Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Fujian plan bound to fail

Taipei Times Editorial

With the Chinese economy facing headwinds, Beijing on Thursday last week unveiled a plan to set up an “integrated development demonstration zone” in its Fujian Province to encourage Taiwanese to emigrate or invest there, even as it has deployed a record number of military planes and ships to threaten Taiwan.

It is another example of China using the carrot and the stick.

The Fujian plan, which is being overseen by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee and State Council, has 21 measures to promote integrated development with Taiwan and says that China has made “concessions” to facilitate Taiwanese living, working, studying and conducting business in Fujian, which include buying property and the enrollment of Taiwanese students in public schools. It has a goal of providing a business environment for Taiwanese to deepen Fujian-Taiwan industrial cooperation and develop a cross-strait financial market.

Addressing America’s skeptics in Taiwan

Ryan Hass

During a recent visit to Taiwan, I encountered repeated questions about “America skepticism” among the body politic. The basic premise of the “America skepticism” theory is that Taiwan people should view the United States as an unreliable, self-interested actor who is using Taiwan for its own purposes. According to this theory, America will abandon Taiwan when its interests are advanced by doing so.

At one level, such skepticism is a sign of a healthy, well-functioning democratic society that protects the right for vigorous political debate. Indeed, around the world, the people of Taiwan are far from alone in debating America’s reliability and motives.

The continuing saga of Ann Kao

Taipei Times Editorial

Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) has been under the political spotlight this week as new allegations of ethical misconduct continued to surface.

During her election campaign last year, Kao, a former Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislator-at-large, was accused of receiving paid leave from the Institute for Information Industry (III) while studying abroad and partly plagiarizing published III-funded studies she coauthored into her doctoral dissertation.

Kao’s legislative assistants also accused her of payroll fraud by forcing them to “donate” part of their salaries and overtime pay to a common fund, which was allegedly later used by Kao. She was indicted last month on charges of misusing public funds and making public officials write false entries in public documents.

How to keep Taiwan online in war

Jason Hsu and Richard Y.K. Chen

Internet connectivity is a lifeline — albeit a fragile one — for Taiwan. A recent war game staged in Taipei with experts from the military, tech industries, academia and government suggested that, in the event of a Chinese blockade, the island would be particularly vulnerable to a communications cutoff.

The threat to Taiwan’s digital infrastructure was made plain in February, when Chinese maritime vessels severed two submarine cables connecting the Taiwan to Matsu, a tiny archipelago that belongs to Taiwan but is located just off China’s coast. The months-long outage deprived residents of Internet access and left Matsu, which houses a strategic military base, open to attacks. The damaged cables also exposed the vulnerability of the US tech giant Google, which has a data center on Taiwan’s western coast.

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