vile) than that sent by ordinary people ● US Country Reports on Human Rights Practices released at 3-13-2019: the impact of the concentration of media ownership on freedom of the press, self-censorship continued. ● Apple Daily 3-29-2019 editorial opinion: Democracy & Freedom of speech is the bottom line which should never be lost, the government should not create chilling effect by fishing in trouble water. ● N.Y. Times 12-3-2019: Social media platforms are another key battleground (Chn-TW): Nearly 90 percent of Taiwan’s population is active on them, and traditional news outlets have been known to republish fake posts without fact-checking. According to Reuters, Chinese government agencies have paid Taiwanese news outlets to publish pro-Beijing content. freedom of speech

● democracy : Economist EIU Democracy Index 2019 shows Taiwan is "Flawed democracy", 2019's overall score is lower than 2015's and 2016's, the scores of "political culture", "political participation" are low (5.63, 6.11). N.Y. Times 12-3-2019: soft underbelly of Taiwanese politics: patronage networks. they continue to allow community leaders, farmers’ associations and even organized-crime figures to buy votes. Reuters, New York Times, 7-14-2020: Violence and protests inside the chamber are not unusual in Taiwan. New York Times, 1-11-2020: Taiwan’s young and vibrant, if messy at times, democratic society. <China Times> 2-26-2020, editorial: more and more uncontrolled admin. power and withered legislative power, freedom of speech was suppressed by admin. and judicial power at all levels, ...as for political culture, partisan, stand and ideology matter. <Foreign Policy>, 2015: Taiwan politics belongs to mega-corporations (not the people) and is controlled by the political parties. Apple Daily, editorial, 12-14-2019: Taiwan gov. shows authoritarianism political culture, ignoring and being hostile to those critics. Apple Daily, editorial, 12-7-2019: in this bad election morality age, Taiwan president becomes a low threshold, min. qualification criteria position, and a laughingstock. <United Daily> editorial 1-8-2020, <UDN> editorial (聯合報社論) 11-14-2019／Taiwan's democracy turns into grave 。 (民主設計的良意，如今變成私欲墳場 https://udn.com/news/story/11321/4163629) <UDN> editorial,12-6-2018: Taiwan's democracy exists in name only ...; <United Daily News>, editorial opinion, 6-23-2019: The operation of democracy usually strays off most public-opinions, ... fail to solve the adverse situation of reversing democracy; <United Daily News>, Opinion, 3-7-2017: Now it seems hard to keep Taiwan's skin-deep democracy ... the people's "livelihood" was sacrificed for politics ... democracy & freedom

● justice : USA Country Reports on Human Rights practices, 3-11-2020: Some political commentators and academics, publicly questioned the impartiality of judges and prosecutors involved in high profile, politically sensitive cases. US Country Reports on Human Rights Practices released at 3-13-2019 pointed out that justice ministry was insufficiently independent and conducted politically motivated investigations of politicians (in <Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government> section), ... ● The United Daily, 1-6-2020, editorial: Taiwanese don't trust law-enforcement because of government abusing power and playing with the law. : ●　The United Daily, Focus, 11-30-2019: 　The prosecutors and Taiwan's 'FBI'　were questioned a lot for years for their political investigations and conducts ...in recent years, the judiciary giving services to DPP almost became a routine...:● UDN 10-20-2019: politics overrode justice ● The Liberty Times, head-line news, 3-16-2019: Taiwan PM is not satisfied with Judicial reform ● The Liberty Times, head-page, The China Times, head-page, 12-8-2018: Taiwan P.M. (賴清德): Taiwan has not made significant progress on judicial reform, which is roiling with public discontent; ● <The United Daily>, 06-18-2016, head page news: Taiwan's prosecutors admit usually following order to conclude legal cases. ● <USA Country Reports on Human Rights practices>, 2016-2018, public trust on Taiwan's judiciary system keeps falling down. ● <United Daily>, opinion column, 12-16-2017: Taiwan's public voice with a heavy heart : The prosecutors should abide by the law too... don't be a political tool. judiciary

● children & women trafficking : US state government - 2019 Trafficking in persons report, Jun. 2019: in the last five years, human traffickers subject foreign men and women to forced labor and sex trafficking in Taiwan, and traffickers subject local men and women to forced labor and local women and children to sex trafficking. ... take advantage of Taiwan and foreign women’s and children’s drug addictions to subject them to sex trafficking. Taiwan traffickers increasingly use the internet, smartphone apps, livestreaming, and other such online technologies to conduct recruitment activities, often targeting child victims, and to mask their identities from law enforcement.

● int'l drug base : Taiwan is narcotic drugs producing & selling center of Asia (The China Times <Want Weekly>, 9-18-2019). Taiwan was already reduced to be a 'kingdom' of producing narcotic drugs. (United Daily, headline news, 11-2-2017) Philippine President Duterte ... blaming Taiwan-based organised crime behind all this drug traffic... for using his country as a shipping hub. (Reuters, 9-27-2017, The Straits Times, 9-29-2017) Duterte: Triad supplying illegal drugs to PH is based in Taiwan, not China (inquirer.net, 9-26-2017). Taiwan is scandalous for being a major drug transit center & a major drug exporting country, part of Taiwanese government including Judicial sys. refused to improve this issue. (UDN Opinion, 11-6-2017, The China Times, head-page & focus, 4-4-2017, The Liberty Times, 5-12-2017) illegal drugs

● privacy : The United Daily News (聯合報) , editorial, 3-31-2019 : Taiwan is a backward country on personal-data protection. Taiwan plans to sell general public's personal data and digital human rights (e.g., people's medical health data without giving any notice ), peep at whatever on the net , and even monitor all the citizens, nothing people would normally notice ... (brief https://udn.com/news/story/7338/3728815) ; ● EU General Data Protection Regulation - GDPR was given to effect at 5-25-2018, Taiwan is far behind, even is going in an opposite way / Apple Daily 蘋果日報, 5-28-2018, National Taiwan University Law School professor 林鈺雄 privacy

● secret police : The United Daily News, editorial opinion (9-19-2018) : "secret police" (「東廠們」) have been active around us ... The Liberty Times, head-page, The China Times, head-page, 12-8-2018: Taiwan P.M. (賴清德): "Secret Police event" (「東廠事件」) has seriously damaged public trust on the government...; Apple Daily 12-4-2019 editorial : All political parties and many politicians found their cyber-forces to secretly attack targets... , the dark force are mean, base, cruel and dark to destroy target's image and reputation, they executed without moral bottom line and military discipline (brief). The United Daily News, editorial 11-30-2019: The state machine was abused as government's "tributaries". UDN 11-3-2018, Intel. sys. (NSB) confirmed their investigations of Facebook and other's communities on the net. All internet platform service providers in Taiwan were requested to hand in all users' personal information/data (intel denied). <Apple Daily (蘋果日報)> 11-7-2018 editorial opinion: by whatever name ( "secret police" or "national security bureau") it is called, what "it" did secretly were always more than what it admitted. ● Taiwan's Intelligence and secret-agent systems keep on governing the country ... they're true Prime Minister (行政院長), ...So many suspected political murder cases remain unsolved (ref to 2018.7.26【政經看民視】 FTV, "政經看民視", 7-26-2018; SET(三立電視), 9-24-2013 "Secret agents govern the nation (特務治國)" www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBdZCdYrwF4; Era TV, 年代電視, 9-22-2013; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1b4R2m6K3g; "Secret agent systems resurgence to control the nation (特務復辟治國)" repression

