Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Dealing with environmental messes

Pan Han-shen 潘翰聲

Two years after the onslaught of Typhoon Morakot, the predictions in the book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein are unfortunately being played out. The state, business, charities and other social control organizations are using this “opportunity” to force Aborigines down from the mountains, taking them away from their homes in order to get their hands on their traditional territory.

By contrast, the Aboriginal filmmaker Maywa Biho’s film Light up My Life shows how Aborigines are working hard to turn their situation around, with young Aborigines returning to the Kanakanavu tribe to start growing millet and other traditional crops again.

China brings up arms sales with Biden

Taipei Times

The “deeply sensitive” issue of arms sales to Taiwan was raised during Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) first meeting with US Vice President Joe Biden in Beijing on Thursday.

As expected, the issue was near the top of the Chinese agenda and no time was lost putting it on the table.

Biden told Xi that the US intended to “meet its commitments” to Taiwan and added that there was also an “overarching intention” in Washington to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

Focus on freedoms, not the spending

Molly Jeng 鄭明麗

The press coverage of Chinese tourists in Taiwan has not really touched upon anything beyond the amount of business they are bringing to the nation, how much spending power they have and what they think of Taiwanese cuisine — except perhaps for some comments about how they lack culture because of the Cultural Revolution. I haven’t read much exploration into how Chinese tourists are responding to the different political system they find here.

When I bump into Chinese tourists, I ask them, out of genuine curiosity, what they think about Taiwan now that they have seen it. One person replied that the streets were very clean.

I’m a political victim: Chen Chih-chung

Taipei Times

Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), son of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who was stripped of his Greater Kaohsiung councilor position after being found guilty of perjury, said yesterday the court’s sentence amounted to political persecution.

The younger Chen lost his job after the Supreme Court on Wednesday sentenced him to three months in jail for perjury in a case related to his father’s state affairs fund case.

Chen Chih-chung issued a statement saying he could not accept the sentence and he did not believe those who voted for him would accept it either, because the public could not allow political vendettas to be carried out “to such an extent.”

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