★
News: 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 US Google, 5-23-2020, 5-11-2020
●
pic.: No.1
"comment Taiwan" on Yandex of Russia ,
5-21-2020,
2-28-2020,
1-17-2020,
1-11-2020,
12-18-2019, 12-1-2019, 11-26-2019, 11-7-2019
★
No. 1 "comment
Taiwan" on US Google, 5-10-2020
★
No. 1 "comment
Taiwan" on Yahoo Japan
( most popular search enhine in Japan ), 5-19-2020
★
No. 1 "comment
Taiwan" on Bing,
5-19-2020,
4-26-2020
★
No. 1 "comment
Taiwan" on ASK, 4-26-2020
★
No. 1 "comment
Taiwan" on Dogpile,
5-19-2020
★
No. 1 "comment
Taiwan" on Japan Excite, 5-19-2020
★
pic. right : This
websites-group was ranked No.1
by keyword "comment Taiwan"
on MetaGER of Europe at 5-19-2020, 1-17-2020, 12-31-2019, 12-18-2019, 10-23-2019
(3 items above are advertisements)
★ pic.
left:
No. 1 "comment
Taiwan" on
ecosia of Europe (Berlin
Germany), 5-19-2020, 1-10-2020
★
No. 1 "comment
Taiwan" on Yandex of Russia, 4-26-2020
●
pic.: No.1 "comment Taiwan"
on Lycos,5-19-2020, 1-18-2020,12-05-2019
★
No. 1 "comment
Taiwan" on US Google, 4-25-2020
★
Top "comment
Taiwan" on Yahoo search engine, 4-26-2020
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
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).
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
EIU (Economist UK)'s
Global Liveability Index
evaluates
stability, healthcare, culture&environment,
education, Infrastructure
Taiwan's university rankings in Asia, 2020
Times High
Education , World University Rank 2020
ranks
Taiwan
China
Korea
Hong Kong,
Macau
Japan
Singapore
1~100
23 Tsinghua University Beijing
24 Peking University Beijing
80 University of Science and Technology of
China Anhui
64 Seoul National
University Seoul
89 Sungkyunkwan
University (SKKU) Seoul
35 University of Hong Kong
47 The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
57 Chinese University of Hong
Kong
36 University of Tokyo
65 Kyoto
University
25 National University of
Singapore
48 Nanyang Technological
University
100~200
120 National Taiwan Univ.
(台灣大學)
107 Zhejiang University
Zhejiang
109 Fudan University Shanghai
144 Nanjing University Jiangsu
157 Shanghai Jiao Tong
University Shanghai
110 Korea Advanced Institute of
Science and Technology (KAIST) Daejeon
146 Pohang University of Science and
Technology (POSTECH) Pohang
179 Korea University Seoul
197 Yonsei University (Seoul campus)
Seoul
126 City University of Hong Kong
171 Hong Kong Polytechnic University
200~300
251 ~ Sun Yat-sen University Guangdong
201–250 Ulsan National
Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) Ulsan
251-300 Tohoku University
251-300 Tokyo Institute of Tech.
301–350
301–350 Beijing Normal University Beijing
301–350 Huazhong University of
Science and Technology Hubei
301–350 Southern University of
Science and Technology (SUSTech) Guangdong
301–350 Kyung Hee University Seoul
301–350
University of
Macau
301-350
Osaka University
301-350
Nagoya University
PS: population comparison (~ 2018) :
HK 7.45 million , Singapore 5.63 million, Macau 630 thousands
Taiwan 23.78 million,
more than the total num. of the 3 above
351–400
351–400 National Tsing Hua
University
(清華大學)
351–400 Taipei Medical University
351–400 Nankai University Tianjin
351–400 Hanyang University Seoul
351-400
University of
Occupational
and Environmental Health
QS 2020 Asia universities top 15 rankings :
1.
National University of Singapore (NUS) Singapore 2.Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore (NTU) 3. The University of
Hong Kong 4. Tsinghua University, China 5. Peking University,
China 6. Zhejiang University, China 7. Fudan University,
China 8. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 9.
KAIST - Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology 10. The
Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) 11. Seoul National
University, Korea 12. Korea University 13. The University of
Tokyo, Japan 13. Universiti Malaya (UM), Malaysia 15. Kyoto
University, Japan
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
The Star Online, 2-20-2020: US travel
advisory warns of Taiwan
"apparent community spread" ...
(but
Taiwan denied this ... ; UDN
3-1-2020, editorial:
Taiwan wants "face"
!)
pic. : This
websites-group was ranked No.1
by keyword "comment Taiwan"
on Yahoo search engine at
2-28-2020,
1-17-2020,
12-31-2019,
12-18-2019, 11-27-2019
★
No. 1 "comment
Taiwan" on US Google, 4-1-2020, 3-20-2020, 2-28-2020
★
No. 1 "comment
Taiwan" on US Google, 2-28-2020, 2-5-2020, 1-16-2020,
1-11-2020, 1-10-2020
★
pic. left: This
websites-group was ranked No.1
by keyword "comment Taiwan"
on Bing at 1-17-2020, 12-31-2019, 12-18-2019, 11-27-2019, 10-23-2019
(all top 4 are in same websites-group)
★
No. 1 "comment
Taiwan" (Chinese version) on
ecosia of Europe (Berlin
Germany), 1-10-2020
●
pic.: No.1 "comment Taiwan"
on Yippy (IBM),
1-18-2020, 12-05-2019
●
pic.: No.1 "comment Taiwan"
on AOL,
1-18-2020, 12-05-2019
●
pic.: No.1 "comment Taiwan"
on Excite,5-19-2020,
12-05-2019
●
pic.: This
websites-group was ranked No.1
by keyword "comment Taiwan"
on ASK at 1-18-2020,
8-24-2019 , 9-24-2019
●
pic.: No.1 "comment Taiwan"
on DogPile,
5-19-2020, 1-18-2020, 12-05-2019
★
No. 1 "comment
Taiwan" on Google, 1-11-2020, 1-10-2020
★
No. 1 "comment
Taiwan" on Google, 1-4-2020 (test in Taipei)
●
pic. : This
websites-group was ranked No.2
by keyword "comment Taiwan"
on US Google at 12-31-2019, 12-19-2019
●
pic.: No.1 "comment Taiwan"
on US Google,
11-11-2019
●
pic.: This
websites-group was ranked No.1
by keyword "comment Taiwan"
on US Google at 9-22-2019,
9-24-2019
●
pic.: This
websites-group was ranked No.1
by keyword "comment Taiwan"
on US Google at 9-19-2019
●
pic.: This
websites-group was ranked No.1
by keyword "comment Taiwan"
on US Google at
9-11-2019
● pic.: This
websites-group was ranked No.1
by keyword "comment Taiwan"
on US Google at 8-17-2019, 7-30-2019
●
pic. left: This
websites-group was ranked No.1
by keyword "comment Taiwan"
on US Google at 6-27-2019 ( test at Taipei city gov., TW )
pic. right: No.1 "comment Taiwan" on Euro. MetaGER, 7-2-2019
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.
● 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.
● 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).
New York Times,
1-11-2020: Taiwan’s
young and vibrant, if messy at times,
democratic society.
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. <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 ...
●
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.
●
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)
● 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
●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)
●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).
●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.
●
corruption
:
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...
●
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.●
●
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.
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)". Tsai 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).
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party
which Tsai represents advocates
Taiwan’s formal independence.
Beijing responded
immediately that China would never leave any room for “Taiwan
independence separatist activities”. 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. While analysts believe an invasion is unlikely, Chinese state media point out China’s military might
has been able to effectively overwhelm the Taiwan military and deter the US.
Financial Times (UK), 5-19-2020 : Taiwan fears uptick in military threat from
China in wake of coronavirus epidemic.
Taiwan in Fox News
(
5-27-2020 ) warns Taiwan is next on Chinese agenda ( military actions ) and
asks for international support.
★
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 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 ~) refuses 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.). 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
(Taiwan lost Salvador etc 3 allies
within half yr. China rankled TW president's visit to NASA - LA Times
8-20-2018),
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 ,
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, Taiwanese understood this
interdependence is unavoidable, but over-dependence is risky.
In recent years, China became Taiwan's leading trading partner, New York Times
12-3-2019: Trade between China and Taiwan exceeded $181 billion in 2017,
up from about $35.5 billion in 1999.
