- All articles

All articles

- Election interference cases spike: ministry

- Presidential platforms focus on economy, relations

- No new students enrolled at 112 university programs

- ‘New York Times’ sues AI developers over content use

- US provides US$250m in arms for Ukraine

- Six special municipalities to convene over stabbing

- Nation unlikely to reach traffic death reduction goal

- Childcare workers protest ‘unfair’ work conditions

- Tourism Administration unveils eldery subsidies

- China put pressure on Mayday: sources

- Candidates weigh in on school stabbing, policies

- Pro-China view propped up by political pundit videos

- Ko remark harms diplomacy: MOFA

- Troll messaging shifts from ‘war’ to ‘service agreement’

- No unification talks with China if elected: Jaw

- Before kickoff

- Stepping into the past

- Capital showdown

- Pegatron to forfeit control of subsidiary

- Siemens Gamesa says expansion is ahead of schedule

- Commercial property deals in Taiwan increase 2.8%

- South Korea chip output rises as demand improves

- Norway fund drops Saudi Aramco and 11 other Gulf firms

- Xiaomi unveils its first electric sedan, the SU7

- Drivers’ delights

- EDITORIAL: Third group endorsement important

- More needed for minority voters

- India is eyeing Taiwan’s elections

- Best way to avoid war is to not be phased by Xi

- EDITORIAL CARTOON

- This was Japan’s big year of soft power

- Weelchair Barbie is like looking in the mirror, this is progress

- LawConnect edges Comanche by 51s

- Manchester City inspired by Club World Cup title

- LeVert hits go-ahead three in Cavaliers win

- Japan’s Yoshinobu Yamamoto joins LA Dodgers in MLB

- Son Heung-min to lead South Korea at Asian Cup

- Michigan court denies ban for Trump

- Protesters storm refugee shelter in Indonesia

- India targeting journalists with spyware: Amnesty

- Russian stars’ semi-naked party sparks huge backlash

- Former European Commission president Jacques Delors dies at 98

- World News Quick Take

- Is Taipei really a food paradise?

- Highlight: Combatting human trafficking

- Exposing Celie’s inner life

- Mums at work: South Korean company’s pro-parent, office-free policies

- SPEAK UP: Taipei Dome opens after much delay 台北終於孵出大巨蛋

Election interference cases spike: ministry

TREND TO CONTINUE: People should be careful when someone offers a free banquet or tour, as these activities could be part of their vote-buying tactics, an official said

By Chung Li-hua and Jason Pan / Staff reporters

There are 157 people under investigation for alleged election interference in 77 cases, up from 27 suspects in 17 cases two weeks ago, mostly for facilitating propaganda trips to China, the Ministry of Justice said yesterday.

Prosecutors have intensified efforts to investigate contraventions of the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法), Deputy Minister of Justice Huang Mou-hsin (黃謀信) said after briefing the Cabinet on the matter.

Outside interference mainly came from Chinese sources, as many of the cases under investigation involve junket trips to China in which local elected officials allegedly led people on mostly paid-for tours of Chinese cities, Huang said.

Then-Jhushan Township mayor Lin Meng-li, third left, attends a campaign event with then-Nantou County commissioner candidate Hsu Shu-hua, left, in the county last year. Photo from Lin Meng-li’s Facebook

The trips are one of five main ways the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is meddling in the election, Department of Prosecutorial Affairs Director-General Kuo Yung-fa (郭永發) said.

The other four methods are Taiwanese influencers colluding with CCP officials to spread Chinese propaganda; disseminating disinformation through news firms and social media; polling and public relations companies manipulating survey results; and using artificial intelligence to generate falsified materials to smear certain candidates, Kuo said.

Investigators have reported an escalating trend of these activities in recent weeks and expect more meddling heading into the final two weeks of the election campaign, he said, adding that more indictments are expected nearer to election day on Jan.13.

Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) also said that outside forces are helping to fund underground gambling rings to entice people to bet on voting outcomes.

“This can influence public opinion and sway voters, thereby changing election outcomes,” Chen said.

Judicial authorities are also bolstering efforts to track money and human networks, and monitor digital information, the ministry said.

“Actions are being taken to cut off suspicious money transfers from foreign sources and respond faster to disinformation, requiring Web site proprietors to remove them,” Kuo said. “We have also enhanced surveillance of people and groups allegedly colluding with outside sources in attempts to undermine our democratic election system.”

He also said people should think carefully when someone offers a free banquet meal or tour, as they could be methods of vote-buying.

People could be prosecuted for accepting these invitations, Kuo said, adding that the ministry also offers rewards of up to NT$20 million (US$651,084) for tips on outside election interference.

Meanwhile, the Nantou District Prosecutors’ Office late on Wednesday indicted a Nantou County Government secretary for allegedly helping China bribe potential voters with travel perks, in the first indictment of a public official over junket trips.

Nantou County Confidential Secretary Lin Meng-li (林孟麗) was accused of breaching the Anti-Infiltration Act and election laws before being released on NT$200,000 bail, the office said.

Lin allegedly invited more than 10 people on a trip from Monday to Saturday last week to Hangzhou in China, which was mostly funded by Zhejiang Province’s Taiwan Affairs Office, it said.

Investigators found evidence suggesting she had acted on the orders of Chinese officials to use the tour as a means to buy votes, the office said, adding that it has questioned the accused and eight other members of the group.

Chinese officials were believed to have paid for the groups’ travel, dining, lodging and admittance fees to local attractions, and interacted with its members during meals, the office said.

Separately, the Central Election Commission (CEC) in a release yesterday said that judicial authorities have launched an investigation into a case of fake election polling and warned people not to spread such information through social media, as it could result in legal punishment.

The CEC said it had received complaints of suspect poll figures with the survey not saying which firm conducted the poll, what its financial sources are, the number of people surveyed, the number of valid responses, the margin of error and other pertinent information.