● int'l fraud : United Daily, 10-23-2019, editorial: Taiwanese telecom frauds run wild the entire world to damage Taiwan's image. CTV evening news, 12-14-2017, EBC TV, 4-9-2017, UDN opinion, 12-24-2017: Taiwan is notorious for its fraud crimes all over the world. quora, 4-16-2016: Taiwan largely sees these telecom frauds/phone scammers as an asset rather than liability... China Times, 11-7-2017: It's not easy for Taiwan to clean its bad name of 'fraud-crime empire' because "Rome is not built in one day". (Asia Association of Police Studies, secretary general) international fraud

● torture & cruelty : Taiwan is far behind and keeps stalling legislating a new law against torture and other cruelty, conclusively advised by international review panel ( Philip Alston, law professor at New York University; Eibe Riedel, former member of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Jerome Cohen, law professor at New York University; and Nisuke Ando, professor emeritus at Kyoto University, etc. ) (ref. to Apple Daily, headline, 12-9-2017) Taiwan's opposition party vice presidential candidate, NTU professor Lin Ruey-Shiung, was subject to electromagnetic wave attacks (French AFP ,Dec. 1, 2011 , Thailand's Bangkok Post, Dec. 3, 2011, Yahoo UK & Ireland, etc. ), Taiwan gov. denied this. ● State violence and white terror (product of state violence) return in Taiwan (United Daily, opinion, 12-21-2017, 12-27-2017). Taiwan's Facebook "Green terror" suppressed free expression...... (Wikipedia 2017, The China Times, public opinion, 11-18-2017). The key-point is state violence (Apple Daily, opinion, 8-16-2013). repression, oppression

● food safety : The China Times, 10-20-2018 opinion (editorial) https://opinion.chinatimes.com/20181019003889-262101 : Taiwan's food safety failed again and again, Dioxin, Fipronil poison-eggs in last year, Nicarbazin illegal drug residue event in this year. Europe was very cautious about Fipronil event, in contrast, Taiwan did nothing about it. Even worse, Taiwan officials hide Nicarbazin issue from Taiwanese people to baby related business ― indulge business to retrieve problematic eggs and then resell them as promotion goods. Why do high-ranking officials always fudge Taiwanese people's only, and humblest request ？? (brief) UDN, 2-17-2019: Gov. did not declared poison eggs until almost sold out... ● The China Times (中國時報), 2-28-2019, opinion (editorial) questions Taiwan officials are trying very hard to hide the epidemic state of Marek's virus in chicken eggs ...

● exploitation : US state government - 2019 Trafficking in persons report, Jun. 2019: fishermen working on Taiwan-flagged and -owned fishing vessels experience non- or under-payment of wages, long working hours, physical abuse, lack of food or medical care, denial of sleep, and poor living conditions while indebted to complex, multinational brokerage networks. Migrant fishermen have reported senior crewmembers employ such coercive tactics as threats of physical violence, beatings, withholding of food and water, and pay deductions to retain their labor. Freedom House, June 2019: labor advocates report poor implementation, citing ongoing mistreatment and abuse of foreign fishermen on Taiwanese vessels. USA Country Reports on Human Rights practices, March 3, 2017, 4-20-2018: Exploitation of foreign workers, official corruption, some media self-censorship with regard to China, vote buying, etc; Green Peace, 5-2-2019: It remains our view that Taiwanese fisheries still have many serious problems, both environmental and social, and that the need for reform is clear and urgent. Lowy Institute & <the interpreter>, 5-2-2019: Taiwan ...illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing... Taiwan has so far refused to adopt the Work in Fishing Convention. EU warned in 2015 Taiwan with a yellow card for illegal fishing till 6 '19. foreign laborers

● life protection : The government has not well taken its fundamental responsibility of protecting the safety of people's life and property - why 5/6 bridges badly in need of repair have not been done ? government even has never made public the info. and where those bridges are. (ref. to United Daily, 10-9-2019, headline news) why are there so many tall buildings located on the fault-zone? why are poor architectures everywhere on bad geologic grounds ? why are those shit-hole politicians doing nothing and ignoring urban renewal so as to risk millions of old houses and human beings? (ps: may face death in 6 magnitude quake) (full text: https://udn.com/news/story/11321/2974813 聯合報社論／斷層帶上何以建了那麼多高樓？ 2-8-2018, https://udn.com/news/story/7338/2977079 勿讓軟腳樓成坑殺人命陷阱 2-9-2018, https://tw.appledaily.com/headline/daily/20180209/37928659花蓮都更爛政客 2-9-2018)

● life protection (2) : Due to bad Income distribution, Taiwan's social security (offender rate) worsens (China Times, 2-25-2020 editorial). Taiwan is dishonest and 'cruel' ― trying to hide, block, delay public-health news, e.g., poisoned eggs, PCV virus vaccine, and Bird-flu more than one time (1-2-2018 UDN udn.com/news/story/7266/2908720, Taiwan failed to solve food-safety issue, professors and MDs advised eating at home. (The China Times. 8-6-2016, <食品不安全的年代如何自保>, 2016, etc.), 2012 BBC news : www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/chinese_news/2012/03/120304_taiwan_birdflu_investigate) , not to mention big issues. ● The China Times 5-9-2018 column : This is an EVIL state apparatus ... The China Times 5-26-2018 column : The government likes to conceal bad news, put paper over the cracks, e.g., air pollution, rupture of diplomatic relationships, ...http://www.chinatimes.com/newspapers/20180509000843-260109● Taiwan's CCPI (Climate Change Performance Index - GHG emissions, renewable energy, etc) rank of 2019 is reciprocal third among countries, the score/ranking is from bad to worse since 2017. ● Apple Daily 12-11-2019, headline news: Taiwan's air pollution is bad to worse, about half population were endangered by PM2.5 and PM10 from top 10 hazardous level companies (China Steel, Taichung Power plant, etc) ● Taiwan administration's policy led to air pollution, toxic pollution in the land and sea ... (The China Times, 1-7-2018 台灣海陸空污染毒害，山海變色 http://www.chinatimes.com/newspapers/20180107000465-260114。Daily Mail (UK) 7-14-2017 : Shocking underwater video from Taiwan shows ocean floor littered with plastic (bottles) garbage) ●

● transportation safety United Daily News 1-20-2020: The death rate caused by traffic accidents in Taiwan is 5 times that in Japan. The SUN, BBC (UK) 2-13-2017: "BUS CRASH HORROR!" , Taiwan's tour bus "has come under fire in recent months over safety standards"... MSN, Reuters, EuroNews, Mirro(UK), NewsWeek, CNN, etc (2-4-2015) :"Taiwan has had a poor aviation safety record in recent years" , full text Taiwan's aviation safety●

● Labor rights USA Country Reports on Human Rights practices, 3-11-2020: The right to strike remained highly regulated. Teachers, civil servants, and defense industry employees do not have the right to strike. Workers in industries such as utilities, hospital services, and telecommunication service providers are allowed to strike only if they maintain basic services during the strike. Authorities may prohibit, limit, or break up a strike during a disaster. For all workers, the law divides labor disputes into “rights disputes” and “adjustment disputes.” Workers are allowed to strike only in adjustment disputes, which include issues such as compensation and working schedules. The law forbids strikes in rights disputes related to violations of collective agreements and employment contracts. ● foreign laborers

● social security The China Times, 2-25-2020 editorial: Due to bad Income distribution, Taiwan's social security (offender rate) worsens.