However,
under current circumstance, the China Times comments at
5-24-2020
China's "Allowance
of benefits" (
since
ECFA agreement ) might not continue.
To achieve
the
goal of reducing dependence on China by increasing commerce with other Asian
countries, Taiwan needs to make more reforms to increase competition and
openness (heritage.org).
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.
The
United States, Taiwan's most important protector, takes the policy
"strategic
ambiguity"
――
“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.
But the U.S. does not have an “iron-clad” commitment to defend Taiwan
(www.chinausfocus.com, May 04 , 2018).
Japan's 読売新聞
(Yomiuri Shimbun) and
Singapore's Straits Times (4-24-2018)
comment that China must not intimidate Taiwan, while the
China-Taiwan
military balance
has tilted in favor of the
Chinese side,
a situation must
not occur in which the U. S. and China deepen their antagonism over Taiwan. 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"。).
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 2 weeks only.
But, the New York Times at 11-4-2017 pointed out that
Taiwan’s
historical advantages (geography and the US support) in deterring a
potential attack has been “eroded or negated”
in that Chinese military is "more potent". Foreign
Policy (2-15-2020) describes 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.
Washington Post at 1-5-2018 reported many senior officials regarded Taiwan as
a "roadblock to
Washington’s
smooth relations
with
China", "the turd in the
punchbowl".
However, China's
Global Times at 1-10-2018 stated "many forces" in the US are still supporting
Taiwan as a "leverage against China"
(Bloomberg 3-14-2018: some US
national security hawks,
VOAnews, 3-23-2018 :
John Bolton
(Trump's new National Security Adviser) has long argued that Washington can play a "Taiwan
card" to compel
Beijing's
attention for
its potentially
destabilizing
actions in East
Asia and the
South China Sea. ).
The
U.S. and Taiwan are seen
as heading in a direction that is getting perilously close to Chinese
red lines......
Bloomberg news 3-14-2018: In the future, Taiwan will suffer even more,
as it
gets caught in the middle between a stronger China and a
inward-looking US...
New York Times at
4-18-2018: Mr. Trump questioned why the US should be bound by
the One China policy if Beijing will not budge on trade ...
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"
(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.
At 5-7-2020 Taiwan's intelligence chief stated we won't get involved
in dispute between the US and China
in Western Pacific near Taiwan.
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.
Till
May 2020,
the Chinese military has conducted a series of
provocative,
aggressive
operations, such as
dozens of PLAAF aircraft crossed the centerline twice.
New York Post, 4-15-2020:
the 12th time in the past three weeks that
American military planes had been detected near the area (Taiwan’s airspace).
This likely
was interpreted by China as implicit support for a self-ruled Taiwan, riling
China.
The
Council on Foreign Relations said in a report issued last week that “risk of a
military confrontation in the South China Sea involving the U.S. and China could
rise significantly in the next 18 months” (New York Post,
5-26-2020).
CBS
News 11-14-2018,
the National Defense Strategy Commission:
If the United States had to
fight China in a war over Taiwan, Americans could face a decisive military
defeat, or
struggle to win.
(
brief from
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-military-might-struggle-to-win-or-perhaps-lose-war-with-china-or-russia-report-says/)
●
● 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)
★
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)
●
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".
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).
"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 ?
●
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
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.
◎
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
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
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)
●
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.:
American
Sherwood Hotel in Taipei, photo
5-28-2018
Braised Bean Curd with
Crab Powder tasted good, but the chef did
not answer my question if those bean-curds were made from
G.M.(genetic
modified) beans - which were called "national scandal"
(國家醜聞) at
The China Times, 3-29-2013.
★
◆
pic. left:
watermelon,
grape,
tuna
in Sheraton buffet
(top~bottom)
◆
pic. middle:
tuna in
Shangri La's
Taipei, cafe
(8-9-2018)
◆
pic. right:
Tuna
and
Salmon
in Sheraton , F1
(9-12-2018)
◆
Raw Tuna fish slices - how
do you choose
for 100% safety
??
No too beautiful-color ones !
No dark brown (tan) ones !
◆
University studies
(高雄海科大)
found
that
80% of raw fishes (Cobia, Tuna,
Sword-Fish, Tilapia 鯛) in Taiwan market
were
stained
――
business
men pump
CO. (carbon
monoxide)
into those fishes in an
enclosed space
for beautiful or bright color
look / CTS TV news,
2-20-'06
◆
Fishes adding CO is illegal in Europe,
Canada, Korea, Japan, Singapore, etc, because of
possible food-poisoning, or even causing
Sepsis to die / Epoch Times,
2-20-'06
◆TVBS
8-15-2018: M.D.江守山 commented
Taiwanese government ignoring
pumping CO into fishes which is
illegal in Taiwan (法律禁止
政府未執法) ,
therefore Taiwanese have risk of
eating
slough and some unknown
consequences.
Some other business people used
chemical addictives (e.g.,
檸檬酸鈉)
to keep raw-fish's color unchanged.
Red meat fishes after being frozen
are still "bright red" colour
might be "processed" meat.
(ref.
to 《食在安心》
book
by
江守山)
◆TVBS 12-12-2013:
Nitrite，NO2−
( '亚硝酸盐' may cause cancer ) may be
applied to raw tuna for bright red color
look - ref to
https://news.tvbs.com.tw/life/513840
◆
ETtoday
News :
Cutting red-meat fishes like
Tuna to slices made its
Myoglobin (「肌紅蛋白」)，iron
having oxidized and its meat
becoming tan or brown in
color. Brownish-red colored
meat can indicate spoilage.
Taiwanese gov. advised that
people should avoid eating those
brown colored, or
drying out, or no
longer elastic
fish meat, which were cut long
time ago.
Eating cooked fish is perfect
safe.
(health.ettoday.net/news/1017291)
◆
United
Daily News (聯合報元氣網) ,
9-23-2014: blackfin
(blue-fin)
tuna toro belly
meat should be fresh and
red, ruddy,
rich oily (油脂豐富),
Those darker or red with black tone
in color are not fresh ones (暗紅色或偏黑), but
carbon monoxide processed fish are very beautiful colored, and
unchanged all the time.
◆
三立新聞 (
3-6-2018 ,
SET TV news): Fresh raw fish meat are
red, ruddy or rosy
in color (紅潤)、no fishy smell 、
elastic or
bit chewy (彈性)
(https://www.setn.com/News.aspx?NewsID=354695)
◆
Daily Mail, UK reported an
American guy having raw Salmon
almost every day had a 167 cm
parasite in his stomach.
◆ 今周刊(1-19-2018):
The best way to avoid parasites and bacteria, e.g., Listeria monocytogenes
or Vibrio
parahaemolyticus
, is eating cooked fish.
● In May
2019, Taiwan High Court Prosecutor Office's chief prosecutor conclusion of a criminal
suit case has shown :
(1) ignorance of two eye-witnesses testimony-documents
( to prove a 5 star hotel restaurant chef did sniff again and again at customers)
given in presence of police officials in police station.
(2) ignorance of
some phrases to humiliate dining customers (e.g., "the exit is
there ! the toilet is out there !!" ) 'shouted' by a 5 star hotel
restaurant staff ...
Therefore, the site can conclude that
Taiwan is not a foodie-friendly environment or tourists-friendly country, or
even not a civilized country - compared with the rules for American's
restaurants - ref. to
Forbes, 9-3-2012,
New York Times, 10-29-2009.
◆
best restaurants
―
1.
Luc Besson's movie "Lucy" shooting
in Taiwan particularly includesDin Tai Fung ― which is not only
the most famous Taiwanese restaurant but
also even a landmark of Taiwan, however,
● (1)
Din Tai Fung admitted at 5-9-2012 having
used Monosodium Glutamate
/ sodium glutamate (M.S.G.)as
addictive in some foods there -
and they won't change this policy so as
to keep major cuisine (e.g., steamed
bun/bao (小籠包), chicken soup) delicious (according
to United Daily News 5.9.2013).
According to
National
Health Research Institutes
and United Daily News
(8-15-2015) "Horrible foods for
dining out": Taiwan's food (in
restaurants, cafeteria, etc)
problems include using MSG. Taiwan's
5 star restaurants like Sherwood
Hotel announced any chefs using
MSG will be fired.