People found contravening election laws on releasing unauthorized polls could be fined NT$100,000 to NT$1 million, while the fine is higher for political parties, candidates and people working for them, the CEC said.

Additional reporting by Liu Pin-chuan and Lee Wen-hsin

Presidential platforms focus on economy, relations

By Jason Pan / Staff reporter

Visions regarding the nation’s future and how to sustain economic growth were key issues at the three candidates’ final presidential platform presentations in Taipei yesterday.

The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate, Vice President William Lai (賴清德), said that Taiwan has success in exporting high-tech products throughout the world.

Under the DPP, Taiwan has made friends with many countries, while safeguarding its democracy, freedom and national sovereignty, he said.

Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate, Vice President William Lai, speaks at the third and final policy presentation hosted by TTV in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times

“My policy is to boost our trade with the world so that Taiwan has a strong presence in the international community,” Lai said, adding that he is the only candidate voters can trust to continue economic growth, as the other two are advocating over-reliance on China.

Lai said that the other two candidates have spoken on the importance of peace in the Taiwan Strait and interacting with China, including restarting the cross-strait services and trade agreement, but “we must not go back to the old road of depending on China for economic growth.”

“Taiwan has the confidence to do business with many countries worldwide, and share our technology and products, while also safeguarding the nation’s sovereignty,” he said.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate and New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi speaks at the third and final policy presentation hosted by TTV in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times

Lai also said that Taiwan should open up its financial sector and welcome international investment to become Asia’s leading center for fintech, which includes banking services, information security and business management.

New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, said that he and his party are following the Constitution and taking the middle road, as he castigated the other candidates for labeling the KMT as “pro-China.”

“Our party is not pushing for unification with China. If we are elected, we will certainly uphold Taiwan’s democracy and freedom,” Hou said.

Taiwan People’s Party Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je speaks at the third and final policy presentation hosted by TTV in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times

He also said that the KMT is against Taiwanese independence, but Taiwan’s future shall be decided by its 23 million citizens.

Taiwan People’s Party Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said the KMT and the DPP both could cause a conflict in cross-strait relations.

Taiwan should make friends with China, Ko said, adding that summits he organized with the Shanghai government when he was Taipei mayor was proof that he is capable of building relationships with Chinese leaders to negotiate cross-strait peace.

Taiwan should follow a “pragmatic diplomacy” to maintain its allies, but it must not return to the “dollar diplomacy of past KMT and DPP governments,” he added.

He is the only clean politician among the three candidates who is not tainted by corruption and “big money politics,” Ko said.

Ko also commented on a recent case in which a ninth grader stabbed a classmate to death, saying that there needs to be a more complete social safety net to protect young people, as well as better healthcare services.

Hou expressed sympathy over the incident and decried "deteriorating" conditions in schools, saying that strong law enforcement and punishments are needed to have a deterrent effect.

"As someone who started out as a low-level police officer, the things I hate the most are drugs, gangsters and illegal firearms," Hou said, calling for the age of prosecution to be lowered from 16 to 14.

Hou also urged for more checks against carrying weapons into school, saying that Taiwan should follow other countries in allowing police and school officials to search students and their personal effects to stop drugs, weapons and other illegal items from entering campus.

However, when carrying out a search, the whole process must be filmed and the parents must be present as witnesses, he added.

All three candidates talked about Taiwan’s healthcare, agreeing to raise wages for all healthcare workers, improve their workplace conditions, shorten their working hours and ensure government support to keep the National Health Insurance from insolvency.

No new students enrolled at 112 university programs

By Jonathan Chin / Staff writer, with CNA

A total of 112 Taiwanese university and college programs reported that they enrolled no new students this academic year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday amid concern over the nation’s aging population.

The ministry published the latest college enrollment statistics on its public information platform of higher learning institutions at https://udb.moe.edu.tw/udata.

National Taiwan University’s theater, geography, oceanography, plant pathology and microbiology graduate programs were among the 35 doctoral and master’s degree programs that did not enroll any students this year, the data showed.

The Ministry of Education building in Taipei is pictured in an undated photograph. Photo: Yang Mien-chieh, Taipei Times

National Tsinghua University’s quantum technology and advanced materials, electronic and photonic engineering programs, and National Central University’s economics, human resource management, applied geology and material sciences programs were also bereft of new students, it said.

Seventeen master’s programs did not enroll students, including eight regular programs and five night-school programs, the ministry said.

The remaining programs without new students were predominantly bachelor’s programs or their equivalent offered at private universities or college-level vocational institutions, it said.

A National Taiwan University spokesperson said that its theater and microbiology graduate programs had seven and three applicants respectively whose test scores did not meet standards.

No doctoral-seeking applicants expressed interest in geology, oceanography, plant pathology or microbiology, the spokesperson said.

A National Central University spokesperson said the doctoral programs with zero enrollments were seeking one to three students and most of them received one application each.

These applicants were either rejected for failing to meet test score standards or ended up attending the master’s degree version of the program due to the latter’s perceived advantage in job opportunities, they said.

The university is to discuss the design of its doctoral programs to boost competitiveness, the spokesperson said.

According to ministry data, 19 institutions of higher learning reported having enrolled less than 60 percent of their capacity for new students, with all but one being private institutions, ministry data showed.

Kao Yuan University, which is based in Kaohsiung and filled 15.7 percent of available spots, had the lowest enrollment rate in the nation, while National Taitung Junior College was the sole public institution with an enrollment rate of less than 60 percent.

‘New York Times’ sues AI developers over content use

Bloomberg

The New York Times is suing Microsoft Corp and OpenAI Inc for using its content to help develop artificial intelligence (AI) services, in a sign of the increasingly fraught relationship between the media and a technology that could upend the news industry.

The technology firms rely on millions of copyrighted articles to train chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other AI features, allegedly causing billions of US dollars in statutory and actual damages, according to a lawsuit filed in New York on Wednesday.

The New York Times did not specify its monetary demands.

