Placement marketing and the 2009 Taipei Deaflympics

Placement marketing is the practice where advertisements are passed off as news. Such a strategy would mislead the public and weaken the media’s position to monitor and criticise the government. The worst scenario may be where the media start to do the paymaster’s bidding and persecute the oppositions.

In May 2009, Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Su Jun-pin in the Ma Ying-jeou administration reaffirmed the government’s opposition to placement marketing after a formal journalist disclosed her ex-employer’s acceptance of placement marketing. However, there are still allegations of government ministries and the premier engaging in such a practice.

It turned out that the 2009 Taipei Deaflympics Committee also paid for news items and interviews for the Deaflympics in September 2009. Taipei City Councillor, Chein Yuyen, posted scanned copies of the Deaflympics budget on her own blog. In particular, Item 5  and the 5th scanned sheet refers to the spending on news items across several major TV networks; Item 6 and the 6thscanned sheet refers to the spending on time slots in news programmes. This makes one wonder how much this contributed to the relatively mild media reactions to a series of blunders and some major problems in the preparation and handling of the Taipei Deaflympics.

Some of the major problems were summarised in this Taipei Times article. They not only reflect a lack of competence but also bureaucracy and a lack of respect for others’ rights.

The missing lanes of the swimming pool

The Taipei City Government under the Hau Lung-bin administration (Chinese Nationalist Party) spent NT$ 600 million (approx. US$1.9 million) on building a swimming pool. It turned out that the pool did not meet the international standard because it got two lanes missing. After this was exposed by Taipei City Councillor, Chuang Ruei-hsiung, in July 2009, the City Government officials blamed the media for reporting it wrong and insisted that they had already resolved the problem by finding a privately run swimming pool that meets the standard in Hsin-chu County.

However, the management of the swimming pool disclosed that the Taipei City Government put political pressure on them to let the Taipei Deaflympics use it for a month totally free of charge in the name of the ‘national image’, disregarding all the swimming lessons and training and pre-paid memberships. The managers and the members all felt annoyed by the fact that Taipei City Government pushed them to give up their rights for the Taipei City Government’s own mistake.

A hand written schedule

During the event, there were loads of careless mistakes, including missing scoreboard, mix-up in timetabling and transport etc. One of the most visible clues was this hand written photocopied schedule for badminton competitions.

This was not widely reported by the press.

Forcing students to participate

Taipei City Councillor, Chen Yuyen, found that the Taipei Deaflympics went to several senior high schools and without informing the parents and getting their consent, forced 10,500 students to perform during the promotion event in 2008. I wonder why the Taipei Deaflympics Committee couldn’t get as many volunteers as the Kaohsiung World Games and had to resort to power abuse. The students were paid only NT$ 115 for the day. Some of the schools got the students practice for hours without giving the students extra time to catch up on the missed lessons. The teachers could only try to squeeze in all the materials they had to cover within the timeframe cut short by the practice. What did the students practice? Well, one of the items was to sign ‘the magnificent President Ma Ying-jeou’ in front of Ma.

The fact that the students and their parents were not consulted beforehand was not widely reported or criticised in the media.

Using soldiers for building work

The City Government did not monitor the building work properly, so even with more funding than the World Games, the building of the stage in the main stadium still fell behind. Failing to get the paid contractors to keep up with the schedule, they went to the central government which sanctioned the use of the military sector. This was completely inappropriate. Some people joked about it, asking whether Deaflympics qualified as a disaster.

Lack of respect for those with hearing impairment

The whole event was criticised for a lack of consideration for those with hearing impairment. Those (with hearing impairment) who brought the Deaflympics to Taiwan were not invited to appear or acknowledged for their hard work. All the performances were designed for people with normal hearing.

Not only was the hearing impaired under-represented. The Taipei Deaflympics Committee simply did not make enough effort in raising public awareness and promoting a more sensitive culture. For example, those who intended to attend some of the games and show the athletes support did not have a clue how to do that for people with hearing impairment. Most people didn’t know that there were different sign languages in the world. It would have been nice if the Committee spent some resources on showing the public what it would be like with hearing impairment and how to greet and communicate with them instead of teaching the students to sign ‘the magnificent President Ma Ying-jeou’.

The lack of respect was also demonstrated by the fact that the person in charge of the opening and closing of the 2008 promotion event did not recruit any translator until the host, who also has hearing impairment, told them that translators were essential. Everything came to a head on 10 September 2008, the closing night. While there were 460 seats, the number of the hearing impaired from Taiwan could barely fill a table (10-12 seats). The 274 Taiwanese volunteers (half of them had hearing impairment) were told that they could not attend the closing ceremony. Apart from 10 translators, all the international guests were looked after by students who did not have hearing impairment but had received a few lessons on sign language. The Taipei Deaflympics Committee insisted that those students were quite capable of the task and those volunteers were not needed. It did not occur to the Committee to encourage interactions between the hearing impaired in Taiwan and the guests from other countries.

As a result, 2-30 volunteers were going to stage a protest. However, the police surrounded them before they could set off and told them that the police would not let them protest in front of the Mayor and all the guests. They accused those volunteers of illegal assembly and recorded all their actions. The Committee dismissed the volunteers’ feelings as anger over not being offered dinner. Those volunteers felt hurt by the fact that the Committee set the police on them as a return for their hard work and belittle them. So they took off their Deaflympics vests and badges and left in tears. Apart from the disrespect for those in the hearing impaired community in Taiwan, this was a huge contrast to how ALL the volunteers were honoured in the main closing ceremony in the Kaohsiung World Games. All the volunteers were invited to walk into the stadium and applauded by the whole audience.

The above incident was not mentioned by the press and the volunteers’ side of story was not covered.

Lying about international visibility

About two months ago, I blogged about Hau Lung-bin’s administration spending a lot of PR money telling the Taiwanese public that his administration promoted the Deaflympics in Taiwan internationally when he only managed to have it broadcast by a Hong Kong network. Again, this was not picked up by any news outlet.

The amount the Deaflympics Committee had available was much more than the Kaohsiung World Games. The Kaohsiung World Games Committee had their parliament-approved funding withheld by the central government and didn’t have enough money to pay for advertising, so the Kaohsiung City Government had to publicise the World Games through rubbish collection! Before the Games, the local residents could hear the current Mayor Chen Chu’s voice coming from the speaker on every collection van, talking about the Games and encouraging people to attend. This was very creative and resourceful as collection vans were all fitted with a speaker (to tell residents to take their rubbish out) and could reach every corner of the city. Sadly, the Taipei City Government and the Taipei Deaflymipcs Committee mismanaged the resources they had available.

The former and founding chairman of the Committee, Chao Yu-ping, resigned his post in disappointment of the KMT administration. Before he left, he wrote an article about what had happened. It was actually the DPP central government at the time that supported their bid. The then Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou and his administration were not keen and even cut their budget. But when they won the bid, the Ma administration held a press conference before the agreed joint press conference with central government agencies in order to claim the credit. Their attitude only improved after the then Kaohsiung Mayor, Frank Hsieh, announced that Kaohsiung was going to host the 2009 World Games. Chao went on to say that when Hau took over from Ma, Hau was much more interested in the Deaflympics but the way he worked was to barge in and interfere with the running of the Committee. It was also the time the hearing impaired personnel were diluted and pushed aside by those without hearing impairment.

It seems that the KMT administration, whoever is in charge, rarely considers others’ needs and perspectives and lacks organisation and efficiency. Frank Hsieh’s Kaohsiung administration started recruiting and training volunteers for the World Games 5 years before the Games. Why did the Taipei Deaflympics Committee do everything in a hurry?

The above was not an exhaustive list of all the problems and mistakes during the Taipei Deaflympics but the Taipei City Government and the Committee came off relatively lightly in the media. Any one of the above mistakes, including the use of placement marketing, if made by a DPP administration, would have been panned by the media for days. Why the difference? The amount the KMT administration at all levels spends on placement marketing and advertising perhaps?

Hsieh questioned several times whether Lee Tao (TVBS) and his wife, the most vehement DPP bashing pro-KMT show hosts, have received a lot of ‘customs’ from the Ma and Hau administrations. To date, the Lees have not responded. Well, this may explain their silence. Taipei City Councillor, Chien Yuyen found the contract and budget to prove that TVBS at least received NT$36.5 million (approx. US$ 1 million) for advert and placement marketing from Taipei City Government in 2008 alone.

Even those pro-DPP refrained from criticising the Taipei Deaflympics heavily because they sincerely hoped that the Taipei Deaflympics would be something all Taiwanese could be proud of. However, the negative impact of placement marketing, as demonstrated in the Taipei Deaflympics, should not be ignored. This may explain, at least partly, why the majority of media in Taiwan is biased.

A glimpse of hope – Frank Hsieh’s campaign group

The 3 in 1 council and mayoral election in Taiwan has been discussed at length by Michael (post 1, post 2, figures) and Tim. I would like to share some of my observations of the campaign, looking for factors that might make some difference and steer Taiwan towards a more positive direction in the future.