According to int'l medical
studies, using Monosodium
Glutamate (MSG) is
controversial. (ref to "The
Dangers of MSG"
:
http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/food-nutrition/facts/the-dangers-of-monosodium-glutamate.htm)
Some claimed it
may causes asthma, headache, even brain
damage. )
● (2)
Din Tai Fung was suspicious
of being involved in
Taiwanese food scandal, Apple Daily (蘋果日報)10-10-2014
reported that one Taiwanese Dept. of
Health found out Din Tai Fung imported some oil
products from King's Cook which bought lard oil (mixing animal
feed with cooking oil) from Ting Hsin Int'l. (
http://www.appledaily.com.tw/realtimenews/article/new/20141010/485241/
台中市衛生局調查發現，鼎泰豐曾向購買頂新正義油品的台中金品調理(KingsCook)
公司進貨，恐中鏢。)
●
(3)
Din Tai Fung admitted having used G.M.(genetic
modified)
soy material(豆類)
for a long time (until July 2015).
The China Times,
(3.29.2013)
reported professor Kuo H. J.
(National Taiwan University, Department of Agronomy)
comments - Taiwan using G.M.(genetic
modified) is "national scandal" (「國家級醜聞」),
French scholar Seralini found G.M. foods
may cause cancer with higher
probability,
BBC
(6.6.2013)<Taiwan
diet danger everywhere>:
Taiwan is the only country
eating cured products made by
animal-feed,
G.M.(genetic
modified) soya beans. (主妇联盟说台湾是世界上唯一直接食用饲料级基改黄豆加工
的豆制品国家。)
But Din Tai Fung still used the
"scandalous" G.M. stuff for 2+ years after the
news being spread island-wide.
Recently,
CNN (7-24-2015) dropped Din Tai Fung
down to No.20 position in Taiwanese
foods list.
Brand
personality
Din Tai
Fung's Hong Kong branches were
just eliminated their Michelin
star
title at Oct. 31, 2014, (lost again in Dec. 2015 )
Taiwan's Din Tai Fung never won
any Michelin star title, but it
is advertising itself a Michelin
star restaurant by posters
at front of largest
Japanese mall, Mitsukoshi Dpt.
Store in Taipei.
(photo Aug. 22 2015)
Din Tai Fung USA website
(http://DinTaiFungusa.com)
has also been advertising a similar one in its front-page.
(tests till present at
9-17-2015)
ps: the China Times analyzed
losing Michelin most likely it's
because of inconsistent quality
problem. (http://www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20141031001358-260405)
◎
2.
Michelin Guide
Taipei 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.
3.
According to
"Asia's 50 Best Restaurants" (2018) ,
Thailand Bangkok's Gaggan
consecutively got in the first place, the number of Japanese restaurants
selected is 11,
Hong
Kong & Macao 10,
Thailand
9、Singapore
7,
Korea and Taiwan both are 3, but Korea
won the 11th grade, the best ever position
that Taiwan got in this year is the 15th (RAW, 18th MUME, 47th Shoun Ryugin),
China got the 8th position.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/asia-50-best-restaurants-2018/index.html
4.
According
to
The World's Best Restaurants (2017)
, Taiwan is not included in the list, Thailand got No.7, Singapore No.14, Japan
18th, HK 24th, Shanghai 41th. In total, 5 Japanese , 4 Chinese, 3
Singapore, 2 Thailand, 1 Korean, 1 India restaurant(s) entered top 100.
http://www.theworlds50best.com/list/1-50-winners#t51-100.
5. Miele Guide (2012) : No any
Taiwanese restaurant is included in top
20 Asian restaurants list.
Best night-market-food in Taiwan : oyster omelet
(introduced by Discovery channel of USA) ― it is most typical Taiwanese
food ( street snack ), but not exquisite & elaborated food.
◆
Food - scandals
●
5
star hotel restaurants scandals
- A
book (Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su
Memorial Hospital,
Taiwan Veterans General Hospital's physician Jiang So-San M.D.
江守山
"食在安心" (10-2014))
said many 5 star hotel restaurants don't wash vegetables ... some 5 star
hotels made sashimi raw fish slices by using fresh-water fishes, this may
increase the probability to get cancer
(for details
台灣餐廳
or
台灣美食Taiwan
Night Markets ) ;
Epoch Times (大紀元, 3-14-2017):Okura Prestige Tpe
(大倉久和, a 5 star hotel) sold expired frozen shrimps, molded taro (vegetable 芋)
etc;
SETN news ( 三立新聞 5-16-2016): Some 5 star hotels in northern Taiwan sold
black-hearted expired seafoods ; LTN (5-17-2016): 5 star hotels Ambassador
and Howard (國賓、福華)
clarified this news;
Apple Daily (蘋果日報 6-7-2016):
Sheraton (喜來登) 's
white shrimps contained bleaching agent
(漂白劑)，4
times higher than the legal standard，Ranina
(Spanner crabs
旭蟹) contained heavy medal Cadmium poisoning (重金屬镉) 14%
higher than the standard...;
Apple Daily (蘋果日報 7-2-'13): Taiwan's tourist hotels' food ingredients expired 2 years,
only 3 out of 21 hotels passed the security check and sanitary examination etc
conducting by Taiwan Administration, e.g., Shangri-La's (tnn) did not separate
their cutting tools for cooked foods and raw foods;
FTV news, 5-18-2017: 13
ingredients / materials expired in a 5 star hotel in Taiwan; CTI
TV news (5-17-2017, 19:33): What can we eat in Taiwan? people are uneasy for
food here...
○
● Taiwan
administration's Dioxin ("poison of the century") control system crashed
completely / FTV news, 4-22-2017.
Major world media like
The Economist
(11.29.2014)
comment a series of food safety scandals is one of few main factors causing the
KMT, Taiwan's ruling party, has suffered one of its worst electoral defeats
since Chiang Kai-shek and his forces fled to the island at the end of Chinese
civil war in 1949.
●
Chang
Gung Mem. Hospital professor Yen 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 2016))
●
Dean of National Taiwan
Normal University - graduate school of Chemistry,
Dr. Gaston J. C. Wu (化學所長吳家誠教授)'s book <Those black-heart products
toxin-experts never buy
("毒物專家絕不買的黑心商品")>
(Nov. 2013): Most of the time I eat at home, and has never dined out in
street-side shops / small-eat markets (路邊攤),
because those small-eat shops usually/always
do not
meet the minimum standards of
cleanliness.
◎ 2015 : Since its
worst ever electoral defeats, Taiwanese government never does
some soul searching and corrects the wrong, "It's weirdo !!, Taiwanese government only focuses on 3 dried
products - dried daylily, dried radish, and preserved fruits (snacks)", NTU
professor Wu K.Y. stated "Completely evading the crucial point", "those 3 items
are very low risky products".
●
Apple Daily 8-28-2015: The incidence rate of Taiwanese
people suffering colon/rectal cancer was ranked world No.1 (2nd is Korea, 3rd
Slovakia) ,
Taipei Medical University Hospital's director of surgeons expressed Taiwan's
food scandals constantly happened in recent years, many black-heart tainted
foods containing
Carcinogen
(cancer producer) is a factor causing high
incidence rate.
◎2014 Taiwan food scandals
●
The New York times
(9.8.2014): The authorities in Taiwan are scrambling to
control a tainted-cooking-oil scandal that has affected hundreds of
manufacturers and raised fears about health risks posed in many commonly
consumed food items... the new scandal shows that there is still not enough
being done to eliminate lawbreaking production lines,” The Taipei Times said ...
●
TIME (9.8.2014):
Gutter Oil'
Scandal Raises Food-Safety Fears Once Again in Greater China.
A Taiwanese food-safety scare has spread to Hong Kong...
● Bloomberg BusinessWeek (9.8.2014): Tainted Lard: China's Latest Food-Safety Scare Comes From Taiwan
The case is the second major food-safety scandal by a Taiwan-based company in
the past year,...The new gutter-oil scandal has “shocked
local consumers” in Taiwan who expect more from their government, ...“I hope
the law could be revised to impose tougher punishment on those who breach food
safety regulations,”...
● The China Times
(9.5.2014, head-page headline news): Disgusting ... Even pigs don't eat those
tainted
oil we Taiwanese ate !
ps: For full text pls. ref. to
Taiwan food scandals.