The "New York Times" building in New York is pictured on Wednesday. Photo: EPA-EFE

AI TRAINING

OpenAI has faced criticism for scraping text widely from the Web to train its popular chatbot since it debuted a year ago. While it has been sued by prominent authors, this is the first challenge to its practices by a major media organization.

The start-up has sought licensing deals with publishers, much like Alphabet Inc’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc’s Facebook have done.

The lawsuit says the publisher reached out to Microsoft and OpenAI in April and could not reach an amicable solution.

“We respect the rights of content creators and owners and are committed to working with them to ensure they benefit from AI technology and new revenue models,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement. “Our ongoing conversations with the New York Times have been productive and moving forward constructively, so we are surprised and disappointed with this development.”

Microsoft declined to comment.

LAWSUITS

OpenAI in July signed an agreement with The Associated Press to access some of the news agency’s archives. OpenAI cut a three-year deal this month with Axel Springer SE to use the German media company’s work for an undisclosed sum.

“We’re hopeful that we will find a mutually beneficial way to work together, as we are doing with many other publishers,” the OpenAI spokesperson said.

OpenAI has been the target of multiple lawsuits from content producers complaining that their work has been improperly used for AI training. The company faces class actions from cultural figures, including comedian Sarah Silverman, Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon.

The cases are still in their early stages and could take years to fully resolve. A judge in San Francisco earlier this month hinted at trimming Silverman’s copyright lawsuit against OpenAI. The judge had already narrowed a similar Silverman suit against Meta.

Microsoft is OpenAI’s largest backer and has deployed the start-up’s AI tools in several of its products. In the lawsuit, the New York Times alleged that Microsoft copied the newspaper’s articles verbatim for its Bing search engine and used OpenAI’s technology to boost its value by US$1 trillion dollars.

“If Microsoft and OpenAI want to use our work for commercial purposes, the law requires that they first obtain our permission,” a New York Times spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement. “They have not done so.”

US provides US$250m in arms for Ukraine

PENTAGON STOCKS: US Congress earlier failed to secure more aid for Ukraine, as some lawmakers demanded that the bill be tied to border restrictions

Bloomberg

The administration of US President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced US$250 million in weapons and equipment for Ukraine, its final package for the year, as officials press the US Congress to renew aid in the new year.

“Our assistance has been critical to supporting our Ukrainian partners as they defend their country and their freedom against Russia’s aggression,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. “It is imperative that Congress act swiftly, as soon as possible, to advance our national security interests by helping Ukraine defend itself and secure its future.”

The package, drawn from Pentagon stocks, includes ammunition for artillery and air defense systems as well as anti-armor munitions and more than 15 million rounds of small-arms ammunition.

The Pentagon building in Arlington, Virginia, is pictured on April 21. Photo: Bloomberg

The US Department of Defense said in a press release that Javelin anti-tank systems and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles would be among the weapons offered.

The US has provided about US$44.3 billion in military assistance since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year, according to the Biden administration.

Biden’s pleas to provide more funds for Ukraine before Congress left for its holiday break foundered on the opposition of Republican lawmakers. Some of them oppose aid outright, saying the situation at the US border with Mexico should be given priority, while others support assistance to Ukraine as well as to Israel and Taiwan, but demand that any legislation be tied to border and immigration restrictions.

Six special municipalities to convene over stabbing

YOUNG OFFENDERS: After a young student was stabbed to death on Monday, President Tsai yesterday said that the meeting will discuss ways to improve campus safety

Staff writer, with CNA

A meeting between the six special municipalities is to be convened next week to discuss campus safety, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday, in response to the death of a junior-high student in New Taipei City who was stabbed several times with a switchblade by a schoolmate on Monday.

A ninth-grade male student reportedly stabbed the victim in the neck and chest after a female classmate complained to him about the way the other student had spoken to her.

The student died after efforts to resuscitate him failed late on Tuesday, the New Taipei City Department of Education said.

A switchblade is pictured in an undated photograph. Photo copied by Wu Jen-chieh, Taipei Times

The incident started during noon break on Monday, when the female student went to an adjacent classroom to chat with a friend, but ended up arguing with a male student who asked her to leave.

The girl reportedly left in anger and asked the male classmate to confront the other student.

After they returned to the neighboring classroom, the two male students started to argue which escalated into a physical altercation, the girl’s classmate pulled out a switchblade and stabbed the other student in the neck and chest several times, leaving him with no vital signs.

The injured student was rushed to Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, where his heartbeat was initially restored following emergency treatment, but the surgery failed and the student died on Tuesday night, the department confirmed on Wednesday.

After hearing the case, a juvenile court on Tuesday ruled that the assailant should be placed in custody and the female student be released into the custody of a legal guardian.

According to local media reports, the stabber had already had multiple run-ins with the law for crimes including causing bodily harm, and had only recently been released from a juvenile detention center.

Writing on Facebook yesterday, Tsai expressed her condolences to the family of the victim.

A meeting is to be held next week among the nation’s six special municipalities to discuss ways to improve campus safety, including measures for reintroducing juvenile offenders and counseling, she added.

A national education action alliance in a statement on Wednesday said that the incident highlights a broader failure to provide effective guidance for at-risk students.

At-risk students often come from dysfunctional family backgrounds, have difficulty adapting to a school environment and in some cases, pose a threat to school safety, the alliance said, urging the government to provide alternative education programs specifically tailored to meet the needs of these students.

The Ministry of Education in a statement on Wednesday expressed regret over the incident and promised to review the nation’s alternative education system to address the educational needs of students that cannot be met in regular schools.

Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) yesterday also said that his ministry was planning to review the evaluation procedures and guidance services for students returning to school from the juvenile justice system.

Meanwhile, as rumors circulated online that the boy who committed the stabbing routinely brought a knife to school, a national teachers’ union on Wednesday said that ministry rules make even simple interventions, such as searching a student’s backpack, unfeasible.

According to the ministry’s guidelines, students’ private belongings can only be searched if there is proof or probable cause that they have committed a crime or possess prohibited items.