● discrimination USA Country Reports on Human Rights practices, 3-11-2020: Activists for LGBTI rights said due to victims’ reluctance to lodge formal complaints, discrimination against LGBTI persons was more widespread than suggested by the number of court cases. There was reported discrimination, including employment discrimination, against persons with HIV/AIDS. US Country Reports on Human Rights Practices released at 3-13-2019 Foreign and PRC-born spouses were reportedly targets of social discrimination outside and, at times, inside the home. Discrimination against LGBTI persons was more widespread than suggested by the number of court cases. Employment discrimination against persons with HIV/AIDS continues, Taipei officials pressured a magazine reporter to drop an investigative report about the city’s breach of personal information for more than 3,000 AIDS patients. Voice of America 7-6-2020: Why Hong Kongers Who Fear China Won’t Flood Into Nearby, Democratic Taiwan) then this society — friendly but not that friendly. If the overseas workers want to compete [for] a job, these people will be heavily discriminated 。L.A. Times 4-10-2020: Taiwan’s government itself treats returnees from Hubei more rigorously than it does people flying back from heavily infected Western countries...... like hundreds of other returnees to Taiwan from mainland China, she fears she’ll be the victim of a damaging social stigma that also has the island’s government concerned.

Harvard professor Dr. Joseph Nye advised in 2010 that hard and soft power enable Taiwan to deal with China and expand its international space. Brookings at 1-22-2018 commented that Increasing “soft power” is a low-cost, high-return strategy for Taiwan. However, Taiwan's soft power was behind that of some other Asian's countries, Japan and China, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, India, UAE. Taiwan failed to be included in UK based Monocle's Soft Power list 2010 ~ 2019 and Soft Power 30 by USC Center on Public Diplomacy, 2017 ~ 2019/2020. Besides, according to Washington Post, 5-20-2020: There's a limit to what this soft power can achieve ... Taiwan was unable to compete with China's economic and political clout ... As for Taiwan's military power, Taiwan's administration made a core defense strategy to resist Chinese PLA for 2 weeks, and made assumption that then Americans will always risk their lives to protect home. for details, pls. click Taiwan soft power, Taiwan military.

● pic. : This websites-group was ranked No.1 by keyword "comment Taiwan"
on US Google at 7-13-2019 (test at National Taiwan University Hospital, Tw Gov.)
　

brief introduction of TAIWAN (ROC)

"We call ourselves the Republic of China, Taiwan", president Tsai has told BBC UK at Jan. 15, 2020, but later BBC changed it to "the Republic of China (Taiwan)". This self-governing island country lies roughly 100 miles off the coast of southeastern China ( T'aiwan's small island, Kinmens, just one mile off China ) , about 30% the size of New York. The current population around 23 million is roughly the same as Australia’s, its climate is subtropical.

Taiwan's travel and tourism competitiveness is ranked No.10 among Asian nations (WEF, 9-4-2019), Taiwan's soft power has never entered top 30, losing Asia-Pacific's Japan, Australia, NZ, China, Singapore, Korea, UAE, India, Thailand, Qatar in recent years (USC, Portland , Monocle's Soft Power Survey, 2010 ~ 2020). Taiwan's higher education is ranked about No.7~9 in the region (QS UK, Times, Nature Index, ARWU World 2019~2020) , Taipei is behind other AP cities Melbourne, Sydney, Osaka (Japan), Tokyo, Adelaide, Auckland (NZ), Wellington, Brisbane, Hong Kong, Singapore,etc in EIU's Global Livability Index Ranking 2019.

To contrast China's 'authoritarian', Westerners gave too many fulsome compliments to Taiwan's democracy, however, Taiwan's democracy is "Flawed" ( Economist EIU Democracy Index '19 released in 2020) , and even is at surface level or in name only. N.Y. Times, 12-1-2019: soft underbelly of Taiwanese politics: patronage networks. they continue to allow community leaders, farmers’ associations and even organized-crime figures to buy votes. It has shown a retrogressive trend in recent years, the freedom of speech, publication, assembly etc were persecuted by excuses such as national security (NHU paper, Jun. '20). Taiwan lacks good separation & balance of powers between the ruling party and the opposition, the executive and the legislative, the government and the media. The press freedom is ranked No.43 in 2020. Taiwan's justice ministry was insufficiently independent (USA Country Reports on Human Rights practices , 2018, 2019; http://intlhumanrights.com/PoliticalPersecutionsTaiwanENG.htm ). Pro-DPP the Liberty Times, 1-12-2020, editorial: The administration's rottenness smells already....

The People's Republic of China (PRC) has identified that Taiwan as part of its territory and its most important core interest, since the Kuomintang (Nationalists or KMT) government retreated to the island in 1949 following defeat in the Chinese civil war. China has traditionally used a double strategy of “carrot and stick” towards Taiwan, on one hand, it has vowed to reunite this "breakaway province" by force if necessary, and has been ramping up military, diplomatic and economic pressure on Taiwan since president Tsai I.W. (2016 ~) refused to recognise the "1992 consensus" a 'pseudo'-agreement made by Taiwan's KMT party and the Chinese Communist Party, that proclaimed "the existence of only one China ”, but “ with different interpretations ” (being free to decide which side was legitimate.). In early 2019, CCP Xi openly equates One Country Two Systems with the 1992 Consensus to eliminate other interpretations. Under China's political development and strengthening its trade ties to our allies, Taiwan is diplomatically isolated, has only 15 formal relation allies till middle of 2020 , most of them are little, unknown countries. On the other hand, China took the strategy " Allowance of economic benefits to Taiwan"("讓利", such as ◆ charming Taiwan by offering preferential treatment in a soft power bid / le monde diplmatique may 2019; ◆ 40% exports from Taiwan to China / CTN 5-30-2020; ◆ mainland China remains the largest market outside Taiwan for Taiwanese workers and companies, with around 1 million Taiwanese working there / German Institute for Int'l and security affairs, 2-7-2020 ◆ encouraging tourists to Taiwan. / WEF <Travel and tourism competitiveness report> of 2019 shows Taiwan had the sub-region's largest decline in competitiveness, Taiwan's overall score ranks 10th in Asia. ◆ L.A. Times, 8-1-2019: The indefinite suspension of individual travel visa is likely to prove a major economic hit to Taiwan, as well as a blow to cultural interplay. ) so that Taiwanese people may have higher tendency toward unification with China. Now 52% Taiwanese want closer economic ties with the mainland China. Taiwanese understood this interdependence is unavoidable, but over-dependence is risky. Modern Diplomacy (EU) at 6-9-2020: Roughly 26 percent of Taiwan’s trade is with China, which is its largest trading partner. China has replaced US as No 1 destination for Taiwanese export accounting for approximately 40% of total exports (Hong Kong included). New York Times 12-3-2019: Trade between China and Taiwan exceeded $181 billion in 2017, up from about $35.5 billion in 1999. Global Times 9-8-2020: Taiwan enjoys a surplus of nearly $100 billion with the mainland every year.