Over the 18 months prior to the election, the performance of Ma Ying-jeou and his administration has been abysmal. However, the majority of media has been pro-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the first place and the Ma administration has used every possible means to interfere with the media. The major opposition party (Democratic Progressive Party), on the other hand, has not shown enough strength to seriously challenge Ma Ying-jeou’s administration and the KMT. The increase in support for the DPP shown in the election is more likely to be a result of people’s strong dissatisfaction at Ma Ying-jeou and the KMT government than great trust in and support for the DPP. There’s a lot more the DPP need to do. A lot of people have been wondering why the DPP just can’t pull itself together. This is a rather complex issue. Today, I’ll start with some factors/forces that may bring some positive change in the future.

The Campaign Group

During the campaign for the 3 in 1 election, the DPP’s campaign strategy seemed rather conservative to the point of looking a bit worrying to me. However, Frank Hsieh, former Premier, brought something new into the campaign, which was quite refreshing. He set up a group called ‘Chang-kung campaign group’ (長工助選團) and the group consisted of some current and former DPP legislators, former ministers, a pro-green professional singer, Taiwanese puppet show artists, Taiwanese opera performers and amateur dancers.

In the launch of this group, their leader, Frank Hsieh, said that because the green camp did not have any party asset like the KMT, their group would be proactive in campaigning for all the DPP candidates at any corner they could find rather than responding to invitations and only speaking/performing on a stage already set up by the candidate. Hsieh also attempted to address young people’s reluctance to participate in politics by including puppet shows, Taiwanese opera, singing and dancing, with social and political issues incorporated, in addition to speeches in their campaign activities.

Hsieh emphasised the importance of humour and positive thinking when facing the current difficulties. He has said several times on his radio programme that even though the actions (or the lack of) of the Ma administration often lead to anger and disappointment and challenging an incompetent and undemocratic government is a serious task, it’s important to do it with humour, calmness and a lot of positive thinking. He said that Taiwanese and those who care about Taiwan should not torture themselves with anger for Ma Ying-jeou and his administration’s wrong doings.

Fun & Serious Plurking

Apart from this group, Hsieh also recruited a lot of young volunteers to join them for the campaign through Plurk. He has been consistently posting and responding to messages ever since he first started in April. On average, Hsieh posts three messages every day. The morning one is always cheerful and uplifting. The second one is often about his critique on government policies or actions, the event he is attending or something that just happens (e.g. the earthquake). He usually ends the day with a calming message, giving his best wishes to everyone. I have been observing the Plurk messages of those well known politicians in the green camp and found Hsieh’s to be the most refreshing and interesting to follow because

1. Hsieh covers the widest ranges of topics, including politics, history, poetry, literature, philosophy, Buddhism, religion…
2. He’s always spot on on policies and directions.
3. He learns the young people’s language and the online communication really fast, which enables him to communicate more effectively with those groups and get their support. Being able to use young people’s language and knowing what they think is more effective than simply participating in their kind of activities.
4. He’s got a great sense of humour.
5. He appears to be very approachable and personable. He not only ‘chats’ with the other Plurkers on his own page but responds to other Plurkers’ messages. A lot of Plurkers and his supporters have got a surprise ‘visit’ from him and found it great fun.
6. Most important of all, his messages and replies are the most spontaneous, confident and effortless. Some of the other politicians can appear to be a bit too careful or calculated or trying too hard. Those more relaxed ones still lack Hsieh’s breadth and depth.

The above characteristics have made Hsieh the most popular politician on Plurk or online in general. His supporters and Plurk friends cover a very wide age range, which has been evident in the attendees of his Plurk parties. Even though Hsieh’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election, also a former premier, Su Cheng-chang started Plurking a month before him, Hsieh has long surpassed Su in terms of the number of friends and fans as well as the Karma value (a figure on Plurk that reflects that frequency of use and the level of others’ response to one’s own messages).

The effect of Hsieh’s group

Hsieh and his campaign group were very popular and caught a lot of attention. One example of Hsieh’s influence could be demonstrated in Hsin-chu County. Even though the group toured around the country and supported all the candidates. Their support for the Hsin-chu county chief candidate, Peng Shao-jin, combined with the split of the KMT in that county, may have played a major role in the huge increase in the support for Peng. Those who don’t like Hsieh’s popularity claim that Hsin-chu was a definite ‘easy’ area because of the split within the KMT. This argument was not convincing because Peng’s polling figure was not good before Hsieh gave his support. As Peng does not belong to any particular faction within the DPP (i.e. no one would give him a lot of support) and he was very strict about accepting campaign funds, he simply did not have enough resources to make himself more visible. Hsieh recognised Peng’s quality, was sympathetic to his position and also felt that the KMT split could be Peng’s advantage. He and his group poured in a lot of time and support for Peng. Hsieh’s popularity also helped Peng increase Peng’s visibility, pulling his polling number from just over 10% to nearly 20% and then 30%.

Attempts to stop Hsieh

The KMT may have felt the pressure from Hsieh and found it necessary to smear his image. On 24 November, the police used force to stop Hsieh’s group while they were canvassing the street with the DPP Hsin-chu county candidate, Peng Shao-jin. The reason the police gave were that 1) Ma Ying-jeou was also canvassing the street nearby; 2) the DPP did not report their campaign activity under the Parade and Assembly Law. This incident was reported by Taipei Times. Even though the police has been reported to have meddled in several places, the incident in Hsin-chu, involving Hsieh was the most serious. Hsieh was pushed and shoved by the police and a group of young men in the KMT candidate’s campaign vests. This was all caught on camera. In the photos, one can clearly see where the police officer’s hands were when he was pushing Hsieh.

The KMT quickly blamed Hsieh for being ‘provocative’ when in fact, those young men in the KMT vests were the National Security Bureau (NSB) special agents. This was more than just abusing power as it was more likely to provoke the DPP group than anything because when those special agents disguised as the KMT supporters were ordered by their chief to block the DPP candidate and Hsieh’s group, the DPP group and their supporters were most likely to believe that the KMT candidate’s supporters were being unreasonable and probably push back. The NSB chief who gave the order was asked by the presidential office to apologise (Note: The NSB answers directly to the president) and claimed that they did not realise it would result in a ‘misunderstanding’. The KMT went on to argue that when the DPP was in power, the former president and premier were also heavily protected by NSB and the police. While it’s true that the former president was also protected, the NSB under the DPP administration NEVER ordered the special agents to wear any candidate’s campaign vests as a disguise to cause trouble nor did they ban others from talking the surrounding streets when the former president was in the area.

This was actually not the first ‘encounter’ during the campaign. When Hsieh was campaigning for the Yi-lan county chief candidate, Lin Tsong-shyan on 31^st October, Ma was also visiting the same night market. Ma Ying-jeou not only hid himself stayed in a small cafe for ages when Hsieh and his group walked past that cafe but had extra NSB agents heavily surround Hsieh and the campaign group, stopping them and keeping them away. As can be seen on the news clip, Ma appeared to be rigid and guarded when Hsieh was relaxed and confident, greeting the local residents and speaking to the press.

Some accused Hsieh of following Ma everywhere to get attention for himself but the evidence seems to suggest that Ma was doing it to cause scuffles and then blame Hsieh for them because the president’s diary is not always public knowledge (not beforehand anyway) whereas Hsieh’s group always posted their daily itinerary in advance on Taiwan Shadow Government website. Even if Hsieh had followed Ma’s steps, it was actually quite effective in highlighting Ma’s incompetence and breaking all the campaign promises since he got in power. After all, the memory of Hsieh’s questioning over Ma’s promises and Hsieh’s prediction of Ma’s direction was still quite fresh. Some also accused Hsieh of only backing candidates in the ‘easy’ areas so that he could boast about his influence. This was not true either because he did support all the candidates and all the activities were posted on Taiwan Shadow Government website.

Regardless of what he decides to do in the future, I believe that Hsieh’s much deeper and wiser and has a lot to offer than what the press currently portrays. It would be quite shallow to think that losing the 2008 presidential election is a proof that he’s no good at all or lost the plot. One of the reasons why he’s still popular now or got even more popular since 2008 is that all his predictions of Ma’s directions and the consequences of Ma’s policies have all been proven accurate. I’ll talk more about this in the future.

One may wonder how this line of writing may help while human rights violation and corruption are going on. As I said at the beginning of this post, I would like to look at things that may show some promise and some hope. However, I used the phrase ‘a glimpse of’ because not only the blue camp wants Hsieh out of the picture badly, certain groups in the green camp also feel jealous about or threatened by his influence and intelligence and have always been keeping him at a distance, if not actively trying to trip him up, sabotage his effort or smear him. I just hope that those in the green camp who can’t see and think beyond power and competition will come to their senses and not kill off forces and ideas that can benefit Taiwan in the long run.

Merry Christmas

KMT’s Hau Lung-bin did NOT promote Deaflympics Taipei 2009 as he claimed

On 22 October, Yang Hui-ju and Taipei City Councillor, Yen Sheng-kuan, disclosed some shocking news on Yang’s radio programme.

Earlier this year, Taipei City hosted the Deaflympics 2009. The Taipei Mayor, Hau Lung-bin, (Chinese Nationalist Party) claimed that his administration and the Taipei Deaflympics Committee would make Taiwan more visible to the whole world. Hau’s administration allocated approximately US$7.7 million (NT$250 million) for publicity and promotion, which far exceeded what the World Games in Kaohsiung got for PR. After the event, a poll found that 80% of Taiwanese believed that Deaflympics in Taipei promoted Taiwan’s image internationally.