If a search is conducted, there must be at least two teachers, student representatives or parents present, and the entire process must be filmed, the guidelines state.

However, Humanistic Education Foundation director Feng Chiao-lan (馮喬蘭) said that even conducting universal bag searches at schools would not help prevent violence.

Conflicts on campus typically stem from internal factors or problems in a person’s behavior, under which circumstances any item can be used as a weapon, Feng said in a video provided to the media yesterday.

For that reason, prevention efforts should also focus on addressing students’ emotions and behavior, such as ensuring that there is sufficient funding for school counseling centers and other forms of support, Feng said.

Additional reporting by Chen Yun

Nation unlikely to reach traffic death reduction goal

SAFER ROADS: Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai yesterday said that October saw a spike in road-traffic related deaths

By Shelley Shan / Staff reporte0r

The nation might not reach its goal of reducing traffic-related deaths by 5 percent this year due to a spike in the number of traffic deaths in October, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said yesterday.

The Ministry of Transportation and Communications set the goal after more than 3,000 people were killed in traffic accidents last year.

Ministry officials yesterday disclosed traffic data collected in October at a news conference, showing that 32,395 traffic accidents were recorded that month, down from 32,469 last year.

Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai attends a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Cheng Wei-chi, Taipei Times

However, 291 people were killed in accidents, up from 268 people in the same month last year.

Meanwhile, 43,624 were injured, which was 297 more than last year. Deaths among motorcyclists, pedestrians and the elderly, and those caused by large motor vehicles have all increased.

From January to October, the number of traffic accidents reached a total of 332,491, an increase of 28,223 compared with the same period last year.

The number of injured increased by 40,638 to 444,861, and the number of fatalities decreased by 20 to 2,514.

The five cities or counties that had the greatest increases in traffic deaths in the first 10 months were Nantou County, Taitung County, Taichung, Pingtung County and Yunlin County, which were up by 30, 17, 15, 14 and 13 respectively.

“Although the number of deaths in July, August and September fell, the deaths in October rose again. I am very disappointed, particularly in the significant increase in deaths among motorcyclists and the elderly, and those caused by gravel trucks and tour buses. We have to address the issue with local officials and propose solutions to problems such as fatigue driving,” Wang told reporters.

“We might not reach the goal this year, even though we have tried to improve the overall performance during the second half of the year. So far we have seen some positive results in last month’s data, and we still have a little time left to reach the target for this month. However, we estimate that reaching it might still be difficult,” he said.

In related news, a test designed by the Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection System and Jin Chuan Child Safety Foundation found that adults are more likely than children to give incorrect answers when it comes to road safety knowledge.

The test was administered among third to sixth grade students in 537 elementary schools and about 18,000 people online.

In questions related to blind spots, the rate of incorrect answers was only 9.3 percent among the students, while that among adults was 17.8 percent, test results showed.

One of the questions asked what cyclists should do when they see a large vehicle in front that is getting ready to turn right.

About 48 percent of people online answered incorrectly, saying that cyclists should keep an appropriate distance behind and to the left, while 24.2 percent of children gave the wrong answer.

The right answer is that they should keep proper distance and keep to the right.

“We can only speculate that most of the adults did not have road safety education growing up,” the test organizers said.

Childcare workers protest ‘unfair’ work conditions

Staff writer, with CNA

A preschool education union on Wednesday protested what it called the “unfair treatment” of childcare workers, saying that despite the similarity in job responsibilities compared with preschool teachers, childcare workers receive less pay and welfare treatment.

The Taiwan Early Childhood Education Union asked their 3,000 childcare worker-members to vote for the “Top 10 Most Absurd Issues in Early Childhood Education,” and the No. 1 subject was the discriminatory system.

The issue received 626 votes from childcare workers, who along with teachers make up Taiwan’s preschool educators, after Taiwan introduced a mechanism in 2012 that integrated childcare services.

A representative of the Taiwan Early Childhood Education Union talks about the “Top 10 Most Absurd Issues in Early Childhood Education” at a news conference in Taipei on Wednesday. Photo: CNA

Since then, kindergartens and nurseries have been restructured as preschools, enrolling children aged two to seven to meet the needs of modern families for early childhood education and care services.

However, the two groups of educators are subject to two sets of regulations, even though Taiwan Early Childhood Education Union chairwoman Hsu Wen-ching (許文菁) said that their job responsibilities are very similar.

FEWER PROTECTIONS

Childcare workers are treated as “second-class teachers,” who do not enjoy the same travel benefits or professional and performance bonuses as teachers, she told a news conference.

The former are subject to the Labor Standards Act

(勞動基準法), while the latter fall under the Teachers’ Act (教師法), meaning they have fewer legal protections in the same work environment, Hsu said.

For instance, childcare workers cannot take full advantage of the 30-minute lunch break they are entitled to due to the nature of their work, as they often have to accompany children when they eat and rest.

According to Taiwanese law, childcare workers are required to obtain an early childhood education diploma from a vocational school or above, while teachers have to complete educational programs, teacher certification examinations

and internships, before receiving an official teacher certification, which is similar to teachers in elementary and high schools.

In response to the union’s criticism, the Ministry of Education said it would continue to improve the salary and benefits for childcare workers, adding that the group is entitled to the same 4 percent wage increase as their military and civil servant counterparts starting next year.

Tourism Administration unveils elderly subsidies

By Ting Yi and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer

The Tourism Administration yesterday unveiled subsidies for travel agencies to cater to the elderly and those with mental or physical disabilities engaged in domestic travel, starting next year.

The subsidies are to be doled out to travel agencies by headcount, with sums of up to NT$15,000 for tour groups with older people and NT$50,000 for groups with those who are physically impaired, tourism officials said.

The measures are designed to encourage the industry to be more accommodating for older people and those with disabilities, with related efforts in these categories being allotted NT$5 million (US$162,771) each, they said.