President Tsai (ruling party DPP) in her inauguration speech at 5-20-2020 reiterated that Taiwan calls for stability in China relations but would reject being ruled by China in the same way Hong Kong is now (semiautonomy), and announced TW will revise the constitution which may be interpreted by Beijing as a ploy to formalize Taiwan's independence. In the annual meeting of China’s parliament, there was no mention of the word "peaceful" in front of “reunification”, departing from the standard expression Chinese leaders have used for at least four decades, an apparent policy shift that comes as ties with Taipei continue on a downward spiral (Reuters 5-22-2020). Washington Post (7-22-2020) reports: In a major speech in January 2019, Xi offered an ultimatum to Taiwan to come to the table for unification talks or face annexation by force. Then, in Mar., the PLA warplane crossed the Taiwan Strait "median line" that has served as a "de facto border" (Newsweek, 8-11-2020) or "the de facto cease-fire line" ( Japan's asia nikkei review, 8-13-2020) for the first time since the end of Chinese civil war in 1949 (Newsweek, 8-12-2020). However, Taiwan's government was tight-lipped about this ultimatum, a everyone's life-and-death issue, otherwise pro-Independence DPP's candidate Tsai I. W. may not easily continue in presidential office in Jan. 2020, because, according to National Interest (6-16-2020): more than 60.3 percent of the respondents opposed Taiwan's independence if it is followed by China’s military invasion... Foreign Affairs (9-2-2020): fewer than ten percent support pursuing independence.

The United States, Taiwan's most important protector, “acknowledges” there is one China and Taiwan is part of China, but has never officially “recognized” Taiwan as part of China. The US Congress passed a law ("Taiwan Relations Act") to commit the US to defend Taiwan's sovereignty, and provide necessary 'defensive' services. Many countries seem welcome this ambiguity. Yomiuri Shimbun, Opinion, 6-22-2017 stated the US is the key to keep the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait ("米国は台湾の防衛力強化を担っており、台湾海峡の平和と安定のカギを握る"。). But the U.S. does not have an “iron-clad” commitment to defend Taiwan, despite Taiwan's leaders made an assumption that American will always come to protect this island, and made a core policy to resist Chinese PLA for about 2 weeks only, former president Ma was lashed out by many DPP politicians and pan-Green media for his opinion ― The US won't come to rescue in time. The US Naval Institute's <Proceedings> (Aug. '20) and two authors (former CIA director and top official) were sort of put down by some media for similar reason.

The US Dept. Defense report (9-1-2020) shows that China-Taiwan military balance has tilted in favor of the China's side, Foreign Policy (2-15-2020) even names Taiwan’s military is a 'Hollow Shell', and comments (8-20-2020) Taiwan should just focus on putting up a good show of being tough, buy enough U.S. weapons for display, and pray that Americans come to our rescue. Beijing regards reunification of the mainland and Taiwan is priceless and a "sacred mission” , 'do or die' prestige issue. The policy of “strategic ambiguity” the US applying for 40 years is unlikely to deter a confident and "more potent" China with growing military capabilities, but there have been no moves from the US to shift strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity ― hot debates about passing Taiwan Defense Act are still going on among military specialists and within the Pentagon. Hudson.org, 9-23-2020: Senator Marco Rubio : Helping Taiwan to win an all-out conflict against China would not be a way to reach that goal, “That’s not possible.” Instead, Washington should assist Taipei “to have the capability to raise the cost of military adventurism there to a level that China’s not willing to pay...". NPR(USA), 9-22-2020: Taiwan FM: the island was not relying on the United States to intervene in the event of a clash with China. rfi (France), 9-25-2020: will the US stand up to any eventual Chinese military aggression? in the increasing chaos surrounding the US presidential election and the uncertain outcome of that poll, it is likely that Washington will have other priorities than what’s happening in the East China Sea.

New York Times 9-5-2019: it would also be a catastrophe if Taiwan were blockaded or squashed into submission, because Taiwan is the source of 90+ % of the most advanced computer chips, and stands in the way of any Chinese projection into the Pacific. In May 2020, the US asked TSMC in Taiwan to build a factory in Arizona as a "Pressure Point" in tech. fight with China (N.Y. Times, 5-19-2020) , which Japan's日本経済新聞 ( Nikkei news, Nihon keizai shinbun ) points out may weaken Taiwan's security. The LOWY Institute ( Australia ), 6-16-2020 : treating Taiwan as a conduit to frustrate Beijing imperils Taiwan’s security. United Daily's editorial (1-4-2020, 5-22-2020) worried Taiwan functioning as a chess piece at front-line to block China in American's containment chessboard may become a sacrifice-piece or cannon fodder. After "poking the bear (China)" for a few years, Taiwanese govt. on Fox News at 5-27-2020, 9-9-2020 warns it is next on Chinese agenda ( military actions ) and asks for international support. Reuters 8-27-2020: China has refused to talk to Tsai, believing she is a separatist bent on declaring a Republic of Taiwan.

Taiwan is the 7th largest economy in Asia. Global Wealth Report (Credit Suisse, Oct., 2018) shows Taiwanese wealth per adult, at USD 212,375, is close to that of W. Euro., (UK USD 279,048, France USD 280,580) and Singapore (USD 283,118 ), Hong Kong (244,672), but nation's share world wealth (1.3%) is less than USA(31%), Japan(7.5%), China(16.4%) and Korea(2.2%). Singapore's GDP per adult is more than 2 times Taiwan's. In Global Wealth Report of 2019, in terms of Wealth per Adult, Taiwan is behind other Asian countries like Hong Kong (world No.2), Australia (4th), NZ (5th), Singapore (6th), Japan. United Daily, editorial, 12-3-2019: The amount of average regular monthly earnings of nationals of last year is NTD38,000 (USD1200) which is NT100+ less than that of 2001.

Taiwan was one of the world's top producers of computer technology, relying upon importation of key components and advanced technology from the US ( e.g., semiconductor ) and Japan, Taiwan's high-tech sector is falling behind for lacking of key tech. and its low pay to attract university-educated talent. (Taiwan lacks key tech. to make a large bus / CTN , 3-29-2017) Taiwan's GDP per capita retreated successively in recent years, UDN (1-28-2019) reported GDP per capita of Shanghai, Beijing, GuangZhou and SenZhen all were closed to that of Taiwan. China's GDP from 2016 till 2018 each is about 23 times the number of Taiwan's, one province (GD's GDP) alone is 2+ times Taiwan's (ref. to CTN, 3-14-2019). Taiwan's 中研院 (Academic Sinica '17) warned that Taiwan will fall into “middle-income” limbo (15-30 countries will catch up with it) in the next 10 years if it fails to deal with “three evil hands”, the law, environmental assessments, and Taiwan-China relations.

country	GDP per capita (USD)
Singapore	64 thousands
Hong Kong	48 thousands
South Korea	30+ thousands
Taiwan	just set up a goal USD 30 thousands to reach

HOT !

Taiwan travel

Taiwan food

Taiwan hard power

Taiwan democracy

Intro to Taiwan

Taiwan personality

bully

persecution

	survey to find political crimes
● ● Brookings at 1-22-2018 commented that Increasing “soft power” is a low-cost, high-return strategy for Taiwan. ● Dr. Joseph Nye said hard & soft power enables Taiwan to deal with China and expand its international space. (Dec. 8, 2010)
● Taiwanese government's strategy : Taipei must increase its "soft power" if it is to stand on the international stage. (BBC, Oct. 2010)
However, How is Taiwan's "Soft Power" and "hard power" in today ??

