Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Merkel shows leadership, Ma flops

Kenneth Lin 林向愷

On May 17, while attending a nuclear safety drill organized by the Atomic Energy Council, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that if a serious nuclear accident were to happen in Taiwan and there was no remedy for it, the government would definitely close down the atomic power station, either temporarily or permanently. However, he also went on to say the nation could not do without nuclear power in the short term.

Ma’s statement came after German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that nuclear power would be phased out in Germany by the year 2022. Unlike Japan and Taiwan, Germany is not frequently affected by earthquakes or threatened by tsunamis, so why did the accident at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant cause Merkel to make a 180-degree turn in her position on nuclear energy?

Advice for China

Thomas L. Friedman

FROM: Ministry of State Security

TO: President Hu Jintao

SUBJECT: The Arab Spring

Dear President Hu: You asked for our assessment of the Arab Spring. Our conclusion is that the revolutions in the Arab world contain some important lessons for the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, because what this contagion reveals is something very new about of how revolutions unfold in the 21st century and something very old about why they explode.

If Protests and Crackdowns Continue, China Risks Dark Future

Max Fisher

China's democratic revolutionaries haven't made much of a revolution so far. Protests have been attended sparsely, if at all. Online discussion of demonstrations in China, demonstrations elsewhere in the world, or anything remotely related have been largely stifled. The urban security presence has somehow become even more ubiquitous, with uniformed and plainclothes police now supplemented with "Old Auntie Brigade," elderly volunteers who, wearing matching red armbands, report everything they see back to local neighborhood committees. Hopes in China that the Egyptian revolution might build momentum for their country's own struggling democratic movement appear to have been stymied.

Why is no one held to account?

Lin Feng-jeng 林峰正

Presidential Office spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) recently issued a statement in which he expressed views related to the fact that prosecutors have said members of the military tortured former Air Force Command serviceman Chiang Kuo-ching (江國慶) and that this led to the wrongful conviction and execution of Chiang.

Lo addressed the fact that the so-called “true killer,” Hsu Jung-chou (許榮洲), was being charged with rape and murder and that former defense minister and then-commander of the Air Force Command, Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏), and eight other officers would not face charges because the statute of limitations has expired.

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