However, after Yen reviewed the spending, she found that Hau’s administration and the Taipei Deaflympics Committee only spent NT$1 million (US$ 30,700) on international promotion and the rest was actually spent domestically. What was meant by ‘international’ was a press conference in Hong Kong. Yen checked all the press reports she could find following that press conference, almost none of the reports mentioned Deaflympics in Taipei. Most of them emphasised that the HK Governor expressed his wish to set up a representatives office in Taiwan.

Yen went on to say that the Taipei City Government claimed that that press conference attracted 12,000 HK tourists to Taiwan but the administration did not even promote the even in other neighbouring countries such as Japan and South Korea. Few Japanese and South Korean knew that Taiwan was hosting the event. Yang Hui-ju googled Deaflympics in Taipei and found that the international press coverage was almost none. Hau’s administration claimed that the reception of Deaflympics in Taipei was only second to the Beijing Olympics 2008. However, Yen found out that it was only broadcast by the Hong Kong based network, Phoenix TV.

Hau Lung-bin did far worse with Deaflympics than Chen Chu with the World Games in Kaohsiung where it was broadcast in 20 other countries and the Kaohsiung administration and KOC visited several countries (e.g. China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Switzerland, the USA etc.) to promote the World Games. News reports related to the World Games (inc. the stadium and Taiwanese people’s enthusiasm) appeared in various major international media such as New York Times etc. Hau only visited Hong Kong, China to promote Deaflympics (funny how the KMT’s ‘world’ only consists of China), neglecting all other countries, did a lousy job with international press and spent the majority of the PR budget on deceiving Taiwanese about his efforts in this, promoting his own image possibly for the next Mayoral election.

Another Taipei City Councillor, Chou Po-ya, also provided information on another ridiculous spending. At the closing ceremony, all participants, guests and everyone in the audience was given an LED tambourine as souvenir. Those tambourines were all made in China and each cost NT$ 250 (US$ 7.7). The total cost was about NT$60 million (US$1.9 million), more than what they spent on international promotion. Also, Taiwan is the biggest and the best manufacturer of LED related products. Why did Hau’s administration have to buy from another country? Funnily enough, a lot of people complained about theirs being of poor quality and dead soon afterwards.

Yen gave another example of weird spending which needs explaining. The Taipei Deaflympics spent NT$ 7.5 million renting a projector which would only cost NT$ 4 million to buy. Yang raised the question of corruption or embezzlement because no one would spend, say, NT$ 80,000 (US$ 2,500) renting a TV set for 3-4 days when they could buy and own a brand new one with NT$ 50,000 (US$ 1,500).

Yen explained that it has been very difficult to get any details from Hau’s administration and Taipei Deaflympics Committee. Taipei Deaflympics Committee refused to offer City Councillors the details of their budget and spending during preparation and the actual event. After it ended, they only provided very sketchy information and the CEO, Emile Sheng, said that a report would be submitted a year later! This is just unheard of. I don’t know any organisation, governmental or not, would let anyone who received funding from them report 12 months after a project ends. So, what really went on there?

I checked a few major news outlets in Taiwan earlier today. NO one picked up on this story. I was wondering why they would let go of this. Jay reminded me of the KMT administration’s huge spending on placement marketing in the press. Due to the economic downturn and shrinking profits, the KMT government’s (central and local) placement marketing has become a huge source of income for some media companies and the press, in turn, would not embarrass their paymaster. I wonder how much of that US$ 7.7 PR budget was spent on placement marketing to promote Hau and ensure their silence on Taipei Deaflympics Committee and Hau’s administration’s blunders. I’ll keep an eye out for any relevant news reports over the next few days and I certainly hope Taipei City Councillors can find out more.

Update: Mr. Craig Ferguson brought to my attention that Hau actually also promoted Deaflympics in Europe although Hau didn’t actually visit Europe. This should be reliable because Mr. Ferguson participated in the activities and got paid for his work.

I did an online search, using different combinations of key words in both English and Mandarin. The reports I could find on his European promotion was only the Chinese version of EpochTimes.com (run by the Falun Gong group, suppressed by China). According to Yen Sheng-kuan, Taipei Deaflympics Committee had also organised meetings with the international media BUT this was not reflected in the amount of press coverage afterwards at all. Furthermore, Hau did not make ‘Taiwan’ more visible as they chose to call themselves ‘Chinese Taipei’. The World Games in Kaohsiung has shown us that they can say ‘Taiwan’ if they want to.

What Yang and Yen found still stands: the end results of the Hau administration’s PR are NOT as good as they claimed. They still did not visit as many countries for Deaflympics as the KOC for the World Games. Hau did not visit any country other than China. It was only broadcast by Phoenix TV but the World Games Kaohsiung was broadcast in 20 other countries. There are a lot of things Hau’s administration needs to clarify. Things were not fully reported or clearly listed in what they gave City Councillors. They spent a lot of money for very little results. Their work was not cost effective.

To back up the figures and the budget, I paste the link to another City Councillor, Chien Yuyen’s blog where she posted the scanned image of the budget.

Yang Hui-ju’s programme on 22 Oct. 2009

Ma Ying-jeou gives preferential treatment to the Chinese in Taiwan?

J. Michael Cole posted his brilliant analysis a couple of days ago on how the Chinese have penetrated or will penetrate Taiwan.

Another policy that may also threaten Taiwan in the long run is the Ministry of Education’s new regulation to allow children from any previous relationship of Chinese spouses in Taiwan to enter any senior high schools near their home WITHOUT going through the formal entrance examination which every Taiwanese teenager has to take. Under this package, if they are under the age of 14 or have visited Taiwan before 14, those Chinese children can live in Taiwan indefinitely (a six month visa would be granted first but they can keep renewing their visa) and go to schools in Taiwan. Not only do they not have to take the entrance exam, they will be allowed to choose a school in their residential area. Those younger than 14 will also be put in priority for state run nurseries (much less expensive with state inspection), primary and junior high schools. When they take the university entrance exam, they will also be given a 25% preference grade premium.

This angered a lot of people because all Taiwanese children, including their Taiwanese half siblings and those whose parent(s) are from other foreign countries, have to work really hard to pass the senior high school/university entrance exam or queue for a place in a state nursery for years without the guarantee for a place. It is unfair that those Chinese children can choose schools they like. If they want to get into a top school, all they have to do is to register their residence within that catchment area.

When being questioned, the MoE argued that those children are eligible because they meet the criteria for the children of outstanding overseas scientists and academia. This is utter nonsense. Since when are all Chinese spouses automatically qualified as ‘outstanding overseas scientists and academia’? There is actually a very stringent assessment and selection process for outstanding overseas professionals under this regulation. Government agencies and Academia Sinica vet candidates carefully before giving formal approval.

If we look elsewhere, overseas students in the UK universities have to pay about three times as much as the tuition for home students because their parents had never paid taxes to the UK government which contributed to the UK education system. As far as I know, non-EU foreign students who changed their resident status through marriage or their parent’s marriage and British citizens who have not lived in the UK for a long time are not immediately eligible for home fees upon entry either. They have to reside in the UK for a number of years before they can be counted as home students by the universities. Besides, foreign students are assessed under the same criteria as the home students. No allowance or preferential treatment would be given to any foreign students. Another related example was that a friend of mine who is a qualified medical doctor in the UK gave up on the idea of moving to Australia a few years ago because the UK medical licence doesn’t count in Australia and he would have to do the training and take the exam again in Australia. It seems that most countries heavily protect certain professions and their education systems. Why would the Ma government give Chinese spouses’ (non-tax paying before going to Taiwan) children from a previous relationship before going to Taiwan preferential treatment? Why can’t they be treated like everyone else?

After being heavily criticised, the MoE changed the regulation. Those in the final year of junior high schools have to take the entrance exam without any preferential treatment. Those already in the 2^nd or 3^rd year of senior high in China can choose 5 schools in their area and take the transfer exam after an assessment.

I don’t know whether this is the end of it because this government has been pretty good at saying one thing in public and doing another in secrecy. So I’ll keep an eye on it for any future development. What we really have to ask is WHY Ma’s administration came up with this idea in the first place? What are they trying to achieve? Was this actually part of one of those secret deals with the Chinese, signed without the public or parliamentary scrutiny?

Some may think that the number of Chinese spouses with children from previous relationships before entering Taiwan is not large and therefore there’s no need to panic. But I just can’t be complacent about this.

First of all, however small the number may be, this regulation, if put in place, places those Chinese children (minority) above ALL Taiwanese children (majority). This creates a class system in the society, which is similar to the way the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) used to reserve the majority of the government posts, civil servants positions, military positions, teaching posts etc., especially at the managerial level, for mainlanders and place them in priority for welfare. What’s worse in this case is that those children are from a country that has never given up on their threat to Taiwan.

Furthermore, it is difficult to check up on the authenticity of records from China. If this gate is open, there is no guarantee whether some Chinese spouses would have suddenly ‘adopted’ a couple of children in China.

Finally, in a few years time, those Chinese children may well become Taiwanese citizens and have the right to vote. Over time, combined with other Chinese nationals who enter Taiwan through other means, they can become a crucial minority in any election and referendum. Besides, it is impossible to know whether some of them will be spying for China or taking on any other activities that jeopardise Taiwan’s interests.