A tour group visits the Twin Hearts Stone Weir in Penghu County in an undated photograph. Photo courtesy of the Penghu National Scenic Administration via CNA

The Tourism Administration would take special steps to subsidize sign-language interpreters for deaf travelers, the officials said.

Agencies creating one-day tour groups of three or more travelers with mental or physical impairments are to receive a subsidy of NT$1,200 per person and NT$300 for each accessibility helper, they said.

Groups for tours of two days or more would receive NT$1,500 per traveler with a disability and NT$500 per helper, the officials said.

If two or more tour group members have hearing or speech impediments, the agency would receive a sign-language interpreter subsidy of up to NT$2,000 per day, they said.

If a tour group is larger than six people and more than half of its members are elderly, then the agency would receive NT$500 for each elderly traveler, up to NT$15,000, they said.

These tours must be of at least two days and one night in duration, but two rest days must be arranged for every four days of active touring, officials said.

Separately, a lottery for NT$50,000 of tourism vouchers is to be held for Taiwanese who visited one of the 24 venues highlighted in last year’s Tourism Spotlight awards and took a selfie at the location, they said.

People interested in taking part in the lottery should submit their photograph on the Line app, the officials said, adding that prizes and vouchers worth a total of NT$500,000 are available.

China put pressure on Mayday: sources

PRESSURE: Beijing has ramped up its coercion of Taiwanese bands and artists, forcing them to say pro-China comments such as ‘Taiwan is a part of China,’ authorities said

By Yimou Lee / Reuters, TAIPEI

China has pressured Taiwanese rock band Mayday to make pro-China comments ahead of next month’s elections, according to sources with direct knowledge of the situation and a security note reviewed by Reuters.

The Chinese National Radio and Television Administration had asked Mayday to publicly voice support for Beijing’s claims that Taiwan is part of China and to join China’s “media propaganda on Taiwan,” an internal Taiwanese security note says.

The note from earlier this month cited intelligence on Chinese government activities gathered by Taiwanese authorities.

The Taiwanese band Mayday is pictured in an undated photograph. Photo courtesy of B’in Music

Mayday is among the most successful Taiwanese bands in China, a market that has become increasingly challenging for Taiwanese celebrities as Beijing steps up its political pressure to assert its sovereignty claims.

Two Taiwanese security officials looking into the matter said that to pressure the rock stars, Chinese authorities earlier this month announced an investigation into Mayday, following allegations on Chinese social media that the band had lip-synched during one of their concerts in China.

Mayday’s management company, B’in Music, did not respond to requests for comment.

B’in Music has previously denied allegations of lip-synching during the band’s tour last month in China, where the practice is prohibited.

The Chinese Publicity Department, which oversees the radio and television administration, and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said it is “fake news from start to finish.”

A source with direct knowledge of the situation, who requested anonymity, said that Chinese authorities asked the band to provide unspecified “political service,” but the rock stars did not agree to the request.

In response, authorities threatened the band with the lip-synching probe and a fine, the person said.

“They will have to pay if they do not cooperate,” the person said.

The investigation’s findings and any penalties for Mayday have not yet been made public.

The two Taiwanese officials said the campaign was led by the publicity department in a move to sway voters ahead of the Jan. 13 presidential and legislative elections.

By doing so, Chinese authorities believe they could “sway the youth vote in Taiwan,” one of the officials said.

They described the scale of the cross-department campaign against Mayday as “unprecedented,” which involved coverage on the lip-synching allegations by the People’s Daily, state broadcaster China Central Television and Xinhua news agency.

Straits Exchange Foundation spokeswoman Tsai Meng-chun (蔡孟君) yesterday said that the foundation is “extremely unhappy” that anyone engaging across the Taiwan Strait would be subject to political pressure, adding that such actions are detrimental to cross-strait exchanges.

Vincent Chao (趙怡翔), spokesman for the Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate, Vice President William Lai (賴清德), said that China does not even spare musicians.

As election day approaches, Chinese interference is to intensify, he said, calling on the opposition to stand together in condemnation.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential campaign spokesperson Wang Ming-hsu (王敏旭) said the campaign “strongly condemns” China’s behavior, if it is true, and called on Chinese authorities to clarify the matter.

Mayday is a band enjoyed by Mandarin speakers across generations, Wang said, adding that China should not force musicians or artists to express a political stance.

Tai Yu-wen (戴于文), spokesperson for the Taiwan People’s Party campaign, agreed that politics should not interfere with culture, and condemned Chinese election interference as not conducive to cross-strait exchanges.

Additional reporting by Chen Yu-fu, Chen Yun, Hsu Chuo-hsun and Huang Ching-hsuan

Candidates weigh in on school stabbing, policies

LACK OF RESOURCES: As the presidential candidates made proposals to solve bullying, New Power Party Chairwoman Claire Wang said the issue is counselling

By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter

The presidential candidates of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday weighed in on the death of a ninth-grade student in New Taipei City on Wednesday, who was reportedly stabbed in the neck and chest several times during a quarrel with a fellow student on Monday.

“The Ministry of Education and other government agencies are providing assistance to the family of the student who was killed,” Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the DPP’s candidate, wrote on Facebook.

“They are also helping the students and teachers who witnessed the incident to mitigate any symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder,” Lai added.

Members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) New Taipei City Council caucus yesterday at a news conference criticize “worsening loopholes” in public safety under the current administration. Photo: Huang Tzu-yang, Taipei Times

“The incident also has exposed the problem of school bullying, and we must try to prevent similar tragedies from happening again,” he said.

Lai said that if he is elected, he would thoroughly implement a three-tier counseling system that extends to elementary-school students by proposing an amendment to the Student Guidance and Counseling Act (學生輔導法).

The government would offer more counseling to high-risk families, train more counselors to assist school administrators and teachers to help students with problems, and establish a bridging mechanism between counseling and legal disciplinary services, he said.

