Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Equality for all foreign spouses

Taipei Times Editorial

An online petition started by a doctor in Taichung called on lawmakers to halt an amendment that would shorten the time needed for Chinese spouses of Taiwanese to gain citizenship in Taiwan.

The amendment could put a strain on Taiwan’s already burdened National Health Insurance (NHI) system, Cheng Ching Hospital thoracic surgery division doctor Tu Cheng-che (杜承哲) said. Doctors have seen many Chinese spouses bring their relatives to hospital emergency rooms, asking for full checkups, he added.

“They [Chinese spouses] even tell their relatives that healthcare in Taiwan is free and is easily accessible, and that healthcare providers in Taiwan would not deny a request for a full checkup,” Tu said.

US skepticism and national identity

Taipei Times Editorial

Small states with powerful, larger neighbors in international relations face a challenging reality.

Counting on bilateral trade for their domestic prosperity, they must grow economic ties while ensuring they do not develop a trade dependency that would undermine their independence.

To safeguard their security, they must decide whether to develop closer diplomatic ties with their larger neighbor, offering assurances and trust-building mechanisms, or to seek an external alliance with other nations in a coalition, protecting themselves and keeping threatening neighbors at bay.

Taiwan must learn from 228, Lai says

Taipei Times

President-elect William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said he would work to safeguard the nation’s security and democracy to ensure freedom and economic prosperity, and that the tragic events of the 228 Incident “never happen in Taiwan again.”

The Incident refers to the indiscriminate killing of a person in a crowd on Feb. 27, 1947, and the gunning down by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government of protesters at a resulting demonstration the next day. It was followed by a brutal crackdown. Estimates of the number of eventual deaths vary from 10,000 to more than 30,000.

The Incident was closely followed by the White Terror era in Taiwan.

Lessons from the war in Ukraine

Bryan D. Hopkins

When I was in Ukraine filming for an upcoming documentary, I was surprised at how frequently my mind naturally tended to map Ukraine’s war experience onto Taiwan, where I have lived for the past 10 years.

There are obvious parallels of an imperial nuclear superpower asserting itself over a smaller non-nuclear state, but there are also small mundane things that would impact everyday life. When I saw Ukrainian elderly people filling jugs of water at a church in sub-zero temperatures and hauling it back to their homes which might not have electricity, I imagined the difficulty of a Taiwanese senior carrying that water up numerous flights of stairs in sweltering heat. It is a heartbreaking thought.

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