No special privileges for Chinese offspring: MOE

EDITORIAL: Putting the brakes on education

Update: This is the link to a scanned image of the official letter sent by MoE to Tainan City Government in relation to the new regulation. Tim Maddog commented on how vague the government response was, e.g. “Chen said, adding that under the current regulations, it would be impossible for Chinese children to enter university in Taiwan unless they have a Taiwanese ID.” (OK… but are there going to be new regulations?) or “not being the law so far” (Right… is it going to become law, say, next week?)…

Update on limestone mining and cement industry in Taiwan

I blogged about the government decision to lift the ban on mining in 12 limestone conservation areas before. After meeting strong resistance from all the DPP local governments, environmentalist groups and local residents, the government announced on 24 September that they would NOT lift the ban and those 12 areas would still remain protected.

The reactions from the cement industry were interesting. They complained about the government going back and forth, which was hard for them to follow. Now, they can only try to focus on the production of plaster and reinvest.  They said that they had been losing money on the transport cost to have limestone imported from Philippine or transported from Eastern Taiwan. That’s why they were hoping that the mining would be allowed.

However, Taiwan’s domestic demand for cement has declined after major projects such as the high speed rail and KMRT. Some of those cement factories have had to export their products and some have moved to China where the demand is high. In fact, one of the company spokespersons expressed their wish that the government would increase the spending on large construction projects so that the excessive supply has somewhere to go domestically. So, why would they push for the government to open up those reserves to increase their cement production when their supply far exceeds the domestic demands? If they were looking to increase their output so that they could sell to other countries, wouldn’t they be better off using limestone in those countries, or somewhere nearby to reduce the transport cost they were complaining about in the first place? Were they (or the government) looking out for China where a lot of construction work is still going on? Bear in mind that limestone mining and cement production really pollute the air.

In addition, was the pressure from those industries that supported Ma (the Chinese Nationalist Party, KMT) in the election the reason why Ma insisted on increasing government spending on building infrastructure as an economic solution? Was the pressure from certain industries the reason why KMT came up with all sorts of arguments against land restoration in the past?

The latest decision is welcomed as it’s good for environmental protection. It shows that the KMT still has to comply with people’s wishes if their opposition is strong enough. However, this does not mean the KMT has suddenly adopted a fundamental change in their stance on the environment and land restoration. It still remains to be seen.

Taiwan’s environment and land restoration under serious threat

When the public are focusing on Chen Shui-bian’s trial and the new Premier, something detrimental to Taiwan’s environment is going on. It may just prove that Ma Ying-jeou’s promise to place land restoration and flood prevention first and start necessary policy revisions was empty.

I blogged about how the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) boycotted the former DPP administration’s land restoration bill in 2005 but later on tried to take credit for the DPP ideas when they were heavily criticised after Typhoon Morakot in August 2009. I have been waiting to see if the government can come up with their proposals but nothing has been presented. Nevertheless, what has been announced so far is already quite scary.

The lift of a ban on mining in limestone reserves

It just came to light that the Ministry of Economic Affairs is lifting the ban on the development of the limestone reserves. This plan was announced in July and would start in October. The public became aware after Kaohsiung City Government and environmental groups reiterated their oppositions to have the limestone deposit areas in Kaohsiung reopen. They voiced concerns over water conservation and environmental protection if this ban was lifted.

Frank Hsieh, the former Kaohsiung Mayor, also shared his views both on his radio show and on Plurk. Under the government plan, the ban is going to be lifted on 12 reserves, three of which are in the Kaohsiung area. Those areas are still recovering from decades of damage. The Hsieh administration in Kaohsiung City made a lot of effort in restoring Takao Hill and Half Screen (Ban Ping) Mountain. They did not only encounter resistance from local residents and illegal occupants but also blackmails and serious threats. The then Deputy Mayor, Lin Yung-chien, and his team were even physically assaulted on one of their visits to the area.

Several years ago, torrential rain caused floods and mudslides at Mt. Half Screen. If Hsieh’s administration had not built three detention basins around Mt. Half Screen, the villages underneath were very likely to have been seriously flooded or washed away. After a lot of negotiations and hard work, things started moving towards a more positive direction and those areas look very different and much more pleasant now. Why take it away?

Critics questioned why the new Premier Wu would allow this to happen given that he was the Kaohsiung Mayor stopping the mining in 1997.  In response to all the criticisms, Wu immediately stated that the lift of the ban would not go ahead. Many thought that this was the end of the matter. However, it was found that Wu’s press release only applied to those in Kaohsiung City. All the other areas such as those in Hsinchu, Jiayi, Kaohsiung County and Tainan would still be reopened. This will knock the environmental restoration and protection work back for years. Interestingly, all the DPP Mayors and Commissioners immediately expressed their strong oppositions whereas the Hsinchu County Commissioner (KMT) said he welcomed further ‘development’.

Critics also warned of a grim possibility. Under the government administrative structure, it is not possible for a premier to stop a policy already officially approved and announced within 24 hours. He would have to go through a set of procedures to formally abandon the plan. This raises the question of whether Wu was only saying it to avoid public criticisms when in fact the policy is still valid. If the Ma administration was sincere in land restoration and flood prevention, they could have started taking necessary steps to stop and review the lift of this ban weeks ago. Instead, they let it go on.

The more important question should be why the KMT administration is lifting the ban in the first place. Well, one of the sectors that strongly opposed the DPP administration’s land restoration proposal was the cement industry, which uses limestone as one of the raw materials and are looking to benefit if the government lifts the ban. Commentators on Talking Show also questioned whether the cement industry supported and donated to Ma’s campaign during the 2008 presidential election so that the Ma administration was now returning the favour even if that meant destroying the environment and making Taiwan more vulnerable to floods and mudslides.

National land planning and restoration

After Ma Ying-jeou promised to put land restoration in priority in August 2009, the Executive Yuan then started reviewing a land ‘planning’ proposal under which areas that need to be restored would be identified. The DPP felt that the KMT was only looking into ‘planning’ but had not had concrete plans for land restoration and a relocation package associated with it. Therefore, the DPP was re-introducing their draft national land restoration bill when the DPP was in office (the bill was actually blocked by the KMT 73 times rather than 43 as quoted in my previous post).

Ignoring the fact that they had nothing on the table with regard to land restoration (because traditionally, the KMT never concerns themselves with sustainable development and environmental protection as they only see Taiwan as a stepping stone rather than their home) and were poaching the DPP idea without apologising for their boycott 4 years ago, the KMT immediately shot down the DPP draft with the same old party lines they came up with four years ago. KMT Legislator, Lu Hsueh-chang, said that the DPP was only ‘half right’ because the DPP bill neglected the financial and employment needs of residents in those areas. KMT Aboriginal Legislator, Kung Wen-chi, called the DPP bill an ‘ethnic cleansing’ bill which ignored the Aboriginal culture and history. They spoke as if they had a better proposal. The most ironic of all was that May Chin, the Aboriginal legislator who staged a protest against the Japanese government when villages in her constituency were flooded during Typhoon Morakot and then flew to see the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, only a few days after, was also one of the leading members blocking the DPP national land restoration plan back in 2005.

These allegations are either untrue or exaggerated. The DPP did take into account of residents’ financial, educational, medial and employment needs and they were willing to communicate and adapt to the various cultures and preferences. Those KMT party lines could be true but also sounded like excuses to cover what they were really trying to protect, for example, the interests of the cement industry or farmers, perhaps?

Even if the DPP proposal was not that great, the KMT is far from considerate to the flood victims and the Aborigines. Without properly consulting those Aboriginal flood victims, the Post-Typhoon Morakot Reconstruction Special Act was drawn up and quickly approved by the Parliament (as the KMT has an overwhelming majority). This special act gives the government the power to “forcibly relocate residents of disaster-prone areas after first seeking their consensus.” This is more arbitrary than whatever was proposed by the DPP. The victims didn’t feel listened to and staged a post against this special act. They asked the government to postpone it and listen to what they have to say. The Presidential Office sent someone quite junior in the Public Affairs Department to meet with the protesters and he/she only promised to pass on the message to the president. To avoid the press, the representatives were taken to the canteen in the Presidential Office rather than the reception room. What annoyed the protesters even further was that the Presidential Office worker told them that the Presidential Office usually gave visitors water but gave them packaged drinks, which was already ‘pretty good’. What that person didn’t say out loud was probably ‘so you should be grateful…’

Apart from the forceful relocation, the special act is in breach of the Aboriginal Basic Act and Additional Acts of the Constitution. It also excludes environmental assessment and Water Resource Development and Conservation Incentive Regulations. Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly), Kung, who appeared to be so concerned about the Aboriginal culture and accused the DPP of ethnic cleansing, defended this special act and stated that the KMT would listen to the victims and local residents.

The possible sale of Takao Hill conservation areas

Approximately two weeks after Typhoon Morakot, a week after Ma Ying-jeou publicly said that his administration would work on land restoration and flood prevention, the National Property Administration under the Ministry of Finance announced that the government was going to sell the reserved forest land in Takao Hill. The areas earmarked for sale have all been identified as geologically fragile and prone to landslides and are therefore state owned and protected for a reason. If sold to private owners, there is no guarantee how the land will be used and any overuse or human habitation may lead to another disaster. Civil groups and environmentalists are now raising public awareness of this problem and encouraging everyone who feels concerned about the potential damage to express their views and sign a petition.