My article in <the United Daily News> (Oct. 2007)
comments Taiwan's
ad. creativity has been low for a long time, In the past 10 years,
Taiwan is about in the last place in Cannes Ad. festival, world best ad.
contest (Even Vietnam, Philippines, red China are even bit better than
Taiwan). Till early of 2017, Taiwan still only has small number of
winnings in int'l ads creativity contests.
Taiwan's most important ad.
Take Taiwan's national ads : "UN for Taiwan" (Taiwan
to join the UN ) , as
an example :
using puns in UN series is
" very creative and witty idea"
◎
Taiwan's int'l winning ads.
As for Taiwan's business ads. or TV commercials
obtaining winning records in int'l ad. festivals,
are not
so original,..... or/and not very sharp-witty,
e.g., making love with an insect symbolizes insecure sex, or stick out (very
out) the tongue to make a funny face, ...... are student-level ideas.
★
ADK Taiwan's
"House of Little Moments"（【統一小時光麵館】2016）was
the 1st Lion-award Taiwan got since 2006/2007, this is still a practical
idea, instead of a sharp-witty one.
,, ★
★
5
Animation (comment Taiwan's
best awards in
world's best contests)
Taiwan's Top Institution(ps)
animation
World's top contest, prize & honors, and
university's opinions
This site's comments
National Taiwan University
of Science & Tech.
Cubic Tragedy
ACM SIGGRAPH
People' Choice Award
Experts won't feel the idea, girl face-lifting resulting in Picasso's
cubism a <weeping woman>, unexpected. details
National Yuan-lin University
of Science & Tech.
Cubic Tragedy
NYLU's graduate school paper
concluded this animation as "Picasso-inspired
idea ..... contrary to our expectation".
experts
suppose won't feel this idea "un-expected"
( details& pic. below)
National Taiwan Univ. of arts
A fish with a smile
Berlin international Film Festival, children's section,
Special Prize of jury committee
(1) it's just a story for children.
(2) elegant drawing style, but those pictures don't look like any city in Taiwan.
National Tainan Univ. of arts
After the rainy day
winning in UK
Just like most Taiwan's films, boring
obscure-meaning codes, hence most people
are hard to understand or may make over-interpretation. details
National Palace Museum
Adventures of NPM
(1) grand prize, 2008 Tokyo International Anim. Fair.
(2) anim. goal : " bridging
the gap between ancient artworks and modern audiences.
(1) it's a story for children, not for modern adults.
(2) the film is showing in children's center of National Palace
Museum, Taipei Taiwan. click to see details
Tamkang Univ.'s paper concludes Taiwan animation's 1st problem
is "short of creativity". Very few Taiwan's researches 're working on this subject
- Creativity. (Taiwan animation currently
is only expertise at
drawing tech.)
comment Taiwan's
international winning animation films in 2011.
An essay <China Tames Rebellious Side of Rock "n" Roll>
in <New York Times>,likened today's
Red Chinese pop music culture to the politically enforced conformity of the
Cultural Revolution, the core of songs is "have fun", culture has become an empty vessel, there are few hints of angst, alienation
, or any but the mildest
expression of teenage rebellion.
Taiwan's pop music was tamed by political pressure in the past,
the "opposition culture" in Taiwan's music field was almost eliminated.
Today's music is in a money-oriented environment.
Very few people notes an usual case : two most
popular singers, Wu-bai and S.H.E. (hottest in China too) sing 2 same-name songs,
namely all the same as Chinese translation of "Brave New World" - a
classic literature regarding man-handled white-terror tyranny. S.H.E. seems so happy and exciting while singing this song.
In contrast, Apple Computer's famous
commercial <1984> comes from another white-terror literature "1984"
written by Orwellian.
Ad. research papers
mention one reason it succeeds ( the most remarkable US ad campaign, although
aired only once ) is that people are curious about the mystery/puzzle - a tyranny in a free
country.
Certainly, the <1984> despises human-controlled tyranny.
Apple <1984> TV commercial
<Brave New World>
<Brave New World> Chinese
translation book
everybody in a blue-smog (mock IBM CIS color) "jail" are under control by
big-brother in a big screen . try http://Youtube.com !
United Daily 10-31-2019: Plagiarism again in Taiwanese design field !!
an art-work in Tai-Nan art festival copied UK's, another art-work on train
(government's project) copied Russian's ...... All Taiwanese designers should
respect themselves and take these cases as a lesson.
Apple Daily, opinion, 7-20-2018 : Taiwan ( Taiwanese everywhere) lacks
of aesthetics accomplishments, particularly those in power can allocate
resources have "really turn me off" taste (倒盡胃口), Taiwan's public art
works are too vulgar to be endured (俗不可耐), and some are sort of cheap-copy works
(仿冒竊).
Critics in UDN (10-24-2019) : Design
field thinks culture & arts are nothing but decorative, fine arts belittle
commercial arts, etc ... the arts should take the lead for the fusion of tech.
and culture
( for details pls. read
https://udn.com/news/story/11321/4122342
)
.
Dec. 8, 2012 : To everyone's surprise, 2 out of 3 artists in Taiwan
government's selection for participating Italia Venice Biennale are foreigners !
This means Taiwan does not have talented artists??
Many Asian countries have great ambition to do
city-marketing by arts expo., there're 8 arts
biennales will be taken place in Sept. 2008.
Taiwan is one of them - <Asia Arts Biennale >
was held till Feb. 2008.
Taiwan's largest news introduced (with a large-sized picture)
an expo. artwork - world brand's logos are spread on human bodies,
this workseems
to symbolize "Globalizing" phenomenon.
However, the idea "logo body"
already appeared a
number of times in, i.e., <Your Logo Here, photos from S. Cal. 2004-2006>, and some
logo tattoo works .......
More sharp-witty and more difficult ideas appeared in cartooning field at least 13
years ago, i.e.,
Japanese Yomiuri international cartoon contest (see pic. below).
pic. left: "number" logos on
athletes, pic. right: similar idea intro. by Taiwan's major
newspaper
◎★
★
8
Architecture
no aesthetical & creative astonishment
◆ Taiwanese architects
were forced to be "construction supervisors" instead of "designers" by the
government's policy, this finally rouse architects' angers after
enduring 10 + years, most major public architecture projects went to international
architects for "unjust treaties" made by the administration. / head-line news of
The United Daily, 7-17-2017
pic. United Daily : Taiwanese architects protest "unequal treaty"
which benefits foreigners
◆ UDN (聯合報) 10-23-2019: Taiwan is far behind in urban construction, in
contrast, some metro in Asia always have astonishing architectures ...
(brief)
◆ Below are Taiwan's "shop-front" or "Face-valued" buildings :
1st Hall : copied U.S. airport.
2nd Hall : shortage of spirit breadth and arts atmosphere.
★ new building : Taiwan can neither
design, nor build the blue-print designed by UK team / fir further
details pls. read UDN editorial, 10-19-2019
An article by VIP professor in Taiwan major newspaper (2002) asserted :
" Copy is humanism spirits"
、 " How can we enjoy & bear those original designed architecture
by Taiwanese
!? "
Can you tell which is US Washington Dulles
int'l airport,
or Taiwan Taoyuan int'l airport ?
ps: Taiwan eventually was ashamed of this stealing
and modified its look
recently ... already after many many years
ps3: It's a big joke and shame again that Taiwan government used
the photo of Washington Dulles int'l
airport (old Taiwan airport is a cheap-copy, very similar to Dulles) on Taiwan's
new passport, and refused to admit mistake until night time.
◎Apple
daily, Head-line news, "Lose nation's face !! Taiwan government tried to
get rid of its responsibility", 12-27-2017.
●
China (mainland) and Hong Kong boycotted
Taiwan's Golden Horse Award 2019 for controversial statements concerning
Taiwan Independence in Golden Horse Award 2018 .
Taiwan president office responded that culture should not be blocked by
political barrier. China declared its film award
ceremony (金雞獎)
will be held once per year since 2019, which implies China's boycott
lasts.
● Taiwan
film industry lacks good scripts and talented directors
―
in details, 3
major troubles :
(1) Taiwan likes to 'create' some abstract/obscure symbols attracting
very very few people. Using Eastern exotic flavor was another very useful strategy
for attending world film contest. Shortage of
witty & creative idea led to Taiwan film industry's death.
☉
Taiwan's movies fail to create better humour like "Lost in Beijing"
( red Chinese film banned by CHN gov.) .
