Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

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.

Statue honors Okinawans who died in 228 Incident

Taipei Times

Keelung mayor Chang Tong-rong, center left, and Japan's Miyakojima mayor Toshihiko Shimoji, center right, shake hand after unveiling a statue to commemorate Okinawa fishers who died during the 228 Incident in 1947 during a ceremony in Keelung yesterday.

Photo: Loa Iok-sin, Taipei Times

Braving strong winds, rain and waves pounding the shore, officials and residents from Keelung and Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture yesterday jointly unveiled a statue of an Okinawan fisherman with cheers, music and words of friendship to commemorate Okinawans who died during the 228 Incident.

The ceremony started with a Buddhist rite, hosted by the head monk from Seikoji Temple in Okinawa, at Wanshantang — a small temple with urns containing bones and ashes of people of unknown identity or those who died without descendants — near the monument on Keelung’s Heping Island (和平島), which is just off Taiwan proper.

2012 ELECTIONS: Tsai says sorry for persimmon mix-up

Taipei Times

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen apologized for an inaccurate picture that was used in campaign material yesterday.

Photo: Taipei Times

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday apologized for an inaccurate picture that was used in campaign material in an attempt to end a week-long battle of rhetoric between the DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over the prices of different persimmons.

In a recent campaign flyer printed in the format of a calendar, the DPP listed a dozen types of locally grown fruits, among them persimmons, that have plunged in price this year.

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