“School bullying has become a global issue and the government should devote more resources to tackling it at the source,” he said. “My administration would ensure that students learn to respect and acknowledge differences in others.”

New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the KMT’s candidate, said that many people, including the family of the student who died, have called for a comprehensive review of the Juvenile Justice Act (少年事件處理法) following the incident, with a focus on the age of accountability, discipline and criminal liability of juveniles involved in major crimes.

“As school bullying is highly correlated with school violence, Japan promulgated the Act for the Promotion of Measures to Prevent Bullying,” Hou wrote on Facebook. “Taiwan should learn from the principles of that law by reinforcing moral education among students, identifying early bullying behavior, monitoring bullying online, assisting people affected by bullying, and punishing and counseling bullies.”

“School administrators can work with local police departments if they think that a school bullying incident is a criminal matter,” he said. “Bullying can be mitigated through early intervention and offering care to high-risk people.”

The government should put more resources toward recruiting counselors, and ensuring the mental and physical health of young people, he said.

The social safety net should be bolstered to prevent bullying through well-coordinated efforts among public and private agencies, Hou said.

“Security at schools is not a local issue, it is a serious issue that the nation must confront together,” he said. “Organized crime groups have begun recruiting teenagers. The government needs to impose stricter sanctions on these groups and prevent the next generation from being destroyed by criminal elements.”

New Power Party Chairwoman Claire Wang (王婉諭), whose daughter was decapitated by man in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) in 2016, said the most urgent task is that counselors at junior-high schools should care for the mental health of the family of the student who died, as well as his teachers and classmates.

“We are worried that the incident might encourage copycats,” Wang wrote on Facebook. “News media should refrain from giving overly detailed descriptions of the murder, and the public should avoid labeling specific groups.”

As a legislator, she has repeatedly warned about the counselor shortage on campuses being a loophole in the social safety net, Wang said.

“The issues of school bullying and safety have become more complicated,” she said. “Children are getting improper information from social media. This is a problem that the government, society, families and schools should resolve together.”

“Taiwan cannot afford to make changes only after multiple tragedies have occurred,” she said. “This would be too slow and too painful for families broken by tragedies.”

Pro-China view propped up by political pundit videos

Staff reporter

Beijing is using statements made by Taiwanese political pundits to create a pro-China worldview, an Information Operations Research Group study found.

In a report published on Tuesday, the group listed 10 Taiwanese political pundits who were cited the most from July to September by TikTok accounts that were controlled by Beijing or its state media.

The 10 pundits include former representative to New Zealand Dale Jieh (介文汲), former army colonel Lai Yueh-tchienn (賴岳謙), former legislator Julian Kuo (郭正亮), former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元), retired lieutenant general and former KMT legislator Herman Shuai (帥化民), Hsieh Han-tung (謝寒冰), radio host Tang Hsiang-lung (唐湘龍), KMT vice presidential candidate and Broadcasting Corp of China chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), retired major general Li Cheng-chieh (栗正傑) and KMT Legislator Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇), the report said.

Chess pieces are seen in front of displayed Chinese and Taiwanese flags in this illustration photograph taken on Jan. 25 last year. Photo: Dad Ruvic, Reuters

The remarks most frequently quoted were related to topics such as US skepticism, the US being the source of global chaos, protesting against the discharge of the treated nuclear wastewater from Japan’s disabled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, praising Huawei and the cross-strait situation, it said.

The pundits have a “division of labor” on the topics they discuss — Jieh criticized US foreign policy and the democratic system using his diplomatic background; politicians and media personnel criticized the Democratic Progressive Party for its poor governance; and retired military personnel said that Taiwan’s armed forces could not defeat the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, it said.

Lai and Tang often said that Taiwan is a part of China, and Jaw appeared in many of the cited clips as a host of political commentary programs, it said.

The five accounts that cited Taiwanese pundits most often in order of frequency belong to Taihai Net and the Strait Herald under the Fujian Daily Newspapering Group, Taiwan.cn of the China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, Huaxia Jingwei and China Daily, the report said.

The Fujian Daily Newspapering Group is subordinate to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Fujian Committee, it said.

For the CCP, Taiwanese pundits are “more important and influential” than the nation’s president and presidential candidates, the study said.

The number of views gathered by the 10 most cited pundits was 6.53 times more than President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the DPP’s presidential candidate Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the KMT’s presidential candidate, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), and Taiwan People’s Party’s Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) combined, it showed.

There were 2.41 times more videos including the 10 pundits than those that included the president or candidates, and the total length of these videos was 3.59 times longer, it showed.

The pundits were frequently cited as the remarks they made helped the CCP to create a biased image of Taiwan and a worldview that is in line with Beijing’s interests, it said.

The study urged the public to be more cautious while participating in public discussions and be aware that pundits are being used by the CCP as “public opinion weapons.”

Ko remark harms diplomacy: MOFA

By Liu Tzu-hsuan / Staff reporter

A remark from Taiwan People’s Party Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) that it would be acceptable for Taiwan to have no diplomatic allies might lead to misunderstandings and hurt allies’ feelings, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.

Ko said that he cared less about the number of diplomatic allies than about the substance of diplomatic relations in an interview on the TK Studio podcast released on Wednesday.

Taiwan enjoys good relations with Japan and the US, with whom it has no formal relations, he said.

Taiwan People’s Party Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je arrives for the third platform presentation at TTV in Taipei yesterday. Photo: CNA

“Diplomatic allies are a myth” and Taiwan should let nature take its course, he said, adding that he would not make a conscious effort to increase the number of diplomatic allies.

Asked if it would be fine for Taiwan to have no diplomatic allies, Ko replied: “Yes, that is my attitude.”

Taiwan having a bad relationship with China was what prompted it to poach Taiwan’s diplomatic allies and suppress the nation on the international stage, he said.

It is China’s stance that “everything is negotiable” if Taiwan and China have a friendly relationship, he said, adding that building a strained relationship with Beijing is the problem with the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) China policies.