☉ Taiwan's all-time
grossing film, <Cape No.7>, is not a stylish witty comedy (some
world best media positioned this film as comedy), but attracts lots of Taiwanese
(particularly southern Taiwanese) by
some simple ideas( i.e., sort of slapstick) and Taiwanese grass-roots culture elements.
☉
Taiwan's <You are the
Apple of My Eye> of 2011 is very popular in TW, HK and Chn, but most of it's
boyish humors are not witty & stylish, this film attracts audiences by stoking collective memory of their youngsters age.
PS: In 2012, Taiwan's films only won 2 awards in Taiwan's Golden Horse film festival
(China and HK won most awards), which is the worst in latest 20 years.
In 2014, Taiwan was bit better, won 3 out of 23 awards in total.
(2) Taiwan government used to do political propaganda/comm. by
using movies,
till now days Taiwan's government still
thinks highly of things helpful to win political elections, besides, Taiwan government's movie policy
already gave up to WTO, U.S., Hollywood.
(3) Taiwanese spent little on arts, and
taste not too good - many people prefer real things, like money.
per person per year (200X)
movie
NT470 (about US 15)
drama
NT91 (US 3)
dancing show
NT65 (US 2)
●
TV soap opera series : Taiwan's TV opera series focus on "charming
leading-actors/actress" (not giving importance to the content) to attract audiences, so Korean, Japanese,
red Chinese TV series
are better & more popular. United Daily
(5-24-2020): NETFLIX in Taiwan is filled with Korean soap operas,
Taiwanese indeed favor Korean story. United Daily
(12-28-2014): Taiwan's TV opera are not original.
UDN (critique C2, 6-21-2015):
Taiwan's drama crisis/ lacking of budge, passion, actor/actress. ●
Variety show/program of assorted
entertainment:
UDN 7-22-2018: Among all creative & cultural industries, Taiwan's audio
& visual industry has closest relationship with China's, but
Taiwan's entertainment shows are too 'slapstick" for
Chinese people. This sort of shows were very
popular and was
the reason or excuse that Taiwanese people don't like going to theater watching
movies, but till 2013, those stuffs were not fresh enough
and already
behind China's, some paper even questioned Taiwan's variety show/program of
assorted entertainment : "Are they incurable?" (4/7/'13 UND).
United Daily (12-26-2014): Taiwan needs creativity. Apple
Daily (8-31-2015) : Taiwan's entertainment show from bad to worse, the
gap between Taiwan and China becomes bigger, Taiwan's TV field in risk !
<A Journey into Asian Cartoons> in FECOnews of
2019 (by Zola Zu) said that American Cartooning expert Dr. John A Lent was
impressed that this relatively small country produces renowned cartoonists
(e.g., Ron Chu) popular in other places besides Taiwan and the way Taiwanese
cartoonists survive one way or another under the circumstances of a dwindling
market ...
Once ROC on Taiwan government
together with <The
United News> system organized a Taiwanese team to participate in Euro's largest
humour contest,
＜Kokke
Heist Humour & Cartoon Festival
＞，only 3 artists (including Zola Zu) were selected.
Recently Taiwanese cartoon artists have shown little talents on Taiwan International Cartoon Contest sponsored by Taiwanese
government,
Almost all juries withdrawn from <Courage
World Cartoon Contest> (ranking world No. 1 for some years) , due to "seems
political"
reasons .
Both animation and cartooning need creativity,
but at present Taiwan doesn't have that environment.
Taiwan youngsters like "Kuso" stuffs,
however, formula/routine mind is not good enough
for cartoon creativity.
pic. left: Knokke Heist winner's artwork, appeared earlier
(by Japanese artist).
pic. right: Taiwan's 1st prize cartoon was sent to Knokke Heist, and
lost.
ps: Taiwan has (only a few) world class cartoonists.
Recently, Taiwan's best-selling & widely
known product , "Chinese Fortune(or Rich) God figure toy", is based on Taiwanese superstition
(Apple Daily: 88%of college students believe ghost - ps2 ), and eagerness for
money,
Taiwan's figure-toy design just simplified Chinese Gods' complicated appearance to
little cute mascot, in contrast, int'l designs for gods are more witty,
i.e.,
☉ Europe,
Belgium rug Co.
installed a special compass in each product, its needle points to Islam's holy land
instead of pointing South/North － this created a lot of business.
☉ Japan
made a watch converting 114 world major cities'
time to Islam holy land's time, with time-alarm function for Muslims' prayer.
◎
( 2 ) best-selling cultural products for int'l tourists
A major design periodical comments:
<National Palace Museum>'s rich treasures is the key to success of
Taiwan's Cultural & Creative Industry.
However, <NPM> seems to look down upon
the talent of Taiwanese
designers.
<NPM> product
short comments
Alessi "the Chin Family"
(1) <NPM>
cooperates with Japan, Italy, hence, NPM's products are not purely
Taiwanese or Chinese flavor.
(2) Mr. Chin got slant eye (or "raising eyebrows"), it's western view-point, the Oriental usually
don't draw that way.
How about
"Chinese Creativity" in today's Taiwan ??
"Jadeite
Cabbage" tray-pillow for
chop-sticks to rest on
(1) most
products directly use antique-art shape.
(2) At least 20 years ago, various assorted dedicated vegetables and fruits glass chopsticks tray-pillow already
were made-in-Japan (best-sellers too) .
Don Dynasty ladies
picture slippers
just directly applied antique
pictures on products.
<NPM>
should designs Chinese treasures, and makes witty, humorous artworks to represent
Taiwan's modern arts. Western tourists suppose like to buy souvenir
with Chinese culture & flavor created by ourselves. "Mercenaries" cannot represent
Taiwan to Olympics.
<NPM>merchandises： slippers, mugs, etc with Don
Dynasty Ladies Picture
Zola Zu's design ： (1) expo. in Europe like Holland,
Turkey, and was printed in best-collection albums.
(2) printed in <the China Times>.
directly use antique pictures（or simplify a little bit）
I choose the theme : When the East encounters the West, Fine arts meets
Cartooning, to integrate 2
major cultures.
ps: "tech. oriented"
product design like
<idea> contest, <if> contest is not discussed in here
●
According to
WEF<Travel
and tourism competitiveness report>(released at 9-4-2019),
Taiwan'sHealth & Hygiene score 6.0, is
worse than that of Korea, Japan, Mongolia.
●
Next TV news
(5-25-2019,
20:44, 壹新聞 壹電視 )
reported that
Taiwan government kept adjusting the price of more and
more drugs to cover the deficit of medical insurance
system, which resulted in more and more brand drugs
withdrawing from Taiwan (e.g.,
TIENAM)
, because cheap-price generic drugs made in Taiwan are
not as curative effective as brand drugs, Physicians
worry there's no good medicines for patients .... Besides,
●
Apple Daily (6-4-2017):
Taiwan medical service's critical problem ――
Preventive Health-Care service is behind. ●
The China Times, (7-4-2017)
: "patients centered" is
nothing but a slogan.
●
Apple Daily (蘋果日報, 4-15-2019),
United Daily (聯合報, 4-14-2019) ...
: Going easy
route, lacking of ethics, MDs advised using Da Vinci for
even a minor operation, 38 hospitals were
suspected of making false report about Da Vinci surgery
to illegally obtain benefits from national insurance up
to NTD 3.5 billion.
●
Apple Daily 6-30-2018 pointed out
Taiwan's medical service has no good preventive health care and health
promotion, and will worsen within next 10 years for political factors.
●
Taiwan only ranks world 45th position in Lancet's Healthcare Access and Quality
Index released in 2017
(based on mortality from causes amenable to personal
health care in 195 countries and territories, 1990–2015:
a novel analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study
2015),
some
chronic disease
items got very low or failure scores,
e.g., Leukemia score 49, Kidney
disease 50, Gallbladder & biliary 57,
Hypertensive Heart Disease 60,
diabetes mellitus
58, etc.http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(17)30818-8.pdf
●
according to
WEF<Travel
and tourism competitiveness report>(released at 4-6-2017),
Taiwan's "Physician density" ranks world
No. 65 (No. 57 in 2015's report).
●
Apple Daily 6-30-2018 pointed out Taiwan's only pride left, health insurance,
includes no preventive health care and health promotion, and will worsen within
next 10 years for political factors.
