Category: Taiwan

Taiwan election signals China to keep hands off

19/1/2016

Taiwan says Paws Off

Taiwanese voters sent a clear message to the world in their recent federal elections. The Democratic Progressive Party(DPP) won a majority of seats. The message: Taiwan is an independent country and will remain so. Not only did the voters kick out their former president who was promoting ever closer ties with the PRC, they elected for the first time ever a woman. Tsai Lin-wen becomes the most powerful female politician in eastern Asia.

She is a career politician who worked her way up to the top spot. Other Asian women have held high ranking political spots before, but each had close family ties to politically successful men.

In another surprising move, electors chose a young, heavy metal musician to represent them. He comes complete with long hair, tattoos and an attitude.

Taiwan has been an independent state since the end of the Chinese civil war that found the nationalists defeated by the communists. Taiwan was the fall back of the defeated nationalists. Since 1949 Taiwan has become an economic success. The 23 million citizens are also staunch supporters of democratic principles. It has only been since the 80’s that they have been able to vote freely.

It is expected that under the DPP government that the indigenous people of the island will be represented in greater proportion than ever before.

The island, formerly called Formosa, has had various colonizers and conquerors since the 17th century.

China(PRC) maintains that Taiwan is a renegade province of theirs. They have tried to woo the people by holding out the idea of close but privileged status within the whole, much like Hong Kong. That model is under close scrutiny right now as many of the privileges/rights that the HK citizens are supposed to have is being eroded.

Street demonstrations protesting the creep of central power have been held. Even more chilling to the HK people is the recent disappearance of five HK book publishers. They specialized in ensuring that books banned by the PRC government were published and available in HK. Free speech is one of the guarantees that HK was granted. At least one publisher is known to be in the PRC. He phoned his wife to tell her to not make a fuss. His identification papers were still in HK and he could not have travelled to the mainland without them. That is, unless he was smuggled in.

Definitely interesting times for the two Chinas.

Sources:
Brisbane Times
CNN

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Hundreds injured in Taiwan explosion and fire

8/7/2015

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Flour explosion

June 28, 2015: A special event in Taiwan’s Formosa Fun Coast water park turned into a deadly nightmare for at least 498 young people Saturday night. About 1000 people gathered at the water park to listen to music and dance amid the light show of brightly coloured powders in the air.

Something went dreadfully wrong. The coloured powders which were tossed over the crowd suddenly ignited into a fireball.

Many of the young people were in swim wear and their skin was immediately exposed to the flames. Others, equally unlucky, breathed in the powders. The injuries of the 498 young people are severe. Nearly 200 are in intensive care. One father described his daughter as having been burned over 80% of her body.

While there were scenes of heroism as the less injured carried others and helped some float away on inflatables and dinghy’s, there were also reports of looting and the arrest of one person for doing so. Rescue workers were unable to bring the ambulances close to the site and were forced to use stretchers and inflatable toys to transport victims from the amusement park to the emergency vehicles.

The privately organized event, Color Play Asia, has the organizers under scrutiny for possible negligence. Authorities are currently treating the tragic fire as an accident.

It is well known that dust particles can ignite into fireballs. Even some substances that are not normally thought of as dangerous can turn deadly when ground fine and exposed to a heat source. In the case of the Taiwan fireball, the stage lights are thought to be that heat source. Common triggers for dust explosions can be static discharge, friction, “shorts” in electrical equipment and open flames.

When particles are less than 500 micrometres in diameter they are considered dust. They may be even finer than that. Explosions in grain elevators, mines and saw mills are fairly common, especially if rigorous maintenance in not observed.

Sources:
Al Jazeera
Reuters
Wikipedia

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Taiwan coping with severe drought

27/4/2015

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No water, no life

Taiwan is facing its worst drought in forty years. It depends on summer storms off the western Pacific to replenish reservoirs. Last year saw 23 storms bypass the Asian island. An average of three typhoons hit the island each summer, but 2013 saw none.The city of Kaohsiung has had to institute severe restrictions on water use.

Agricultural irrigation has been stopped for over 75000 hectares of farmland as of December 1st. This leaves large areas fallow. Farmers are to be compensated for their lost revenues. Food security issues also arise when drought demands less water usage.

Much of the rest of the island is on level three restriction which means that millions of people and thousands of factories are affected. Kaohsiung is moving to a level four restriction on May 4th if the situation continues. This means that people will not have running water for two days per week. Factories will also be cut off from the system as well.

The reservoirs are down to one quarter of their capacity and the dry season has already started.

To add to Taiwan’s water problems, factory waste and sewage have been allowed to flow into waterways polluting most of the island’s rivers.

Some factories are pumping ground water to compensate for the water restrictions. This has led to ground subsistence in areas where excessive pumping has occurred.

Increasing population and manufacturing will continue to put pressure on water sources.

In the category of there’s always a crook ready to make a buck – scammers have been caught selling bottled water as distilled water or mineral water when it comes from dubious ground water sources.

Taiwan is expecting a weather system to bring light rains to the northern part of the island, but that area is not as parched as the south. Little relief is expected there.

Small changes in climate can translate to big changes in weather patterns.

Sources:
The China Post
Taiwan Info
Radio Taiwan International

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Taiwan election signals China to keep hands off

Hundreds injured in Taiwan explosion and fire

Taiwan coping with severe drought

Barbara McPherson

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