Lin Sheng-feng, Associate Professor of Architecture and former Minister without Portfolio in the DPP administration was interviewed by Taipei Times just recently after Typhoon Morakot. He reiterated the importance of land restoration especially in the face of climate change, which is going to bring more severe/extreme weather worldwide. He confirmed that he met strong opposition when trying to put the idea into actions back when he was in the Cabinet. He described it as ‘coming up against the brick wall’ when trying to convince the residents in geologically unstable areas not to rebuild roads after landslides.

While it is natural that a lot of people would want things back to the way they used to be and resist the idea of change until they find something acceptable, the KMT’s behaviours towards dealing with such feelings and actual concerns are different before and when they are in charge. When the DPP was in charge, the KMT used (to some extent, I guess ‘stirred’) Aboriginal residents’ and farmers’ concerns and feelings against the DPP to score points. Now they are in charge. They seem to be able to easily brush those people’s concerns aside. The special act and the way the Ma administration responds to the victims show that their thinking centres around what’s easy for them to manage rather than user oriented strategies. This also makes one wonder how serious or sincere the KMT and Ma Ying-jeou himself about their promises on land restoration. What they say and what they actually do are likely to be completely different. The ‘brick wall’ may always be there for those who truly want to and endeavour to protect the environment with the concept of sustainable development in mind. The ‘wall’ would just manifest itself in different forms, depending on what suits the KMT and Ma Ying-jeou.

Kaohsiung County head opposes new limestone quarries

Update on limestone mining and cement industry in Taiwan

Morakot: water management that could have reduced damage in Taiwan

The floods and mudslides bought by Typhoon Morakot got the public wonder again what efforts the Taiwanese government have made in water and flood management and how effective they are. Taipei Times has published an article that discusses the various issues surrounding water management.

Two water management projects were mentioned in the article, one of which was the ‘Eight-year, NT$80 billion’ project. As this was proposed when Frank Hsieh was the premier, the blue camp was very quick to call this project a failure and shift the blame to the DPP government and Frank Hsieh perhaps in an attempt to divert attention on their lack of efforts and efficiency in the rescue when Typhoon Morakot hit. Unfortunately, the article in Taipei Times did not go into enough detail about how this flood prevention project came about and how it has been manipulated and implemented by the KMT. It may leave the impression that the whole idea was not viable from the very beginning when in fact the original DPP draft special act and its special budget could have worked but were boycotted by the KMT in the Parliament for over a year and half. The items have been altered following a huge increase in the budget pushed through by the KMT caucus in 2006. At that time, Frank Hsieh had already left his post as Premier and his successor was DPP’s Su Chen-chang. The current project should be called ‘Eight-year, NT$116 billion’ programme which does not stick to the original plan. Furthermore, the efficiency of the KMT implementation has left a lot to be desired. Therefore, these two should NOT be seen as identical and Frank Hsieh and his Cabinet should not be blamed for the KMT’s manipulation and failure.

The DPP flood management proposal

During decades of the KMT regime, a lot of roads/bridges/real estate development cut straight through watercourses or wetlands without considering the environmental impacts. Such a policy has reduced Taiwan’s natural capacity to relieve floods and the KMT only knows to build levees to block water. In fact, until very recently, Ma Ying-jeou still believed in this outdated practice as he commented after Typhoon Kalmaegi last year that the solution for floods was just to make levees higher.

The DPP, on the other hand, has recognised long ago that effective water management and flood prevention have to take the environment and ecological balance into account. The ‘Eight-year, NT$80 billion’ project proposed by Frank Hsieh when he was the premier aimed to allocate resources to local authorities, as opposed to the central government, in flood prone areas for water management and flood prevention because the amount of money allocated to the management of rivers and watercourses by the local authority was measly and it would take about 80 years to get all the work done. The proposed project placed emphasis on prevention methods in line with ecological balance such as the use of detention basins, dredging and flood diversion. Water drainage and sewage systems would also be cleared and/or built. Levees/dikes would only be built where necessary. This project was meant to be implemented with the national land restoration proposal, which I tentatively tried to explain in my previous post, in order to reach the optimal level of improvement. Unfortunately, both have been boycotted by the blue camp in the Parliament.

The KMT manoeuvre in the Parliament

The draft special act for flood management was sent to the Parliament on 18 May 2005. The blue camp blocked it straight away. They smeared Frank Hsieh through all the channels at their disposal. Some questioned why it would cost that much, where Hsieh was going to find the funding for this and whether Hsieh was compromising other important budgets for this proposal. Legislative Speaker, Wang Jing-ping, even publicly accused Hsieh of trying to buy votes with this proposal. Hsieh pointed out that Taipei alone cost the government NT$400 billion on flood problems and why would NT$800 billion be too much for the whole country? There were no grounds for the accusations made by the blue camp and it was likely that the KMT was just projecting. Despite this, Hsieh kept urging the Parliament to discuss and review the draft bill but got no positive response. In July 2005, Ma Ying-jeou was elected the KMT chairperson.

In September 2005, it was still going nowhere. Hsieh made a gutsy decision to ask the legislators to take a vote of no confidence against him as Premier on the basis that his water management bill was no good for the country. This way, the President could dismiss the Parliament and the proposal could be decided through a referendum. Ma Ying-jeou then responded by saying that there was no need for such a drastic action and that the KMT caucus simply felt the content of the draft was too brief, which made the review very difficult. Two days later, the DPP administration held a press conference and showed all the records of meetings which proved that Ma was always present. They questioned why Ma only said it was too brief after weeks of discussions at which he himself was present. In fact, the Cabinet had provided every legislator 60 pages of relevant documents in good time. Ma was caught out but the majority of the press kept quiet about this.

In December 2005, the KMT won the majority of the counties/cities at the mayoral elections while the DPP only won seven. This was the turning point of the KMT’s attitudes towards the draft special act probably because the KMT was sure that from then on, they would be running a lot of the local authorities. If they had not won so many counties/cities, they might have carried on blocking it completely. Given that they won, they did not only agree to it but increase the total budget to NT$116 billion on 10 January 2006, completely forgetting that they (and their supporters) had accused Hsieh of buying votes with this proposal and questioned where the money was going to come from. They increased the budget probably with the intent to claim credits for the efforts in flood prevention at a later date and any shortfall would just be picked up by taxpayers. The following day, they even tried to slip in another ‘NT$500 billion over 5 years’ special budget, which was highly suspected by NGOs. On 13 January 2006, the Special Act for Flood Management was passed. As the budget has changed, the items listed underneath also had to be altered. Therefore, the project has then deviated from Frank Hsieh’s original proposal.

In May 2006, the DPP administration under Premier Su finalised the amendments to the flood management package but the blue camp boycotted the special budget for the first phase of the flood management programme. In June 2006, heavy rainfall in the south caused floods. To avoid public criticisms, the KMT put the draft budget as the second item on the list and the first was the pan-blue coalition’s proposal to impeach President Chen Shui-bian. The blue camp told the green camp that they would only review the water management draft budgets after the green camp agreed to their impeachment proposal. As a result, nothing was passed. The standstill angered people in flood prone areas in the south and many staged a protest outside the Parliament, demanding the flood management budget being passed. In the end, the impeachment was rejected and the special budget for the first phase of the flood management was approved. The first phase covered the work planned for 2006 and 2007.

KMT inefficiency in the implementation since Ma took office

The content of the programme aside, it is a fact that the rivers that flooded and spilt into those maintained by the local authorities during and after Typhoon Morakot are all managed by the central government. The most important point is that the second phase (2008 – 2010) of the programme, solely administrated and implemented by Ma’s government, has been found to be very inefficient. The completion rates were only between 20% and 30% whereas the first phase, near the end of the former DPP government, went much better than the second phase. Therefore, instead of attacking Hsieh, the media should really question what the KMT and Ma’s government have done with the NT$116 billion programme.

Water management in Kaohsiung under Frank Hsieh

To understand the potential of the original flood management proposal, we can get some ideas from the water management in Kaohsiung City because the City has escaped several floods, including the one caused by Typhoon Morakot, relatively unscathed compared to other counties/cities in the south. The city has not only recovered quickly but also been able to send support teams to other affected areas. Apart from the Mayor’s abilities in their coordination and organisation during a disaster, the main reason was the various water management projects which Hsieh initiated and completed are now showing long term benefits for Kaohsiung. For example:

After a flood in 1998 that affected Kaohsiung, especially the Ben-ho area, the City Government under Hsieh invited experts to investigate the problem and recommend viable solutions. Based on the expert assessment and recommendations, the Hsieh administration adopted ecological engineering such as building and using detention basins in conjunction with a natural lake nearby to detain water and alleviate floods. Now, the Ben-ho detention basin (wetland) has a basketball court on top and there was a pleasant park right next to it with a nice footpath. It does not only alleviate floods but also give local people a nice place they can enjoy.

