Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

What the US’ ‘pivot’ may mean for Taiwan

Nat Bellocchi 白樂崎

In the middle of last month, US President Barack Obama made a three-stop tour with a primary focus on East Asia: He first attended the APEC summit in Honolulu, then flew to Australia and finally headed to Bali to attend the East Asia Summit.

At the APEC meeting, Obama pushed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a multilateral economic and trade agreement intended to boost free trade across the Pacific. In Australia, he strengthened US-Australian defense and security cooperation and announced that about 2,500 US Marines would be stationed in Darwin, while in Bali the main theme was freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

2012 ELECTIONS: Poll respondents say Tsai performed best in TV debate

Taipei Times

An instant poll conducted by the search engine Yahoo-Kimo, the Taiwan unit of Yahoo, yesterday found that 38 percent of respondents thought Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had performed best in the first televised presidential debate.

Thirty-one percent of respondents favored People First Party presidential candidate James Soong’s (宋楚瑜) performance, while 29 percent said President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) performed better.

Economics and politics can never be separated

Lo Chih-cheng 羅致政

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has repeatedly stated that Taiwan’s economic development cannot be separated from that of China, while criticizing the administration of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) for what he describes as closed economic policies and telling the public how he has improved the situation.

Indeed, no country can ignore the scale of China’s market and its economic development in recent years. However, it is extremely naive to suggest that China is some kind of panacea — the answer to all of Taiwan’s economic problems. To do so would be to disregard a whole raft of problems.

Taiwanese Election Campaign Ads

LfT

For the upcoming combined Presidential and Legislative Yuan elections in Taiwan (Jan 14th 2012), both the main political parties (pro-China KMT and pro-Taiwan DPP) have been busy producing video content so as to get their campaign messages across to a nation that increasingly receives much of its news online. Both parties are using a mixture of humorous and serious approaches. Below is a selection of what I think are the slickest and most memorable campaign videos.

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