● United Daily News (5-30-2017):
The biggest problem of Taiwan's medical care is too short diagnostic time,
without a completed examination in most cases, usually, patients are already in
serious condition when symptom became clear. /
Dr. Huang D.F., president of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center
● Apple Daily, 12-30-2017:
Amending Taiwan's medical service law is criticized as "Decriminalization",
patients in Taiwan will be difficult to put to the proof in their legal cases.
Apple Daily, Focus comment 焦點評論, 12-29-2017: Hospitals get rid of its
responsibility (免責)? Taiwan's medical service environment worsened (for
amending medical service law).
● FTV (4-16-2017,
民視) comments medical
Doctors' social status is lower than before.
Taiwan's current social value system is rapidly
changing the culture in medical circle. Dean of NTU medical school (張上淳) advised that
physicians
always keep in mind a love-based,
"patient-centered", and humanistic-care thinking.
●
The book
"Exposing the truth of modern medical circle
in Taiwan"
("誤診誤醫", published by the China Times, 2012;
by Xu Da-Fu
) criticizes :
Taiwan's hospitals focus
on profit/benefit and ignore patients' rights ,
The whole medical circle already went the wrong
route...
◎ Surgery
/ Taiwan's excellent
surgeons perform many operations
simultaneously - happened quite
often in Taiwan...
◎
Medicines
/ the
quality of
prescription
medicines in Taiwan is from bad to worse...
◎ Bribery /
the institution needed to be paid bribery most is
judiciary system, second is Taiwan's
medical and health services
...
◎ for full text pls. ref. to
Taiwan medical service
◎◎★
13
Women's rights
●
US Country Reports on Human
Rights Practices released at 3-13-2019 pointed out
that Victims of rape and domestic violence did not report the crime for
fear of social stigmatization, and various nongovernmental organization (NGO)
and academic studies estimated the total number of sexual assaults was seven to
10 times higher than the number reported to police. Some abused
women chose not to report incidents to police due to social pressure not to
disgrace their families.
<The United Daily
>, 3-16-2018: Taiwan's gender equality
- A long long way to go !
Taiwan passed
(United Nations already
passed 30+ years ago at 1979) the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) , valid from Jan. 1,
2012, but, Taiwan's women rights status is still similar
according to the US report released in 2013 ~ 2018, In 2015, the
number of reporting for rape or sexual assault is only 850
less than that in previous year. The Gov.
study showed (3-2-2019)
the number of
Domestic Violence in 2018
is 138637, which increases about 1%
compared to previous year.
●
The US Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
, released at 4-20-2018
Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes rape, including spousal
rape, and domestic violence. Many victims did not report the crime for fear
of social stigmatization, and various NGO and academic studies estimated the
total number of sexual assaults was seven to 10 times the number reported to
police.
women work: Women were promoted less
frequently, occupied fewer management positions, and worked for lower pay
than men, earning on average 83 percent of their male counterparts’ income
in 2015...
a survey in 2016 showed 3.5
percent of women have been sexually harassed at work, yet 80 percent of
these cases went unreported.
●
<The United Daily 聯合報>,
3-16-2018 (prime news edition)
Taiwan president Tsai I. W. : Taiwan still have a not short way to reach gender
equality (台灣離性別平等 還有一段路要走)
<The United Daily 聯合報>, 3-16-2018
(林志潔, professor and member of
national judicial reform committee)
The judge made mistakes
again and again, Taiwan's gender equality
- A long long way to go !
●
The China Times
<中國時報> 3-8-2018:
according to investigation/survey,
80% female physicians met sexual harassment,
... a female physician of Cathy Hospital had different views and
said the percentage of harassment to nurse probably higher
because they are young and in lower status
(8成女醫曾遭性騷擾,
女醫反應兩極 ... brief)
●<Apple
Daily>, 4-3-2018:
According to a survey by Taiwanese government, 180 thousands
of career women suffered sexual harassment, only 40-50 thousands reported to
their company, others chose to keep silence...
<蘋果日報> 4-7-2018:
The number of sexual
harassment
on campus reported is up to 1400 per year.
●
The US Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
, released at 3-3-2017
(new
report of 4-20-2018 is about same):
Violence & discrimination against women is one of
Taiwanese
principal
human rights problems for years.
In 2015, the
number of reporting for rape or sexual assault is only 850
less than that in previous year.
(12. 25. '14)
reported that
those Taiwanese male aged
above 20
(2.33 million men per yr.
)
The annual
value of production of Taiwan's
sex industry's is at least USD
200 million.
Prostitution is violence against women
/ ref to <Prostitution : violence with no name>, "Prostitution et Societe",
2010, "Int'l Day for the Elimination of Violence against women", 11-25-2016
France.
Taiwan government is the main criminal to harm women's rights in large
scale.
● The US Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
, released at 3-3-2017:
spousal rape, and domestic violence. Many victims did not report the crime for
fear of social stigmatization, and various nongovernmental organization (NGO)
and academic studies estimated that the total number of sexual assaults was
seven to 10 times the number reported to police. Women were promoted less
frequently, occupied fewer management positions,...
◎◎★
14
Sports/Athletics
●
According to Wikipedia (May 2020),
Taiwan in Olympics (summer) has won 5 gold 7 silver, 12 bronze, was ranked world
no. 66.
●
In 2016 Rio Olympics medal tally statistics, Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) only got 1
gold, 2 bronze, ranks world No. 50, compare to previous years, 5 medals in 2000,
2004, 4 medals in 2008, 2 medals in 2012；Other Asian nations - China ranks
No.3, Japan No.6, Korea No. 8, Australia No 10, N.Z. No.19,
Iran 25, North Korea No. 34, Thailand No. 35, Indonesia No. 46, Vietnam
No.48, Taiwan No. 50.
●
Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) failed to enter World Cup basketball (lost
Philippines, and Japan, Australia in Asian group then was eliminated), and
football, some major sports-games in 2018.
●
Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) got no any medal in Korea winter Olympics of 2018.
● Taiwanese
baseball team lost all games in 1st round and was eliminated in World Baseball
Classic 2017, the leader of Athletics
government stepped down. Expert
comments the system weakness is obvious but we just can't improve it, patriotism
is no longer working on this issue ...
●
Taiwan just held 2 world scaled athletic events that have
ever seen in Taiwan's history :
(1) Not easy to upgrade
"Made in Taiwan" to "Create in Taiwan", since
Taiwan has very few experts in creativity. (government does not think highly of
them)
(2) Most Taiwanese
professors (PhD) do theoretical studies, don't have talent (some even are not
interested ) on witty creativity/design.
(3) Ph.D usually is required
for college teacher position, it's one criterion for Taiwan government to
evaluate all schools. Un-talented teachers can't train students to be
talented.
(4) Taiwan's society and
people don't
think important of arts, culture, creativity, etc.
(5) Taiwan government
official in univ. paper said Taiwan doesn't have that kind of environment for
creativity.
Creativity needs freedom, democracy, and people's
independent personality, government officers don't like creativity, which
means extra risk.
(6) Taiwan should fight "diamond cut diamond"
with western nations in major fields , instead of going backdoor (or side-door) by exotic local culture, Eastern
mysterious flavor, obscure codes, etc.
(7) Taiwan government
used to give less budget to cultural field, and use e.g., movie as
propaganda/comm. tool. Taiwan needs int'l friends, but uncreative
films won't attract enough audiences.
(8) Taiwanese
government kicks cultural creativity to
the corner in most time, in that creativity seems no use for political
election, but requires extra efforts on social controls/adm.
(9) Taiwan's
government prefers
to use his own men.
(10) Taiwanese
youngsters love heavy slapstick 、silly
"Kuso" stuffs
("young-designers" policy is wrong).