1. Taiwan Soft Power

★ 1. Taiwan failed to enter UK based Monocle's Soft Power Survey ranking lists of 2010 till 2019/2020, Taiwan's soft power is behind Asian's "world top 20" nations , including Japan, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, China, India, UAE, all of them entered top 20 list at least once. The Monocle's Soft Power Survey ranks nations according to their culture, politics, business, diplomacy and education rather than their financial or military power. Japan ranks No.3 in 2019's survey list.

2019/2020 THE SOFT POWER by Portland
1	France	16	Austria
2	UK	17	New Zealand
3	Germany	18	Belgium
4	Sweden	19	Korea
5	USA	20	Ireland
6	Swiss	21	Singapore
7	Canada	22	Portugal
8	Japan	23	Poland
9	Australia	24	Czech
10	Nederland	25	Greece
11	Italia	26 Brazil
12	Norway	27 China
13	Spain	28 Hungary
14	Denmark	29 Turkey
15	Finland	30 Russia

Taiwan also failed to be listed in 2019's, 2018's Soft Power 30 Study by USC Center on Public Diplomacy in July 2018 and 2017's Soft Power 30 Study, compiled by PR company Portand Communication and University of Southern California. Asian countries, Japan(No.5), S. Korea(20), Singapore(21), China(27) are top 30.
The top 30 nations of 2018 are 1. UK, 2. France, 3. Germany, 4. US, 5. Japan, 6~30 are Canada, Swiss, Sweden, Nederlands, Australia, Denmark, Italy,
Norway, Spain, Finland, Belgium, Austria, NZ, Ireland, S Korea, Singapore, Portugal, Greece, Poland, Hungary, Czech, China, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, 2017's rankings are 1. France 2. UK 3. USA 4. Germany 5. Canada 6. Japan 7. Swiss 8. Australia 9. Sweden 10. Holland 11. Denmark 12. Norway 13. Italy 14. Austria 15. Spain 16. Belgium 17. Finland 18. NZ 19. Ireland 20. Singapore 21. S. Korea 22. Portugal 23. Greece 24. Poland 25. China 26. Russia 27. Czech 28. Hungary 29. Brazil 30. Turkey. ( China's scores of 2018: digital 30, enterprise 22, education13, culture 9, engagement 9, gov. 30, polling 28)

understand Taiwan in 1 minute !! TAIWAN in all aspects review Taiwan top rankings on internet !

★

● pic.: This websites group was ranked No.1 on Yahoo search engine
by keyword "Taiwan soft power" at 10-23-2019, 11-28-2018

● pic. : This website was ranked No.1, 2 by keyword "Taiwan soft power" on MetaGER of Europe, Oct. 23, 2019
pic. right : This website was ranked No.1 by keyword "Taiwan soft power" on Baidu of China, Oct. 24, 2019

● pic.: This websites group was ranked No.1 on US Bing by keyword "Taiwan soft power" at Oct. 23, 2019 ,11-28-2018
● pic. right.: "台灣軟實力"排名 MetaGER of Europe 第1 , 10-24-2019

● pic.: This websites group was ranked No.1 on US Yahoo
by keyword "Taiwan soft power" in Chinese at 10-23-2019,11-28-2018

● pic.: This websites group was ranked No.1 on US Google and Bing
by keyword "Taiwan soft power" in Chinese at 11-28-2018

○

● pic.: This website was ranked No.1 by keyword "Taiwan cultural creativity" on Yahoo search engine, Oct. 1, 2018
　

● pic.: This website was ranked No.1 by keyword "Taiwan cultural creativity" and "Taiwan creativity",
on US Bing, Oct. 1, 2018
　

● pic.: This website was ranked top 2 by keyword "Taiwan cultural and creative industry",
on US Google, Oct. 1, 2018
　

● pic.: This website was ranked top 2 by keyword "Taiwan cultural and creative industries",
on Yahoo search engine, Oct. 1, 2018
　

★ 2. Taiwan's cultural creativity : ● artists ― shortage of creativity & vivid imagination ! ● government ― lacking of forward thinking ...

☉ The China Times, headline news at 12-24-2017: The total value of Taiwan's cultural & creative production was far behind of that of Korea, Korea's value in publication is about 6 times larger than Taiwan's, Film industry 6 times, TV 3.5 times, Advertising 3 times, Pop-music 6 times bigger than Taiwan's, Taiwan lacks of updated related laws and policy ― no focus, no direction, no institute, original creativity is not encouraged, the industry field is divided, without integrated marketing......
☉ The China Times 8-15-2017: The output value of Taiwan's cultural & creative production in '12 - '13 declined 9.28%, in contrast, Taiwan's neighbor countries increased, China 14.27%, Malaysia, Philippines 8+%, Korea 0.65% ... Taiwan's cultural & creative industry even failed to create a "bubble", the reason is lacking of original creativity. / The China Times, 8-15-2017

☉ The United Daily (1-10-2016): 3 major political parties' presidential candidates all ignore cultural policy & direction in their election debates.
☉ The Liberty Times of Taiwan, 4-6-2016: The government took the lead to ignore copy-rights, Taiwan became "an island of Plagiarism".

★◆

◆ Taiwan's soft power & cultural creativity ....

Tourism For full analysis, pls. click Taiwan Tour & Travel

World Economic Forum (WEF) <Travel and tourism competitiveness report> released at 9-4-2019 shows Taiwan had the sub-region's largest decline in competitiveness from 30th down to 37th. In the overall ranking list, Asian country Japan got No.4, China No.13, Hong Kong No.14, Korea No.16, Singapore No.17, Malaysia No.29, Thailand No.31, UAE No.33, India No. 34,...

Taiwan : 10th in Asia <Travel and tourism competitiveness report> , 9-4-2019
category	Taiwan's rankings and/or score	comparison
prioritization of travel and tourism	No75	Singapore No.6 , Hong Kong No. 11
Natural & cultural resources	No.58 score 2.6	China No.1, score 6.0 , France No.2, 5.0, Spain No.3, 5.7, Japan No.7, 5.3, Indonesia No.18, Thailand No.21, Korea No.24, Vietnam No.26, Malaysia No.31, HK No.40, Philippines No.46, Sri Lanka No.52, Nepal No.56
Natural resources	No. 87	Hong Kong No. 42, Singapore No.120
cultural resources & business travel	No. 36 score 2.6	China No1, score 7.0
price competitiveness	No. 78
Health & Hygiene	No.43, score 6
international openness	No. 60
Safety & security	No. 26	human resource & labor market: Taiwan No.18
ps: Compared to the report of 2017, Taiwan significantly tightened visa requirements (37th down to 119th), waning cultural resources and business travel (26th to 36th) and recalibrated figures showing a drastic reduction in protected areas (20th to 118th). For full details : http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TTCR_2019.pdf

