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Tsai has ‘very successful’ US meetings

Taipei Times

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen, center, talks to reporters as she leaves the DPP’s office in Washington on Tuesday.
Photo: CNA

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Tuesday held a series of “very successful, very positive” closed-door meetings with top Washington officials and politicians.

She held discussions with US Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain and the committee’s ranking Democratic member, Jack Reed. Republican Senator Dan Sullivan was also present.

KMT’s grip unlikely to survive our new times

James Wang 王景弘

The slogan of last year’s Sunflower movement — “Unless the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] falls, Taiwan will never do well” — is, in the eyes of most people, an argument that requires no supporting evidence. However, die-hard KMT loyalists — apparently worried that some Taiwanese are yet to wake up to the truth — unceasingly search for ways to prove that the party is not just at death’s door, but also completely at odds with the nation’s democratic values.

President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) attitude and leadership style are stuck in the era of dirty patronage politics. Ma’s die-hard followers and his decaying party are the leftover dregs of party-state serfdom.

The path to happiness is not gold

Wu Hui-lin 吳惠林

In late April, the presidential office instructed the Cabinet to promote the idea that Taiwan has become a happier place over the past seven years. As this caused a flurry of debate, this year’s UN World Happiness Report indicated that Switzerland was the happiest of the 158 countries on the list, while Taiwan was ranked 38th, far surpassing Hong Kong at No. 72 and China at No. 84.

The big name primarily responsible for the report was the founder of the economic concept of shock therapy, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs.

Petition over curriculum gathers pace

Taipei Times

The demands of an alliance of senior-high school students from southern Taiwan who oppose the Ministry of Education’s planned adjustments to high-school curriculum guidelines are displayed on Facebook on Saturday. Students from 120 schools have signed a petition to protest the adjustments.
Screenshot by Hung Ting-hung, Taipei Times

Students from 120 high schools and vocational high schools nationwide had as of press time last night signed a petition to protest the Ministry of Education’s planned adjustments to curriculum guidelines.

The ministry faces opposition from teachers and politicians, who claim the planned adjustments would force high-school students to use “China-centric” texts that gloss over past atrocities of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) during the White Terror era, as well as suppressing information on efforts of Taiwanese who fought for democracy.

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