Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Gilley’s ‘Finlandization’ is wrong

Nat Bellocchi

The relations between Taiwan, the US and China have given rise to many an academic analysis. This is understandable and even laudable: The network of relations is complex and is open to various interpretations and insights. Many past treatises have made valuable contributions to the understanding of developments between the three countries.

However, once every so often an academic publishes an analysis that is so far removed from reality that it would be dismissed out of hand for its lack of understanding and its outright naivite. Bruce Gilley’s article, titled “Not So Dire Straits” — published in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs (January/February 2010) — is such a work.

Wickedness in the guise of policy

Liberty Times Editorial

The administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has drawn criticism from all sides for its handling of the US beef issue, failing to please either the American or the Taiwanese public. This, however, has not compelled the government to change its ways. Ma’s team is still determined to sign an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China without public consultation.

Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) has announced that the government will start preliminary talks with China on the issue this month and hopes to have the ECFA signed in May. He said the government would decide on further easing of restrictions on investment in China by Taiwanese businesses toward the end of this month.

Haiti’s tragedy and Taiwan

Taipei Times

The world’s most severe earthquakes of recent memory are notable for taking place in states that are politically stable — or at least those that have a working infrastructure. The Sichuan Earthquake in China, the Kashmir disaster of 2005, the Bam quake in Iran in late 2003 — all took place in regions that were remote and/or poverty-stricken, but there was at least some hope of response by central officials. International assistance, where it was welcomed, had to be moderated to some extent by sovereign considerations.

Friedman Leaves Me Cold, Flat, and Disgusted

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Between the known and the unknown, falls the shadow. Between the surface and reality falls the guess. Between what can be controlled and what cannot, falls the wish. Between the shadow, the guess, and the wish, comes the consultant, a shadowy seller of guesses striving to say truisms that the wishers want to hear. Thomas Friedman, "The World is Flat" (2005) and the World is "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" (2008), recently graced the shores of Taiwan, and demonstrated this process. Unfortunately the more one listens to him, the more one wonders how he ever became a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. Or better yet, what judgment standards does the Pulitzer Prize Board have? In the 14 Journalistic categories awarded only to paid entrants, does cleverness trump content? Does style trump substance?

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