"Formosa" means "a beautiful island", however, some media of both Taiwan and China (新週刊New Weekly) commented that top point of interest in Taiwan is Taiwanese people itself. ( an ambassador from S. America said so too )
China remaining the top source of tourists to Taiwan is because, LA Times at 8-1-2019 said that (1) satisfying a curiosity, an important channel for knowing Taiwan (2) flights of no more than 2~3 hours (3) strong cultural and deep historic connection (4) religious, architectural and cultural similarities, the result of migration from China to Taiwan that began hundreds of years ago (5) take home new information from Taiwan’s newspapers, news websites and television channels, all free of censorship unlike on the mainland (6) stoking business. How about the current status of Taiwan's tourism industries? Apple Daily (8-3-2019) commented that in these years Taiwan's travel and tourism still rely on old low strategies like price-cutting competition, cut-throat competition, or even ripping-tourists-off frauds...; Apple Daily (8-10-2019 論壇) wrote the city view of Shi-Mun-Din(西門町, a major tourism site) of Taipei is messy, even worse than some cities of South-East Asia. United Daily (8-2-2019) said Taiwanese government's allowances given to citizens only cure the symptom not the disease, the budget should be used to improve tourism environment and to build up tourism body, e.g., facilities & infrastructure - we only have very little South-East Asian tourists friendly stuffs for them... UDN (8-23-2019), scholar criticized Taiwan tourism counts on slogans and small-eats of night markets, without a long-term plan.

Chinese visitors and tourists to Taiwan (in millions) , Direct flights between Chn and TW began at 2008, DPP (Green) in power from 2016
source: Asia Nikkei 4-30-2019, Taiwanese government

◎ Asia Nikkei 4-30-2019: Since 2016, China has attempted to punish Tsai (DPP) by reducing tour groups to Taiwan, but inbound tourists have steadily set records surpassing 11 millions for the first time last year... The United Daily 3-7-2019: Taiwan's tourism output value is suffering wallet homicide ! the deficit of foreign exchange is NT1728 billions, the deficit of the number of tourists is 5570 thousands. The United Daily 10-6-2018 editorial opinion: Taiwan's 'heresy' policy of tourism (subsidies, visa-free) led to 800+ billion dollars decrease of earnings, because of lower consuming ability of South-East Asian tourists and smaller number of Chinese tourists. Apple Daily, head-page, 12-31-2018: The amount of tourists spending per day and the number of days tourists staying decreased.

◎ The Washington Post at 1-5-2018: (The Chinese government...) "encouraging Chinese tourism to this island" (ps: during KMT in power ~ 2016 ). New York Times at 2-22-2018: "The Chinese government has discouraged tourism to Taiwan...". CTV news 3-9-2018 : beautiful island turns into killing island (traffic accidents), Taiwan's tourism might be a long dark night. Apple Daily, opinion, 2-12-2018: lacking of monument elements, mature cultural creativity, and inexpensive tour-site hotels ... shallow, careless, low-end quality led to an extremely low return visitor rate to Taiwan. Apple Daily, Headline news 1-15-2018: Taiwan tourism collapsed like a snow-slide, the number of tourists to Kenting National Park(墾丁貓鼻頭) dropped 59%, to Taroko National Gorge (太魯閣) dropped 43%, etc, because of the number of Chinese tourists declined a lot and local people don't like those sites - Apple Daily opinion 1-17-2018: expensive hotels, crowded traffic, getting ripped-off by greedy shops' ... UDN opinion 4-11-2018: tourism-related business everywhere are complaining of great hardship (齊喊苦).

◎ World Economic Forum (WEF) 2017 <Travel and tourism competitiveness report> (released at 4-6-2017), Taiwan's most important indexes for promoting tourism, like "Attractiveness of Natural Assets" (parks, beaches, mountains, wildlife, etc) ranks world No.87, "Natural Resources" ranks No.55, "Environmental Sustainability" ranks No.75 (No.69 in 2015), "Price Competitiveness" ranks No. 46, "Hotel Price Index" ranks No. 89 (82 in 2015), Taiwan got "n/a" on China's strong indexes such as "World heritage natural sites" as well as "World heritage cultural sites" (world top 5). Taiwan has excellent scores on "Mobile Network coverage", "ATM", etc, but those least likely are main attractiveness to international sightseers that Taiwan needs most.

◎ United Daily, opinion, 12-30-2017 : Taiwan's foreign exchange earnings from tourism decreased 300 billion dollars (ps: NT 267 billions / The China Times, 10-4-2017). To promote tourism in number of tourists, Taiwan's new mission “New Southbound Policy” gave up the national principle of mutual benefit and equity, led to illegal drug trafficking and neighbor countries' anger, and illegal collectivized-workings by foreign "visitors". Taiwan's advertisements only focus on "cheat eats" by using some widely-known stars. All these remind us a Chinese tourists slang "you will regret for your entire life if coming to Taiwan".

◎ BBC UK, The SUN (2-13-2017): "Bus Crash Horror !" - Taiwan's "safety standards need to be improved". A few days later another fatal tour-bus accident occurred. Apple Daily, Opinion (2-15-2017): Such a high casualty rate most likely was ranked No.1 among all civilized states in the world. Taiwan's aviation safety - MSN, Reuters, EuroNews, Mirro(UK), NewsWeek, CNN, etc (2-4-2015) :"Taiwan has had a poor aviation safety record in recent years"

◎ People's Daily, the major official newspaper of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, ( Opinion/editorial 8-4-2016): <Chinese tourists do not dare to visit Taiwan in the future without safety assurance> / Taiwan tour disasters are sort of man-made disasters , Taiwan tourism's major problems include loopholes in law and regulation 、careless mistakes in administration or not-good-enough system of organization, other malpractices are traveling load-bearing capacity 、road-traffic safety 、aviation safety 、road maintenance 、safety standard for tour bus 、Modified Automobiles/Fix-up tour bus、Low-end tour groups … tragic accidents happening again and again open Pandora's box, too many tourist victims reveal Taiwan tourism's problems, Taiwan authority tried to do something (亡羊補牢) each time a tragic accident occurred, but it seemed late and same kind of tragedies never cease. (《人民日報》8-4-2016 社論: 很多意外事故都存在著人禍的影子，或是法規漏洞、管理疏失、或是體制不足。旅遊承載能力、道路安全、飛行安全、道路養護、遊覽車安全標準、改裝車、低價團…一起起事故猶如打開了潘朵拉的盒子... )

◎ Fatal train accidents
ref. to <New York Times>: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/21/world/asia/taiwan-train-crash.html

    ● 2018 : Taiwan Train Accident in biggest curve in Taiwan Kills at Least 18 and Injures about 187 Others ( ps: CTV (中視新聞) 19:45pm, 10-22-2018, Prosecutor: over-speed might be the cause of accident, other suspicious points under investigation include "Automatic Train Protection (ATP)" being turned off, abnormal track, etc; ps2: CTV 20:30pm, 10-22-2018 : speed 140km, should be 80km or 65 km)
    ● 2011: at least six people were killed and more than 50 others injured after a tree collapsed into the path of a tourist train also serving Ali Mountain.
    ● 2003: last crash of a similar scale taking place in 2003, when a train serving the mountain tourist destination of Ali Mountain derailed, killing 17 people and injuring 156 others.