Hsieh explained that the Ben-ho area used to be a natural wetland which could have valuable flood control function. As the consequences of going against the natural environment has proven more detrimental than human beings had envisaged, he and his administration endeavoured to restore or develop wetlands and green areas as much as possible. One way they encouraged local residents to turn unused space into green areas was to reduce taxes and charges on the land if the owners planted grass or trees and maintained the green. He also rejected a proposal to build a particular car park because after careful assessment, it was felt that the roads around that piece of land were to narrow to contain the potential traffic bought in by a car park anyway. As it could link to other green areas, it was turned into a wetland. Hsieh’s administration also widened and dredged the watercourses and built/clear drainage in the Kaohsiung area to help with water flows. They also built sewage systems to improve water quality in the city. The percentage of sewers went from 5% to 45% during Hsieh’s time. Hsieh also streamlined the water management structure and administration to improve the efficiency.

The Yuanshanzih Sluiceway

Another DPP effort that has been proved effective in flood prevention was the Yuanshanzih Sluiceway. This was planned under the KMT administration. However, just like the Kaohsiung MRT, it was never put into action under the KMT administration. The KMT water management was heavily dominated by those with vested interest and by whoever got the authority’s attention at the time. As such, the work was never carried out systematically and the KMT authority simply worked on random and disjointed sections of the river. It was only until Yu Shyi-kun was Premier that the project was properly carried out.

The construction started in 2002 and completed in 2004/5. The sluiceway now helps filter out mud from Keelung River. When the water hit the threshold, the sluicegate would automatically open and redirect the water into the sea. The DPP administration also dredged the watercourse, built water gates, made bridges higher and repaired dikes along the whole river. As soon as the river level reaches the threshold, the bridges would be closed to prevent floods getting in and keep the public away from danger. Apart from the construction, Yu’s administration streamlined the management system and administrative procedures to improve the effectiveness of water management. Since its completion and operation, areas that used to flood every time there was a typhoon or heavy rain such as Sijhih, Wudu, Rueifang (in Taipei County), Neihu and Nankang (in Taipei City) no longer suffer from floods. In fact, the housing markets in those areas, especially Neihu, Nankang and Sijhih soared afterwards.

It is evident that the water management projects under DPP’s Frank Hsieh and Yu Shyi-kun have been successful. Their Cabinets have also attempted to address damage with the view to restore the environment at a national level but the blue camp boycotted and manipulated those attempts for their own political gains. If the blue camp had not block the national land restoration bill and passed the original flood management as it was in 2005, a lot more could have been done. The most outrageous was that when their own inefficiency and poor behaviours were exposed and criticised, the blue camp chose to muddy the waters through the media and shift the blame to the DPP, especially Frank Hsieh, rather than owning up to their responsibilities. This puts a further dent in people’s confidence in their willingness and abilities to keep any of the promises they have made.

(Jay also contributed greatly to this post by sharing his knowledge of and observations on this matter. I would also like to thank him for reading and commenting on my draft before its publication.)

Morakot: Ma Ying-jeou’s idea of land restoration?

When asked by ITV correspondent, Ma Ying-jeou blamed the victims for not evacuating. In fact, the worst hit village, Hsiao-lin, did evacuate but the places they were supposed to go to in the evacuation plan were also affected by the flood and mudslides. So those who made to these places were still in great danger. As Hsiao-lin had been identified as one of the areas sensitive to floods and landslides, if the residents had been relocated by the government before, this tragedy could have been prevented.

Perhaps as a valiant attempt to save his public image, Ma Ying-jeou brought up the prevention for future mudslides and how humans cannot overpower the nature both in an interview with Economics Daily News on 14 August and in his international press conference on 18 August. The Ministry of the Interior will put forward a draft national land planning act which would incorporate a package of land restoration in a month. While the idea itself sounds reasonable, Taipei Times pointed out that a proposal like this was already put together years ago by the DPP administration but was smeared and totally blocked by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) dominated parliament at the time.

The DPP idea

Indeed, after Typhoon Mindulle hit Taiwan and caused floods in July 2004, the then Premier, Yu Shyi-kun, under the DPP administration asked the Council for Economic Planning and Development to get expert assessments and report on the problem. Scientists identified a combination of factors that contributed to the severe damage. The more proximate causes were found to be the geological structure loosened by the devastating 921 Earthquake and climate change in recent years. The underlying and ultimate causes were actually the overuse and abuse of land for agricultural or business development as well as poor forest management in the mountains, land strategies employed by the Chinese Nationalist Party throughout the 60s to the 90s.

As the geological structures were damaged by the earthquake and inappropriate land use, there was a need to survey all the land and identify unstable structures and sensitive areas. Taipei Times reported on 13 July 2004:

The Cabinet is drafting a special bill to ban land development, road construction or repair, farming or residence in certain areas in the wake of the devastating flooding caused by Tropical Storm Mindulle, which killed 29 people and left 12 others missing.

“We’re thinking of adopting a two-pronged approach. In addition to cutting down on or outlawing land development in mountain, coastal and flood-prone areas, we’d offer incentives to residents living in such areas to encourage them to relocate or to sell those lands to the government,” Premier Yu Shyi-kun told reporters yesterday afternoon.

…

Minister without Portfolio Lin Sheng-feng said that Yu has ordered a team of experts to pre-sent a preliminary report about the damage and propose alternative plans in two weeks and a more comprehensive report within three months.

“We don’t want to spend a lot of money to build an infrastructure which lasts for only a few years or cannot withstand another natural disaster as powerful as Mindulle,” Lin said.

One reconstruction project put on hold was the Central Cross Island Highway. The 25km highway segment was about to be reopened early July 2004 but when Mindulle hit, it was damaged once more with falling rocks, landslides and mudflows. As Taipei Times reported on 6 August 2004:

“We have spent about NT$1.3 billion repairing roads damaged by the Sept. 21 earthquake in 1999 and NT$750 million on land conservation,” Premier Yu Shyi-kun told reporters yesterday in Chiufen.

“The damage caused by Mindulle may cost between NT$4.5 billion and NT$9.2 billion for road repairs, NT$750 million for land and water conservation and NT$10.5 billion for fixing damaged reservoirs and equipment at hydroelectric plants,” Yu said. “We’d waste more of the taxpayers’ money if we don’t decide to put it [road repair] off now.”

To address these problems and make any future development sustainable, the DPP administration proposed a draft national land planning act and a draft national land restoration act following the expert assessments. Under the framework of the draft land planning act, the government would identify all the fragile structures and ban constructions in those areas. For those already living or farming in those areas, the draft land restoration act (later revised as the draft bill on land restoration and conservation) had both practical and financial provisions to help them move away and build new lives in areas identified as suitable for habitation and agricultural activities.

The mountainous areas

Under the DPP proposal of national land restoration, ‘farming, logging and land development on mountainous areas higher than 1,500m will be banned except for those in Aboriginal settlements’. Taipei Times reported:

The nation’s mountainous areas will be classified into three conservation zones.

Category I areas are those higher than 1,500m, where farming, logging and land development will be banned.

Farmland must be allowed to go fallow and existing buildings or facilities will have to be demolished within five to 15 years.

Certain exceptions will be allowed, however. These include Aboriginal settlements with more than 30 families, facilities for conservation, study or tourism, Aboriginal historical relics, defence facilities and public facilities.

Category II would cover mountainous areas between 500m and 1,500m. New farming or new developments will be banned, but existing legal operators will be allowed to remain.

Category III areas include mountainous areas lower than 500m. Any land developments must be based on sustainable development and local governments are required to regularly review their development policies and obtain permission from the central government for developing land.

The draft also recommends spending NT$100 billion over the next 10 years on land restoration projects.

The fund would help Aboriginal settlements that are willing to relocate in a group. The draft stipulates that the central government should find a new place for them to live and help them with employment, education and preserving their traditions and culture.

While some have argued that the bill will jeopardize the livelihoods of Aboriginal people, Chang Ching-sen, vice chairman of the Cabinet’s Council for Economic Planning and Development, said that this was a groundless accusation.

‘Statistics show that 99 percent of Aborigines live in mountainous areas lower than 1,500m,’ he said.

In addition, the government would pay the Aboriginal land owners the same amount of money they get from letting their land to farmers or buy their land. The government woule then plant trees or help land ownders do so in those areas. Mountainous areas higher than 1,500m, potential landslides and flows zones, areas within 150m from river banks and near reservoirs would be put in priority. If after a while, the land has been assessed and found to be stabilised, the government would consider developing eco friendly tourism. The DPP administration met with strong resistance from the Aboriginal groups, farmers and their associated legislators. Some attacked Chang for his tourism idea and argued that it would actually place more burdens on the roads and the land than excessive farming.

Chang refuted their accusation and explained that apart from the above provisions, the draft bill would ensure that the necessary paths would be kept or built for the Aboriginal settlements when big roads that harm the environment and the geological structure would not be allowed. He pointed out that those dangerous big roads and excessive use of the mountainous land wereactually not going to help with their development in the long run. Therefore, the government would help the Aborigines run specially designed eco friendly transport services that only the Aborigines would have the knowledge and capacity to run. The above package as a whole intended to help the Aborigines maintain their culture and lifestyles as much as possible and develop their niche at the same time.