Taiwanese adults' imaginative power is bounded,
thinking in a roundabout/evasive way, their tastes are lousy ....... pls. see 2 examples as below
:
artworks introduced by Taiwan's largest
news:
western artwork earlier
Merging Mao's photo & Tian-an-men Square
of Beijing with "Miki mouse"
(to symbolize Red China's westernization )
Morphing Mao with "Miki mouse"
(to symbolize China's westernization )
pic
left:
This websites-group was
ranked No.1 by keyword "review Taiwan"
on US Google,
5-5-2018, 1-11-2018, 9-2-2017
pic right :
This websites-group was ranked No.1 on US Bing by keyword
7-1-2018
"comment
Taiwan" , as well as "review
Taiwan", "understand Taiwan", tested at
3-8-2019, 5-5-2018, 1-11-2018,
9-29-2017, 5-19-2017
This sites-group was ranked No.1,
by "comment
Taiwan"
as well as "review Taiwan", "understand Taiwan", "introduction to
Taiwan"
on Yahoo
search,
tested at 3-8-2019,
6-6-2018, 1-11-2018,
5-19-2017
comment Taiwan / Taiwan needs medicine, not cosmetic
ps2:
Other
researches : finger-pointing moon results in that ear will be cut (28.3%) ,
chopstick knock bowl results in being a beggar (22.3%), swimming in July
(Lunar) results in un-luck (64.7%), whistling after sunset will encounter ghost
(37%), pregnant woman using scissors will give birth to an abnormal baby(32%)
- reported by <Apple Daily>5.29.2005 (largest and best news evaluated by
university)
●
Financial
Times 5-19-2020 : Taiwan fears uptick in military threat from China in wake of
coronavirus epidemic, with
increasingly frequent incursions into airspace traditionally respected as a
safety buffer zone. Taipei was at additional risk from the escalating dispute
between the US and China.
Taiwan military vs. China military
Taiwan 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
◆
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
strategy
◆
To against the threats of cyber warfare,
cognitive warfare, and ‘unrestricted’ warfare from China , we (Taiwan)
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
firepower
◆
China
has
ｎｕｃｌｅａｒ ｂｏｍｂ ，Neutron
bomb，
hydrogen bomb, Taiwan has none of those. /
Next
TV news, 5-8-2020
◆
Taiwan military strength is ranked No. 26 , China PLA No. 3
/
Global FirePower, 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
military
logistics system
◆
Taiwan
lacks
enough supplement of all items of military equipments /
United
Daily
(聯合報 社評),
opinion,
5-
7- 2020
morale
◆
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
●
CNN 2-19-2020 exclusive interview with
Taiwanese president Tsai I. W. , CTN 5-2-2020: Tsai:
"What we are expecting is, after withstanding the first wave of Chinese
attacks ourselves, the rest of the world would stand up to exert strong
pressure on China" .... "Taiwan as an underdog facing down the
growing might of Beijing" ... But chinausfocus.com at May 04 , 2018
reported
Missouri State University
professor D. Hickey's comment :
the U.S. does not have an “iron-clad” commitment to defend Taiwan.
Reuters
2-26-2020:
Taiwan should continue to
show goodwill to China during coronavirus outbreak and not give Beijing an
excuse to attack the island as a way of relieving “internal pressure” ... Chinese public opinion believes people in
Taiwan lack sympathy about China’s virus outbreak... 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. 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 ... but a low level of risk is not the same as zero risk. National Post (Canada),
5-15-2020: China and the U.S. ramp up military activity near Taiwan...
◦
and shorter )
●
UDN 10-20-2019 editorial: Taiwanese army became political tool for the
gov.
●
China's Military
Power Report / annual Report to US Congress (2019),
5-2-2019
Military and Security Developments involving P.R.C. 2019
"China could use missile attacks and precision air raids
against air defence systems, including air bases, radar
sites, missiles, space assets, and communications facilities
to degrade Taiwan's defences, neutralise Taiwan's
leadership, or break the Taiwan people's resolve," ...
aljazeera news said at May 3, 2019 that much of
China's military doctrine is focused on self-ruled Taiwan,
China might take if Beijing decides to use military force on
Taiwan, including a comprehensive campaign "designed to
force Taiwan to capitulate to unification, or unification
dialogue.
usni.org said at 2019/05/03 that Taiwan is the primary focus
of amphibious assault and sea-based missile launch
capability improvements made in 2018 by China’s People’s
Liberation Army (PLA), the PLA Navy and PLA Marine Corps.
pic. right:
The Liberty Times suggests Taiwan taking "asymmetric
warfare". Apple Daily (headline news) 5-4-2019
said that the possibility of the blockade or a limited war
by PLA is smaller than that of air raid, rockets, or
amphibious landing.
●
Annual Report to US Congress (8-17-2018)
Military and Security Developments Involving
the People’s Republic of China 2018
https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018_China_Military_Power_Report.PDF
Much of Beijing’s defense budget is focused on
developing the capability to unify Taiwan by force
◆
Apple
Daily 8-18-2018, headlines - China signals its readiness for
unification by military force
―
anytime.
◆
Taipei
Times, 8-18-2018 :
The Pentagon said China could
pursue a measured approach signaling its readiness for armed
conflict or conduct a methodical campaign to force
capitulation (http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2018/08/18/2003698716)
◆
United
Daily, 8-18-2018 : China still seek unification by
forces -
Taiwan losing
military edge.
China’s official
defense budget has grown to about 15 times that of Taiwan.
A new method was applied to make these tables below:
●
USA Today
5-18-2018: Xi JinPing has signaled that China will seek to reclaim its
historical properties by 2049.
Freebeacon 5-17-2018 : 2020—the
deadline that [Chinese supreme leader] Xi Jinping has given the [People's
Liberation Army] to be ready to invade Taiwan
●
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence “Open Hearing
on China’s Worldwide Military Expansion.”, 5-17-2018
(1)
China's “infatuation with
Taiwan” ?
a visceral nationalistic design ...“if Taiwan survives as a democracy [it]
undermines the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party”
(2) USA curb China ?
the US could soon be completely driven out of the Asia-Pacific region if Beijing
is allowed to continue on its current course unopposed.
(3)
Congressional hearing recommended
deploying tactical nuclear weapons to Asia, showing strong support for Taiwan,
and exposing human rights abuses in China as immediate steps that could curb
Beijin
●
CBS news
11-14-2018:
U.S. military might
"struggle to win, or perhaps lose" war with China or Russia
the National Defense
Strategy Commission: "It might struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war
against China or Russia." ..."If the United States had to fight Russia in a
Baltic contingency or China in a war over Taiwan," the report warned. "Americans
could face a decisive military defeat." (
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-military-might-struggle-to-win-or-perhaps-lose-war-with-china-or-russia-report-says/)
●
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS,UK, www.iiss.org), the
military balance 2018 press statement - The annual assessment of global military
capability and defence economics, 2-14-2018.
In 2017 Beijing showcased more advanced military systems
... are challenging the global predominance of the United States and its allies
... https://www.iiss.org/en/publications/military-s-balance China's modernisation of its armed forces is
processing faster than many experts expected ...
●
The US
subcommittee hearing (4-17-2018) Rep. Ted Soho,
Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific:
Seems likely Xi will force the issue (unification) in his life time.
●
Eastern
Taiwan's anti-aircraft military force needs to be improved soon, but in
recent years, Taiwan has been limited to international reality and
financial difficulties, therefore focused on main forces' (F16, IDF/F-CK-1,
etc) functional improvement, instead of developing or purchasing
new-generation jet fighters, Taiwan looks forward to having F35B, but it
may take more than 10 years in the queue. / brief - The Liberty
Times, 2-5-2017.
●
New York times, 11-4-2017: “(Taiwan)
needs to resist a Chinese military attack for two weeks and wait for help from
the United States or the international community,” echoing a strategy that
has been at the core of Taiwan’s defense doctrine for decades......Taiwan’s
armed forces, by contrast (Chn), have fallen way behind, struggling to recruit
enough soldiers and sailors — and to equip those they have. 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,...The Taiwan
Relations Act of 1979 commits the United States to defend the island’s
sovereignty, providing “such defense articles and defense services in such
quantity as may be necessary” ... US latest arms sales " short of the major
systems that could give Taiwan a real edge."
○
●
New York times, 5-18-2017:
Beijing’s
belligerence
presents
an
existential
threat
to
Taiwan, Chinese
leaders
have
long
vowed to
take
Taiwan
by force
if they
deem
necessary
... For years, the political establishment in Taipei has delegated
responsibility for responding to Beijing to the United States.
Taiwan's
leaders
have
gutted
the
military
and
continued
to base
defense
planning
on the
assumption
that the
United
States
would
always
come to
the
rescue. 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...
Taiwan's
active
force
down to
under
200,000
(the
exact
number
is
classified).
The
nearly
two
million
reservists
exist in
name
only...