● 1981: a collision in Miaoli County, in the island’s northwest, killed 31 people

◎ <the China Times> 5-26-2015: "We should pay attention to a poll on the net in Hong Kong, it says Taiwan is the most disappointed place for the tour, Taiwan's night market is the only place being worthy of visiting." (<media commentary> scholar's view "掉漆的文創")

◎ UK's Economist Intelligence Unit ― ● "Liveability Cities" report (Aug. 2015) ranks Taipei world No.60 ● Mercer's "Quality of Living" ranks Taipei world No. 83, and gives another city Tai-Chung world No.99, ● Monocle's "Quality of Life" top list includes no Taipei. ● According to 2009 ECA int'l "the Best Place to Reside"，Taipei ranks No.57, Asia top 3 are Singapore 、HK、Tokyo( both world No.15)。● 2010 rank : Taipei No.55、 Singapore is still global No. 1.

◆

◆ Taiwan tourism got trouble since 2014~2015 till present, what's gov. solutions to save it ?

觀光外匯年減267億

● Taiwan government's 2 solutions to save tourism

(1) "in depth" tour - just a slogan, equals to give up the "patient" / UDN, opinion, 10-3-2017

(2) “New Southbound Policy” - equals no borders, cheap prostitutes and frauds from South-Eastern Asia countries invaded and occupied sex market. / CTN, headline, 10-17-2017.

● UDN 10-20-2017: scholars advised:
(1) new image and positioning, street food/night markets is no longer good enough.
(2) demassification & niche marketing, specific strategy for eco-tourism. cheap-price or duty-free probably can't save TW tourism.

PIC: Without Chinese tourists, Taiwan's foreign exchange earnings
decreased 267 billions (NT dollars) per yr. / The China Times, 10-4-2017,
United Daily News, opinion, 12-30-2017

The number of tourists to Taipei attractions dropped sharply
2.7 million in upper yr. / United Daily, 10-20-2017
　

◆ 2015 Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report

Taiwan's weakness :
Index	Taiwan's world rankings
Country Brand Strategy	No.125
Prioritization of Travel & Tourism	No.82
Hotel price index	No.82
Tourist service infrastructure	No.77
Environmental Sustainability	No.69
Natural Resource	No.62
Purchasing power parity	No.64
World heritage cultural sites	the last position, n/a (China No.5)
World heritage natural sites	the last position, n/a (China No.3)
major car rental companies	No.120
Travel and tourism industry development	No.53

http://reports.weforum.org/travel-and-tourism-competitiveness-report-2015

◆ Country Brands Index 2014/2015

Taiwan's score :

Taiwan's score location - "Countries" (left lower place)

Taiwan locates in "Countries" category, a lowest area ― having below average perceptions in both the Status and Experience dimensions.

Critera :
◎ tourism / Value for money, Range of attractions, Resort & lodging options, Would like to visit for a vacation, Food ;
◎ HERITAGE & CULTURE / Historical points of interest, Heritage, art & culture, Natural beauty;
etc.

◎“Country brands” – Countries that have above average perceptions across both the Status and Experience dimensions and have measurable competitive advantages over their peers as a result.
◎ “Experience countries” – Countries whose perception strength is biased towards dimensions relating to Heritage & Culture, Tourism and Made In.
◎ “Status countries” – Countries whose perception strength is biased towards attributes relating to Value System, Quality Of Life and Business Potential.

http://www.futurebrand.com/news/futurebrand-launches-the-country-brand-index-2014-15

◎ top 20 countries: Japan, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Norway, United States, Australia, Denmark, Austria, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Finland,Singapore, Iceland, Netherlands, France, Italy, United Arab Emirates, South Korea.

◎ top 20 most influential cities: NY, London, Beijing, Washington, Moscow, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Shanghai, Dubai, HK, Singapore, New Delhi, SaoPaulo, Rio De Janeiro, LA, Rome, Toronto, Seoul, Mumbai

◎★

Visual Communication

Taiwan government logo, UN for Taiwan logo, state-run enterprises logo, Taiwan's universities annual event logo ...... etc, suspiciously are cheap-copy works. Similar visual designs're everywhere in Taiwan.

Some examples are listed as below:

(1)		(2)		(3)

Taiwan government logo	Western logo (earlier in Canada)	Western logo (appeared earlier)	Taiwan government logo	Korea Seoul logo (appeared earlier)	logo by national univ.

◎

(4)

pic. left above: logo and emblem of KMT
presidential election 2019/2020

pic. left blow: a design for FCCLA (USA)
(ps: appeared earlier)

KMT denied it's a cheap-copying work,
but ROC design association
(中華民國設計師協會榮譽理事)
expressed "UP" is an obvious Plagiarism !

besides, Taiwan's head was cut out

ref. to LTN, 11-15-2019

◎

(5) Taiwan's cultural landmark

Silk Cut prt ad knife as tree, lawn, mountain

left : Silk Cut ad. in UK, appeared earlier right: poster for Taiwan's cultural government and Eslite Bookstore (ps)

ps: Both use same ideas ― "sharp knife tree, dangerous gear-wheel lawn"
Pic. at right side is an ad. for <Creative Ideas Exhibition of Taiwan Cultural Industry, Taiwan>, Eslite bookstore ( Taiwan's pride, a cultural landmark of Taiwan)

◎★

Food - comment restaurants in Taiwan, black hearted food in Taiwan for 20-30 years

● 83% of Taiwan's Michelin 2~3 star restaurants, and 33% of Taiwan's Michelin star restaurants, failed to pass sanitary/health inspection (kitchen things/equipment not clean, food materials on the floor, without staffs' health examination proof ) , but they passed second inspection, such as 3 star restaurant Le Palais, 2 star restaurants RAW、態芮-Tairroir、祥雲龍吟( RyuGin Taipei )、鮨天本(Sushi Amamoto). ref. to Liberty Times, 3-30-2020, Apple Daily 3-31-2020. Chang Gung Mem. Hospital Toxicology expert professor Yen Tzung-Hai M.D. (顏宗海, Doctor, Univ. of London ): Minimize the times of dining out to protect your health ! ( ref. to book <食品不安全的年代如何自保>("how to survive in this bad food-security time", April '16))

● Even Taiwan's Michelin 3 star winner Le Palais was found snacks containing Hydrogen peroxide (過氧化氫) and Benzoic acid (苯甲酸), besides, many tourism hotels / 5 star hotels were found food hygiene not up to standard, e.g., 5 star hotels used expired no-good ingredients, such as HsinChu and Taipei's Ambassador Hotel, The Grand Hotel, Regent Formosa, and so on, reported by CTV evening news, BCC , LTN (12-19-2019) https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/life/breakingnews/3014179 . ● United Daily 1-20-2020: Taipei mayor Ko: Our night markets and markets are too dirty ! ● Liberty Times , 1-6-2019 : Taipei City Hall's "Model Night Markets" project, aims at " Japanese tourists are willing to sit down to eat "，however, quite many stalls opposed, in that elevating the hygienic level and class increases their running costs...

● Michelin GuideTaipei was released at 4-10-2019, Taiwanese cuisine was not valued very high, only 4 restaurants won 1 star each, 3 starred chefs are from Hong Kong (Canton) and Macau. The total number of stars and starred restaurants of Taiwan are much less than those of Shanghai, HK, Macao, and Singapore, in both 2019 and 2018. Furthermore, unlike those in Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Taiwan's night-market, street food failed to won any Michelin star.