Former Minister without Portfolio, currently Associate Professor of Architecture, Lin Sheng-feng had an article that challenged the past idea of man overpowering the nature and summarised the DPP administration’s proposal in relation to the land restoration and conservation of the mountains and the forests. He pointed out that apart from national land planning and restoration, other relevant legislations such as Forestry Law, Water Resource Development and Conservation Incentive Regulations, National Park Act and Culture Assets Preservation Act etc. also needed to be looked into.

The coast

Former vice chairman of the Cabinet’s Council for Economic Planning and Development, Chang, explained on a radio programme that similar approaches were also proposed for the coastal areas in the same bill. The government would identify areas showing land subsidence resulted from illegal groundwater extraction and embankment and coast lines damaged by pumping sea water for fish farming, the draft bill proposed that the government buy the 1/3 of fish farms that were not active and turn those areas into wetlands and detention ponds, maintained by the government. The ponds could help alleviate floods and the detained water could supply the fish farms. The sea water needed by those fish farms would be taken from the open sea and managed by the government. The affected land could also be turned into artificial islands. In addition, the government would punish those who dig wells for groundwater extraction rather than the fish farmers. As to people already living in those areas, again, the government would provide practical and financial assistance for them to relocate and/or re-train, depending on their wishes.

The KMT and pan-blue coalition sabotage

The DPP administration put the draft national land restoration legislation forward to the Parliament in 2005. The blue (mainly KMT) legislators blocked it 43 times and did not even let it through the Procedure Committee.

Any drafts and bills sent to the Parliament have to go through the Procedure Committee first. If passed, the Committee will then pass them on to the relevant Committees for discussion and review. This Committee is the gatekeeper and the membership is made up proportionate to the number of seats each political party has in the Parliament. As the blue camp always has the majority in the Parliament, they always dominate the Procedure Committee. Not letting the national land restoration proposal through the Procedure Committee meant that they did not even want a discussion on this subject in the relevant Committee(s) in the Parliament. In other words, they did not even give it a chance. This draft bill is actually not the only casualty under their ‘scorched earth policy’.

The main reason for their sabotage was probably not to give the DPP any credit or an easy ride. If floods happened again, they could just blame the DPP administration because the DPP was in charge. The majority of the people wouldn’t think about what happened in the Parliament especially with the help from the pro-KMT media. Human lives and sustainable development seemed to be secondary in their calculations.

Furthermore, the national land planning and restoration might affect those with vested interest. As the draft bill had provisions for Aboriginal residents and farmers to relocate and re-train, a lot of them gradually came around to the idea. However, there could be others such as companies that make profits from road/housing construction and reconstruction or business development and the cement processing industry etc. as Taipei Times reported:

Chen Tai-hsiung, a deputy director of the Bureau of Mines, said that the land restoration plan would be seen to have an adverse impact on the cement, iron and steel and petrochemical processing industries. He added that if the plan was implemented, Taiwan’s cement and marble processing industries would be the first to be affected, with many plants in these sectors being forced to close down because of a dearth of raw materials.

However,

Taiwan Cement Corp, one of the country’s major cement producers, said it does NOT expect the national land restoration plan to have any immediate impact on its business operations.

A corporate source said that Taiwan Cement has taken out leases on three mine areas around the nation for the extraction of rocks for the production of cement. The leases don’t expire until 2017.

In addition, the source said, according to new extraction contracts, only 3 percent of the land is at an elevation of higher than 1,000m above sea level.

The Ma Ying-jeou administration

In 2008, after Ma Ying-jeou took office, the KMT dominated Parliament rejected the draft bill completely, citing ‘it would affect the country’s development and avoid the public scrutiny’ as reasons. Now, the Ma administration is in serious trouble for their lack of efforts and efficiency after Typhoon Morakot and Ma started talking about national land planning and restoration. It seems that anything for Ma and the KMT is just to serve their political interests only. If the DPP bill had been reviewed and passed 4 years ago, a lot could have been done and some tragedies and losses could have been avoided. Ma is now reiterating what the DPP had foreseen and started addressing, which his own party rejected completely. Has he (or have they) shown or felt any guilt, regret or remorse? While working on the draft acts and promoting the idea of national land planning, restoration and conservation, the DPP administration took a lot of heat. Any apologies to them?

I do hope that some progress could be made on the land planning and restoration. However, over the past year, Ma Ying-jeou and his administration have not shown any real vision or concern about Taiwan except actions that will speed up the annexation of Taiwan to china. Indeed, during his interview with Economic Daily News on 14 August, he was still promoting EFCA and said it looked hopeful to have it signed during the first half of 2010 (I can’t find the article online. Please refer to Talking Show on 17 August where the host showed a copy on the show). He also talked about ECFA when he met with some Taiwanese businessmen in China on 14 August. Even if they had a change of heart, they have not shown enough competence to convince me that things would be carried out properly and efficiently.

(Many thanks to Jay for drawing my attention to the radio programme and other relevant information.)

Morakot: the inefficiency of Ma Ying-jeou’s administration

Morakot: the serious lack of concern of the Ma-Ying-jeou administration

Taipei Times: Tough land use policies are crucial

Morakot: the inefficiency of Ma Ying-jeou’s administration

It has been seven days since Typhoon Morakot hit Taiwan. The death toll is likely to be over 500 and we may not know the real figure. The government has been heavily criticised. Jay sent me an article that gives details and insight into the Ma administration, compared to former President Lee Teng-hui’s administration. I am not translating all the information but some key issues.

The Ma administration knew the damage but they only held a national security meeting 7 days afterwards and left the local administrations to contact the various military units on their own. The Premier said he considered this fast because after the 921 earthquake in 1999 (he was Deputy Premier at the time), he did not start working on the rescue and relief until 28 September. This was untrue.

The earthquake happened at 1:47am on 21 September 1999. Former President Lee immediately sent Deputy Councillor of National Security Council (NSC), Hu Wei-chen, to the area to assess the scale of the disaster. He also deployed troops at 2:30am. As Hu found the damage to be too severe for the local administrations to handle, NSC immediately called an emergency meeting between the NSC Councillor, Head of National Security Bureau, Ministry of National Defence (MND) Chief of Staff, the Premier and relevant ministers. President Lee went to the affected areas the following morning (22 Sept). On the same day, a steering group to oversee the rescue and relief efforts was set up in Nantou, headed by the then vice president, Lien Chan. On 26 September, President Lee called a high level government meeting during which they decided to set up a commission for the reconstruction of the affected areas. On the 27^th, the commission was formally set up by the Executive Yuan, with the then premier, Vincent Siew, as the commissioner and Liu as deputy and chief executive.

When President Lee inspected the affected areas, he was usually briefed by the military and always accompanied by the MND Chief of Staff, Tang Yao-ming while Ma Ying-jeou has only been accompanied by either KMT candidates for the next local election or Deputy Secretary General of the Presidential Office. As soon as a problem was identified, President Lee would send his order as the Commander in Chief. To ensure swift and effective actions, MND Chief of Staff, Tang, ordered all the troops to get where they were deployed on time or the operation would be deemed as failed.

However, it seems that none of the ministers in the Ma administration know their jobs and what they are supposed to do. An article in the Next Magazine gives some detailed information on what might have happened.

Ministry of National Defence

As the ‘president’ did not declare a state of emergency and order the military to take over the coordination of the rescue effort, Minister of National Defence, Chen Chao-min and Chief of Staff, Lin Chen-yi, considered coordinating rescue and relief efforts the responsibilities of Ministry of the Interior, which will be talked about later.

After the MND responded to the situation and deployed more troops, the Minister, Chen, seemed to be more preoccupied with his rank. On 12 August, Chen went to inspect a place where about 40 soldiers were working on a temporary bridge. When he arrived, all the soldiers had to put everything down and stand at attention. He let those young men stay in that position for 40 minutes while he was being briefed by the staff, interviewed by the press and photographed with the troops, 40 minutes of valuable time in a rescue mission.

As there was literally no central command, the local authority of Lin-bian at Pingtung had to directly request support from the army at 8:20am on 8 August. An army base sent five armoured fighting vehicles over but when they arrived at 9:30am, the ground floor was already all under water and the troops couldn’t get in. They then reported back to their base and asked for 10 rubber boats, the nearest of which were however more than 50 kms away in Tainan.

As the army did not anticipate how widespread the floods were and it might be beyond their capability, it didn’t occur to them to contact the navy base nearby in the first instant. According to the official record, the nearest navy base was contacted around 9:30am and arrived by 10:30am but the vehicles they sent were already useless at that point.

Just before 11am, the army commander arrived at Lin-bian himself, saw how wide the area was under water and realised that the 10 rubber boats which were still on the way were far from enough. It then dawned on him to talk to the navy again about getting the amphibious force involved for their skills and equipment. So the navy base got a request for three rubber boats and the amphibious force at 11:15 but they could not simply send whoever or whatever was requested without an order or clearance unless the disaster was near their base. Therefore, people in Lin-bian could only wait for the 10 rubber boats requested earlier to arrive and the amphibious force to be cleared to go. The 10 rubber boats and the troops from Tainan finally arrived at 12:20pm and between 11am and 12:20pm, almost nothing was done on the rescue.