Taiwan’s defense policies are largely a result of deep distrust between the
military and politicians. The military has struggled with wide-range scandals/
Annual Report to US Congress (2017):
Military and Security Developments Involving
the People’s Republic of China 2017
https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2017_China_Military_Power_Report.PDF
○
○
○
○喵
●喵US
Annual Report to Congress,
2016
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Annual Report to Congress:
Military and Security Developments Involving the People𠏋 Republic of China
Taiwan Strait Military Balance in 2015, Naval Forces
China
China
Taiwan
Total
East and South Sea Fleets
Total
Aircraft Carriers
1
0
0
Destroyers
23
16
4
Frigates
52
40
22
Corvettes
23
14
1
Tank Landing Ships/ Amphibious Transport Dock
30
28
14
Medium Landing Ships
22
16
0
Diesel Attack Submarines
57
38
4
Nuclear Attack Submarines
5
2
0
Ballistic Missile Submarines
4
4
0
Coastal Patrol (Missile)
86
68
45
Taiwan Strait Military Balance in 2015, Air Forces
China
China
Taiwan
Total
Within range of Taiwan
Total
Fighters
1,700
130
384
Bombers/Attack
400
200
0
Transport
475
150
19
Special Mission Aircraft
115
75
25
Taiwan Strait Military
Balance in 2015, Ground Forces
China
China
Taiwan
Total
Taiwan Strait Area
Total
Personnel
(Active)
1.25
million
400,000
130,000
Group
Armies/Army Corps
18
8
3
Infantry Divisions
12
4
0
Infantry Brigades
23
7
5
Mechanized Infantry Divisions
7
4
0
Amphibious
Mechanized Infantry Divisions
2
2
0
Mechanized Infantry Brigades
25
8
3
Armor Divisions
1
0
0
Armor Brigades
17
7
4
Amphibious Armor Brigades
1
1
0
Army
Aviation Brigades and Regiments
11
6
3
Artillery Brigades
22
9
5
Airborne
Divisions
3
3
0
Marine
Brigades
2
2
2
Tanks
7,000
2,800
1,100
Artillery
Pieces
8,000
3,900
1,600
●
Economist (special edition
2017): Taiwan will turn into a tiger again. ●Taiwan declared no other air
forces are allowed to show their muscle in Taiwan air space/ Apple Daily,
5-30-2016,...
CTV evening news11-27-2016, United Daily News 11-30-2016: China's
military aircraft-fighters
(much stronger than TW
air force) flew past around Taiwan and passed through 1st Island Chain, Taiwan
air force did not intercept them.
●●
Taiwan
Taiwan
diplomatic isolation
○a tiny whale still in
golden-fish glass-ware !?
● 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...
Washington Post 9-25-2019: China’s growing dominance in the South
Pacific is a defeat for an America in retreat.
New York Times
9-20-2019:
As Taiwan Loses Influence, China Gains
Ground in Race With U.S.
● New York Times
4-1-2019: Taiwan
protests China jets crossing center of Taiwan Strait, a
provocation that seeks to alter the status quo ... an intentional act.
Taiwan News, 6-28-2019:
U.S. Senate passes
pro-Taiwan defense bill calling for more patrols in Taiwan Strait.
Reuters 6-27-2019:
Canadian navy ships sailed through Taiwan strait amid tension with China
(Such passages upset China ...
In
April, Beijing condemned a French decision to send a frigate through the
Strait as illegal)
● 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.
●
<Taiwan Travel Act>
(Trump signed at 3-16-2018):
◆
NHK Japan, 3-17-2018
The
legislation aims to encourage mutual visits between US and Taiwanese officials at all
levels.
(https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180317_08/)
◆
The
Diplomat,
3-3-2018
US Paves Way for
High-Level
Exchanges With Taiwan
(https://thediplomat.com/2018/03/us-paves-way-for-high-level-exchanges-with-taiwan/)
◆ New York Times,
3-17-2018
China’s Foreign Ministry said it had lodged “stern representations” with the
United States, saying the law sent a
“seriously wrong
signal” to the
forces of Taiwan
independence.
(https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/03/17/world/asia/17reuters-usa-taiwan-china.html
;
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-taiwan-china/china-says-resolutely-opposed-to-new-u-s-law-on-ties-with-taiwan-idUSKCN1GT0I9)
◆ Deutsche Welle, 3-17-2018 :
China has
reacted angrily
...
"severely
violate the
one-China
principle, the
political
foundation of
the China-US
relationship."
Taiwan ... calling it
a "friendly
move"
◆ Global Times of China, 2018: <Taiwan Travel Act> is a bill to
destroy Taiwan.
◆
People's Daily online (China
人民日報 海外版) 3-17-2018: "annoy
China, fool Taiwan !"("戲耍台灣
挑臖大陸")
◆
UDN Taiwan (台灣聯合報) 3-18-2018:
KMT Legislator : The US uses Taiwan as pawn to annoy China ... (
台恐成夾心餅干); Joseph Bosco
(former defense official): China won't win a general confrontation against the
US (translation).
●
Under pressure from
China, all 44 int'l airlines (including four US airlines) drop Taiwan in name
(world rpts 7-30-2018: NY Times, etc)
● L.A.
Times, 7-8-2018: US warships pass near Taiwan in a show of defiance to China
●Washington Post,
1-5-2018: For
years, most analysts in the United States generally accepted the idea that
Taiwan’s status as a de facto independent democracy was unsustainable as China’s
economy and military rose to dominate Asia. Statesmen such as the late
Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew and Henry Kissinger both predicted that Taiwan’s
unification with China — under Chinese terms — was inevitable.
●Washington
Post,
11-9-2017:“Many have debated here in Taiwan
whether President Trump will trade Taiwan in exchange for China’s position in
North Korea,” ...... “But ... even if President Trump makes such an offer,
President Xi would say no: ‘Taiwan is not in your hands. It’s in mine.’”
The China Times, opinion,
11-11-2017:
President
Xi thinks the advantage of Taiwan issue is in Beijing's side,
it's not necessary to trade anything for Taiwan with Washington.
●
Washington Post, 11-9-2017:
Xi
had reiterated the importance of Taiwan to Beijing during his meeting with
Trump. “The Taiwan issue is the most important and sensitive core issue in the
Sino-U. S. relations, and it is also the political foundation for the Sino-U. S.
relations,”... /
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/with-trump-in-china-taiwan-worries-about-becoming-abargaining-chip/2017/11/09/ee3c0126-c4af-11e7-9922-4151f5ca6168_story.html?utm_term=.91426a733612
●
Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan, Opinion, 6-22-2017
(読売新聞「社説」)
:
中国が台湾を孤立させる動きを強め、波風を立てている。軍事、経済両面での優位を背景にした圧力は、中台間の緊張を高めるだけだ。...中国の一連の外交攻勢は、台湾を自国の一部とする「一つの中国」原則を、台湾の蔡英文政権に認めさせる狙いだろう。...台湾の住民の間では、中国に政治的、経済的にのみ込まれることへの警戒感が強く、「中国離れ」が加速しているためだ。...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。(The
US is the key to keep the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait)
●
Le
Monde diplomatique,
France, mai 2016: "politiL’Amérique
centrale lâche Taipei" /
Les deux rivaux du détroit de Formose
ne luttent pas à armes égales et, pour Taipei, l’isolement diplomatique
menace. (The two rivals of the
Taiwan Straits do not
fight on equal terms , the diplomatic isolation threatens Taiwan
)
●
Singapore's
The
Straits
Times,
11-9-2017
:
Taiwan
is the
most
important
issue in
Sino-US
ties, Xi
tells
Trump
“The Taiwan issue is the most important, most
sensitive core issue in China-US relations, and concerns the political basis
of the China-US relationship,” ... China “hopes that the US side continues
to scrupulously abide by the ‘one China’ principle, and prevents
disturbances to the broader picture of China-US ties”, Xi added.
Trump told Xi that the United States government upheld and stuck to the “one
China” policy, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.
●
BBC -
Taiwan country profile 6-14-2017:
China
insists
that
nations
cannot
have
official
relations
with
both
China
and
Taiwan,
with the
result
that
Taiwan
has
formal
diplomatic
ties
with
only a
few
countries.
/
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16164639
●
Washington Post, 1-2-2017:
The
United
States
“acknowledges”
that
there is
one
China
and that
Taiwan
is part
of
China.
But the
United
States
has
never
officially
“recognized”
Taiwan
as part
of
China.
This
strategic
ambiguity
leaves
the
United
States
room for
brief
introduction of TAIWAN (ROC)
1.