● The China Times, 10-20-2018 opinion (editorial) https://opinion.chinatimes.com/20181019003889-262101 : Taiwan's food safety failed again and again, Dioxin, Fipronil poison-eggs in last year, Nicarbazin illegal drug residue event in this year. Europe was very cautious about Fipronil event, in contrast, Taiwan did nothing about it. Even worse, Taiwan officials hide Nicarbazin issue from Taiwanese people to baby related business ― indulge business to retrieve problematic eggs and then resell them as promotion goods..
Why do high-ranking officials always fudge Taiwanese people's only, and humblest request ？? (brief)

● headlines of Apple Daily, United Daily, 9-26-2018 ( brief ): MicroPlastics were found in 44% tap water samples, medical circle believes it's a very serious environmental pollution, since something bad, e.g., Dioxin, Bisphenol A (BPA), PAHs, heavy metal elements, may be brought into food chain, and then are/were accumulated in human body...... we better use purified water by RO machine for safety. Furthermore, mussels, oysters, clams (扇貝與蛤) were also found some microplastics......

weird Taiwanese tourism advertisement :
"Dining X Taipei"
according to Cambridge dictionary,
"X" represents negative meanings, mostly
(1) unknown / a number, or name or thing that is not known or stated
(2) mistake / the answer is not correct
(3) delete / to remove something
(4) kisses

pic.: Travel advertisement in Taipei Taiwan, summer 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwyuCsmMqTM
ps: Taiwan suffered food safety problem for years : ref to The China Times, 5-21-2018, TVBS 9-12-2017, details

◎

pic.: TVBS (Taiwan) 2-10-2018: experts expressed their concern or scares of eating Basa fish imported from Vietnam. Some international experts like Vancouver Aquarium's Ocean Wise doesn't recommend consumers buy Basa, some states of the US even banned Basa, for using illegal antibiotics, questioning polluted Mekong river and the practices used to farm Basa, those factors.
Some 5 star hotels in Taiwan seemed love to serve cheap-price Basa ― however, they used English name Bassa or Balsa ( not fish name ), instead of Basa, but, the Chinese name used is Basa for sure.
pic. left is a hot dish served by a Taipei's 5 star hotel buffet restaurant, "Thailand steamed Bassa fish" (photo at 4-24-2018); Pic. right is another top hotel Sheraton Taipei's buffet food - "Balsa" fish ( photo in Nov. 2017 ).

○

pic.: Formosa TV , 2-19-2018: Many hotel buffets had bad records of using bad food
materials or ingredients before, even now, some kind of official certified marks may not be
a food-safety assurance in the near future.

◎

◆ World famous 5 star hotel hides fish name on the sign-plate, we can't even know those are sea fish or fresh-water fish

quora (2015) had some discussions about "why don't westerners eat river fish?". Independent UK 1-11-2015: Chemicals in fresh water fish put health at risk - according to a new report, they may be putting their health at risk... Singapore's foodie TV program < Cook Eat China > likes to ask chef the fish name before they try. Medical book <you can conquer cancer> (target readers include patients and healthy people) advised to know what-about before eating fish or seafood ......

◆ pic. left: World famous hotel Shangri La's in Taipei at 5-18-2018: upon my question, the kitchen man answered it's Dory fish ("多利魚")，but had no idea about sea fish or fresh water fish (rivers, lakes, etc). Taiwan's CTS TV news (華視新聞) at 4-27-2017 reported (news.cts.com.tw/cts/life/201704/201704271863633.html#.Wv6-Rjoh2Uk): all Dory fishes in Taiwan were fake, foodie gourmets have been fooling for a long times ! Dory then were renamed as Basa ― a fresh-water fish farmed in Vietnam, S.E. Asia 。

Real John Dory is also named as Cat Fish, the author had many in Florida's buffet restaurant (even "none star" restaurant marked fish name ), however, in Taiwan's "5 star" hotel can only eat fake Dory ???

◆ pic. right: Another world famous 5 star hotel (Sheraton Grand Taipei, headqtr in USA) in Taiwan also hide the fish name (5-17-2018)。Westerners tourists may like to know they're eating sea fish or fresh-water fish ? The chef confirmed steamed fish are basa (9-12-2018)

◎

◆ pic. left: Weird !! the deep fried fish in world well-known Grand Hotel Taipei buffet restaurant has no any signs (July 2018)，upon my question, the kitchen said it's snapper (鯛魚), then John Dory, eventually said Taiwan is very "good" at this, so he does not know what it exactly is.
◆ pic. right: CTS (華視新聞) 4-27-2017(news.cts.com.tw/cts/life/201704/201704271863633.html#.Wv6-Rjoh2Uk) reported Dory in Taiwan are fake! For details pls ref to the CTS website as above.

◎

pic.: United Daily (聯合報) 6-10-2017: Gov. urged eating raw fish as SOON as possible !! 12 minutes after those raw fish slices left cold-storage (7c), the number of Vibrio Parahaemolyticus (腸炎弧菌) keeps growing double every 20 minutes (倍數滋生) or so, in normal temperature (常溫 30c~), ... ref to https://udn.com/news/story/7186/2512857;TVBS,11-1-2016.
　

◆ Shangri La's Hotel in Taipei Taiwan (6F, 8-28-2018) expressed, their raw fish slices leaving cold-storage will display on serving plates for 45 minutes for customer's taking. All their raw seafood (Tuna, Swordfish, Great Amberjack(紅魽), etc) came from DonGun(東港), Taiwan.

◆ Sheraton (9-12-2018) said they don't set time limit to display raw fish slices because of a cold generator being installed below (used ices before). I have not check if the temperature is good enough.
◆ A Hong Kong media revealed some widely-known Japanese restaurant in Taiwan displayed raw fish and other sushi more than 30 minutes. A famous M.D. said (TVBS, 8-15-2018) displaying no more than 30 minutes suppose fine for sushi with a cover to keep it cold.

◆ Taiwanese gov. (食藥署) reminded eating raw fish slices without being kept in low temperature is easy to get stomach ache、diarrhea, etc
◆ A scholar in Liberty times (9-5-2018) suggested taking raw Cobia and Tuna, which are more expensive than raw Salmon. Sheraton chef said (9-12-2018) Cobia is more expensive than Tuna and Salmon. Most 5 star hotels' salmon were imported from N. Europe. A top M.D. of NTUH told me European raw fishes are better than those from Taiwan ocean (can't rule out pollution problem).

◎◎

◆ pic.: Famous 5 star hotel buffet's tofu (豆腐皮, July 23, 2018) did not have any sign, upon my req.,
they answered it's not GM-free soybean, therefore, some sign must be there
　

◎

◆ pic: Grand Hotel Taipei has the most number of famous and important customers among all Taiwan's hotels for so many years. However, according to the photo 6-8-2018, they used genetically modified soybean (基因改造黃豆) to cook dishes.

◆ pic.:

	weird Taiwanese tourism advertisement : "Dining X Taipei" according to Cambridge dictionary, "X" represents negative meanings, mostly (1) unknown / a number, or name or thing that is not known or stated (2) mistake / the answer is not correct (3) delete / to remove something (4) kisses
pic.: Travel advertisement in Taipei Taiwan, summer 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwyuCsmMqTM	ps: Taiwan suffered food safety problem for years : ref to The China Times, 5-21-2018, TVBS 9-12-2017, details