The amphibious troops arrived soon after 12:20pm but the flooded area was too big and the residents were too scattered. So the first rescue mission was not very effective. After hours of waiting for rescue that never came, the residents started contacting the media and people outside for help. It was only until the media kept showing images of the damage that MND realised how serious it was and decided to send in more amphibious troops and the latest equipment.

Minister of the Interior

Liao, Liao-yi, was reported to ‘disappear’ during meetings about the typhoon on 7 and 9 August but Liao denied this and told the reporter that he only went on leave for 2 hours on the 8^th during which he asked Public Works Commissioner to care take.

Even though the law stipulates that Ministry of the Interior bears the responsibility to oversee work during disasters but the actual tasks and associated responsibilities fall under different ministries: Ministry of the Interior for typhoons, Ministry of Transportation and Communication for traffic related incidents, Ministry of Economic Affairs for floods, Council of Agriculture for mudslides… when all those happen at the same time and the country’s leader doesn’t step up, no one seems to know what to do except passing the buck.

Council of Agriculture & Ma Ying-joeu

While talking to CNN, Ma Ying-jeou openly attributed the responsibilities to the victims not evacuating. In fact, the worst hit village, Hsiao-lin already had some mudslides last year. If the Council of Agriculture enforced evacuation, many lives could have been saved. The former Councillor of Agriculture, Su Chia-chuan, under the DPP government, had demonstrated how he would evacuate when there was a red alert. He would personally follow up on the progress of evacuation. However, this time, the Council did not do more than issuing warnings.

Minister of Justice & Councillor of Labour Affairs

Ministry of Justice may not be directly relevant but has to deal with the possible increase of crimes and the unreasonable increase of prices for necessities. Council of Labour Affairs need to look into employment needs after the disaster. However, these two ministers (Wang, Ching-feng and Wang Ju-shiuan) saw fit to go to the south to distribute food in one of the affected areas. Someone yelled at Wang Ching-feng, saying it was all just a show and they were not needed there. Embarrassed, Wang answered back ‘At least you can vent your frustration [to me]’. (It may also be interpreted as ‘At least I can make you angry.’)

When Ma blamed the Central Weather Bureau, he forgot that people needed to be rescued regardless of the accuracy of the CWB prediction. He then blamed the victims for not evacuating without looking at his administration’s responsibilities. To date, they still haven’t revealed their whereabouts on the 7^th and 8^th and some were said to ‘disappear’ for considerable periods of time.

When we read the following story, we might know why Ma would forget so many important things. Two girls (aged 2 years, 5 months) were buried under the mud for 2 and 5 minutes respectively. They suffocated but were revived. They would have died if their grandfather hadn’t searched and got them out of the mud with his own bear hands. When Ma visited them, he picked up the 2 year old and said to her ‘You are so good cos you can hold your breath for two minutes!’

The DPP, on the other hand, are doing everything they can with 2/3 of their employees helping in the affected areas, in addition to the current legislators and councillors and candidates working on rescue and relief. No one is posing for the camera nor did the party as a whole attack the government. At the moment, most of the criticisms come from the people.

Some wonder whether the government’s lack of concerns about human lives will cost them dearly in the next election, considering how unpopular Lien Chan got because of the way he behaved after the 921 earthquake. I’m not too optimistic at the moment because ten years ago, 1) the media were not protecting Lien as they are protecting Ma now, 2) China’s influence had not penetrated Taiwan as it is now and President Lee did not kowtow to China like Ma is, 3) the DPP was healthier than it is now. I do hope people will see Ma and his party for what they are and make a different choice next time but at this moment, one can only hope.

Morakot: the serious lack of concern of the Ma-Ying-jeou administration

Morakot: the serious lack of concern of the Ma-Ying-jeou administration

Taiwan has been hit by typhoon Morakot on 7^th and 8^th August and the heavy rainfall caused serious flooding and landslide in the South. At the time of the writing, the death toll is reported to be 62 and many are either trapped or unaccounted for. The Ma administration has been criticised for their slow actions, lack of concerns and displacement of responsibilities.

First of all, let’s take a look at a screen shot of the National Disaster Prevention and Protection Commission website on 9^th August. It only reported incidents up to 3^rd August and said ‘No major disaster’ at the top.

More and more people are asking the central government and the ruling party to reveal officials’ whereabouts since 7th because the government did not appear to be taking any action until the evening of 8th as the Central Weather Bureau had already issued a typhoon warning on 6th. Based on available information, we know the following:

On the evening of 7th August, when the rain started pouring down, Ma Ying-jeou was supposed to go to the central emergency command centre at 20:10. However, he actually went to a wedding first. He arrived after 19:00, stayed for an hour and half and read a poem. Because the bride was from China, Ma and the host went on about the cross-strait relations, equating their marriage to the ‘win-win development’ for both sides and the 4th link after the ‘three links’.

On 9^th August, when the situation was serious, both Ma Ying-jeou and Premier Liu Chiao-shiuan blamed the local governments for misjudging the situation, not evacuating fast enough and requesting the wrong equipment. Ma also blamed the Central Weather Bureau for the inaccuracy of their reports. After they realised how frustrated people were at the government’s inefficiency and lack of efforts, Ma and Liu both paid visits to some affected areas. At one place Ma visited, local people were initially kept from approaching Ma who was surrounded by heavy security. A distressed young man and his mother were grabbed from their neck and waist and dragged away. When they were allowed to approach, Ma was ‘visibly irritated and impatient’ towards them. The young man, whose father was reported missing but got no police response at the time, cried ‘we all voted for you but why is it difficult to see you when we need you?’ Ma responded impatiently ‘I didn’t know you wanted to see me… Well, you’ve seen me now, haven’t you?’ He went on to say that he understood how the young man was feeling because his father had also passed away. Ma then announced that local governments should bear full responsibilities for relief effort. Please note that most the affected counties and cities are run by DPP Mayors except Chiayi City, Taitung and Hualian, the latter two of which traditionally support the KMT.

Liu did not do too well on his visits either. The most disappointing was that he announced that he was going to stay in a disaster zone in Pingtung when in reality, he stayed at the Kaohsiung Armed Forces Hero House (a nice and comfortable hotel), situated in Kaohsiung city. He arrived at the hotel before 19:00. The TVBS correspondent emphasised that the hotel room was not expensive, which may or may not be true, but the point was that he did not stay where he said he was going to and his hotel room was definitely more comfortable than a place in an affected area. To make matters worse, both Ma and Liu were found to be accompanied by KMT nominated candidates for the next local election without the current Mayors who are DPP members. They were criticised for putting the election campaigin before the people.

In the mid of the disaster, the Chinese Nationalist Party was still running around for their central committee election on 16th August. Government officials have been found to use public resources and government venues for this party election and a dinner party for this election was still on when the typhoon hit. They only banned all campaign activities on 10^th August which some simply ignored. In contrast, the DPP already stopped all campaign activities at least two days before and started taking donations of anything useful for the victims and organising volunteers (several have made personal donations). Please check their blog for information in English. The DPP chairperson, Tsai Ing-wen, recommended steps the government should take. Many DPP legislators, councillors and candidates put everything else on hold, focusing on collecting and distributing donated food and water. Frank Hsieh’s charity also responded immediately. Some of DPP figures, NGOs, volunteers and ordinary citizens reached and rescued many trapped, using their own network and resources.

The internet community has responded faster than the government. Dr. Billy Pan set up a Google Map showing spots that have been affected. He used Plurk as a channel of communication and anyone with updates could post it on his Plurk. He also gave a list of email addresses of people who volunteered to work on this map. XDite, the one who caught Ma Ying-jeou out on his online ‘weekly report’ also set up a support website. Many spent day and night posting and forwarding messages of where people may have been trapped or what is needed and over 100 young volunteers turned up at Taipei City Councillor, Chien Yuyen’s office, to help pack and move donated food and essentials.

On 11^th August, China Times launched another paper, mainly reporting on China. Their slogan is ‘[putting] Taiwan in priority and cross-strait relations first’. They are collaborating with major news agencies in China and sina.com. Several senior government and KMT figures attended the press conference, including the KMT chairperson, Wu Po-hsiung, honorary chairperson, Lien Chan, head of Control Yuan, Wang Chien-hsiuan, Presidential Office Secretary General, Chan Chun-po, Mainland Affairs Councillor, Lai Hsin-yuan and Strait Exchange Foundation president, PK Chiang. The atmosphere was reported to be great.

Until now, Ma still has not declared a state of emergency which would ensure more efficient coordination of all the efforts and resources. After the most serious flooding Taiwan has seen over half of a century, the government has only mobilised 8,235 soldiers and military personnel for relief effort while the size of Taiwan’s military is about 200,000 active and 1.5 million in the reserve. Let’s not forget that right after the 921 earthquake 10 years ago, 15,000 troops were mobilised for the rescue and relief effort and Pasuya Yao said on his radio programme today that 6,000 had been sent to build the stage for Deaflympics in Taipei. This information was disclosed by Taipei City Councillor, Chuang Jui-hsiung. Ma did not accept offers to help from the US and Japan either. Is he saving the spot for China and waiting for China to step in? The more serious question is: what is Ma putting first?

Acknowledgement: many thanks to Jay, who provided a lot of valuable information and the screen shot of the webpage which is no longer available.

Morakot: the inefficiency of Ma Ying-jeou’s administration