Meanwhile, he underlined that “Taiwan must return to the international community,” especially when participating in international economic organizations.

He has been in regular contact with representatives from the US, EU and Japan, he said.

Regarding his vision for the armed forces, Ko said he wished to make them trusted and respected by the public; modernize military management, national defense equipment and weapons, and build resilient forces.

If elected, he said he would not change the national security team in the first half to one year, as it would be “dangerous” to change everything on the first day at the job.

Ko said that Taiwan should mainly rely on its volunteer forces.

“The compulsory military is not necessary if the voluntary military could cover” needs, he said.

“The worse cross-strait relations are, the more national defense preparations would be required,” he said, adding that he insisted on holding the Taipei-Shanghai twin-city forum in 2019 to help ease cross-strait tensions.

There is no conflict between consolidating substantive relations with diplomatic allies and bolstering relations with non-allied countries, ministry spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健) said, adding that the ministry strives to achieve both.

Taiwan’s diplomatic allies have been supporting Taiwan’s participation in international organizations by speaking out for the nation in the international arena, which is very important, he said.

The ministry is grateful to the nation’s allies for showing moral courage in supporting Taiwan, he said.

Ko’s remark might hurt the feelings of these countries and cause misunderstandings, he said.

DPP Legislator Liu Shih-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said that Ko’s remark underestimated the diplomatic personnel who are doing their best on the front line, adding that the government has never neglected efforts concerning diplomatic allies, non-allied countries, or economic and trade diplomacy.

Troll messaging shifts from ‘war’ to ‘service agreement’

Staff writer, with CNA

“Troll groups” attempting to shape online discourse about the Jan. 13 presidential and legislative elections appear to be taking cues from Chinese state-affiliated media, a research group said on Wednesday.

Troll groups — clusters of social media accounts acting with a suspicious degree of synchronization — have mirrored the narrative pivots taken by Beijing-controlled news outlets such as the People’s Daily, Haiwainet, Xinhua news agency, the Global Times and China Central Television, a report released by Taiwan AI Labs showed.

Taiwan AI Labs founder Ethan Tu (杜奕瑾) told a news conference in Taipei that between September and last month, China-affiliated media platforms focused on portraying the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as pushing Taiwan toward war.

A man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this illustration picture taken on May 13, 2017. Photo: Reuters

However, since this month, Chinese reporting has shifted to “the repercussions of terminating the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement,” as well as “Taiwan’s grim economic prospects,” with troll groups following suit, Tu said.

Taiwan AI Lab chief executive officer Hwang Chao-hwei (黃兆徽) said that the organization has been monitoring leading social media platforms along with a total of 31,278 online troll accounts exhibiting similar activation dates, content and comments since 2020.

Despite the correlation between some accounts and the messaging of Chinese state-affiliated media, not all troll activity aligned with Beijing’s narratives, Taiwan AI Lab’s research showed.

For example, the primary narratives pushed by “YouTube #71012” — the most active troll group on YouTube during the second week of this month — were either pro-DPP or critical of opposition parties, it found.

Excluding YouTube, where partisan attacks were roughly equal, negative comments aimed at the DPP outranked those targeting the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on all other social media platforms, including Facebook at 14 percent versus 3.1 percent, TikTok at 22.6 percent versus 19.4 percent and the local online bulletin board system Professional Technology Temple at 15.1 percent versus 6.4 percent, it said.

No unification talks with China if elected: Jaw

Staff writer, with CNA

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice presidential candidate and Broadcasting Corp of China chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) on Wednesday said he would not talk with China about unification if elected, as there are no conditions for such discussions given the substantial differences between the two sides.

If elected, “I will definitely not engage in discussions with China about unification during my term; and this is also impossible,” Jaw told reporters when asked to respond to a statement by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Chen Binhua (陳斌華) earlier on Wednesday.

At a regular news conference in Beijing, Chen said he hoped that Taiwanese would make more frequent statements conducive to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and engage in actions that enhance mutual trust and understanding.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice presidential candidate Jaw Shaw-kong, left, and former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu attend a campaign rally for KMT legislative candidate Hsu Chiao-hsin in Taipei on Wednesday. Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times

Chen made the remarks in response to Jaw’s statement that the KMT does not endorse communism and has never supported the Chinese Communist Party, while further asserting that he “absolutely would not” advocate for negotiations on unification if elected.

Considering the current state of cross-strait relations, it would be a significant breakthrough if both sides reopen communication channels, said Jaw, the running mate of KMT presidential candidate and New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜).

If the two sides resume dialogue and restore visits to Taiwan by Chinese tourists and students, as it had under former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), that would be a favorable development in cross-strait relations, Jaw said.

Speaking in favor of unification is not the only thing that could bring about peace and benefit cross-strait relations, he said.

Moreover, significant differences in political systems and way of life mean that discussing unification is simply not feasible, he added.

Before kickoff

A display is pictured at the Design Super South exhibition at the Pingtung 1936 Tobacco Culture Base yesterday, ahead of its opening today. The show is to run until Oct. 31 next year.

Photo: Yeh Yung-chien, Taipei Times

Stepping into the past

People visit the Liu Ming-chuan Tunnel in Keelung — the nation’s oldest railway tunnel — yesterday after it reopened to the public for the first time in 14 years. Groups can register with the Keelung City Government to go on free guided tours of the tunnel, which opened in 1890.

Photo: Lu Hsiu-hsien, Taipei Times

Capital showdown

Taiwan People’s Party legislator-at-large candidate Huang Kuo-chang, front right, and Taiwan Statebuilding Party legislative candidate Shih Wei-chu, left, confront one another during protests in front of the Control Yuan in Taipei yesterday. Huang and Shih were demonstrating respectively against and for Vice President William Lai, who is the Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate.

Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times

Pegatron to forfeit control of subsidiary

GLOBAL PLANS: The company said that it is giving up control of Pegaglobe to focus on diversifying its capacity geographically to provide more options for customers

By Lisa Wang / Staff reporter

Pegatron Corp (和碩), one of Apple Inc’s iPhone assemblers, yesterday said it is forfeiting control of a once fully owned subsidiary to Chinese rival Luxshare Precision Industry Co (立訊精密) in its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing sites geographically.

Its indirect share of Pegaglobe (Kunshan) Co Ltd (世碩電子) would drop to about 37.5 percent following the Chinese subsidiary’s latest share offerings, Pegatron said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

Luxsan Precision iTech (Kunshan) Co Ltd (立臻精密), a subsidiary of Luxshare, would subscribe to all of the new shares issued by Pegaglobe, which are worth 2.11 billion yuan (US$298.86 million), the filing said.

The logo of Pegatron, which assembles electronics from Apple Inc?

Pegaglobe has increased its registered shares to optimize its business as it braces for a rapidly changing industry environment and market conditions by forming a strategic partnership with Luxsan, Pegatron said in an e-mailed note.

The partnership would help Pegatron better utilize its resources and balance its global deployment, it said.

As Pagaglobe’s business model would remain intact, the deal would have limited impact on its operations, Pegatron said.

The firm said that it is diversifying its capacity geographically to provide as many options as possible for customers.

China remains its major manufacturing hub, with non-China capacity accounting for 15 percent, it said.

For Luxsan Precision iTech, the deal matches its strategy of boosting its smartphone assembling capacity to seek a bigger share of Apple Inc orders.

The Kunshan-based company in 2020 acquired two Wistron Corp (緯創) factories in China’s Jiangsu Province.

Wistron, which used to compete with Pegatron and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) for iPhone manufacturing orders, has disposed of its Chinese and Indian iPhone manufacturing capacity to focus on better-margin products such as artificial intelligence servers.

While Pegatron’s Chinese presence is shrinking, the company is expanding its manufacturing footprint in Vietnam.

In a separate filing yesterday, Pegatron said it plans to spend about NT$1.19 billion (US$38.74 million) to build new manufacturing facilities in Vietnam through its Pegatron Vietnam Co Ltd subsidiary.

Additionally, the firm would spend about NT$825 million to build employee dormitories in Vietnam, a separate filing said.

In Vietnam, Pegatron primarily makes consumer electronics such as smart speakers for Google, Surface laptops for Microsoft Corp and gaming consoles.

In Mexico, Pegatron makes electronic control units for vehicles, charging piles and components used in charging devices for a North American-based customer reported to be Tesla Inc.

The company also operates factories in India, Indonesia and the Czech Republic, it said.

Pegatron plans to spend US$300 million to US$350 million on new equipment and facilities this year.

Siemens Gamesa says expansion is ahead of schedule

WIND OPERATIONS: Siemens started expansion of the Taichung plant in September last year and expects to complete construction next month, rather than in February

By Chen Cheng-hui / Staff reporter

Wind turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA said in a statement yesterday that the expansion of its nacelle assembly plant in Taichung would be completed a month ahead of schedule and begin operations in the second quarter next year.

The plant is the company’s first assembly facility for nacelles for offshore wind units outside of Europe and Taiwan’s only one, it said.

Following completion of the work, the plant at the Port of Taichung would have annual production capacity of 2 gigawatts, creating more job opportunities, Siemens Gamesa said.

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA’s nacelle assembly plant at the Port of Taichung is pictured in an undated photograph. Photo courtesy of Siemens Gemesa Renewable Energy SA

The company is recruiting 300 people to meet rising demand for talent in the industry.

It sent its first batch of Taiwanese employees to a one-year advanced training course in Europe late last year, it added.

Siemens Gamesa started the expansion of the plant in September last year and had expected to complete construction in February.

However, it now expects the construction of two production halls, one warehouse and other ancillary facilities to be completed early next month, it said.

After the installation of manufacturing equipment, the new facilities would produce large offshore wind turbines and continue the firm’s collaboration with the local industry chain, it added.

Besides supporting the 1,044 megawatt Hai Long Offshore Wind Power Project (海龍離岸風電計畫) off Changhua County, the new facilities would help complete a third-phase offshore wind farm development plan drawn up by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the company said.

The company is looking forward to joining hands with the local supply chain to export Taiwan-made nacelles to projects in the Asia-Pacific region with the completion of the expansion project, Siemens Gamesa said.

“The expansion of the Taichung nacelle plant will further fulfill our commitment to the development of offshore wind power in Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific region,” Siemens Gamesa Offshore for Asia-Pacific chairman and managing director Niels Steenberg said in the statement.

Taiwan has 283 offshore wind turbines, of which Siemens Gamesa contributed 210, more than 75 percent, ministry data showed.

Commercial property deals in Taiwan increase 2.8%

By Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter

Commercial property transactions in Taiwan increased 2.8 percent to NT$137 billion (US$4.46 billion) this year, mainly due to demand for offices and factories, but land deals tumbled 20.4 percent to a six-year low of NT128.4 billion due to unfavorable lending terms, Colliers International Taiwan (高力國際) said on Wednesday.

The property market would be stronger next year, as a monetary tightening cycle is likely over, giving firms more financial muscle to expand capacity and boost their real-estate holdings, the property broker said.

Self-occupancy demand for offices and factories contributed 53 percent of commercial property deals, or NT$73.2 billion, Colliers Taiwan senior research director Eilleen Liang (梁儀盈) told a news conference in Taipei, citing transaction data for the year to Monday.

Commercial buildings are pictured in New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang District on Wednesday. Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times

A real-estate investment trust in June sold two office buildings in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) for NT$2.98 billion and NT$2.45 billion, suggesting a premium of 1.1 percent and 5.3 percent respectively despite a sluggish economy, Liang said.

As for industrial property deals, a Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) affiliate bought a factory complex in New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城) and Topco Scientific Co (崇越科技), a distributor of semiconductor materials, purchased an office building in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖), Colliers Taiwan said.

Local insurers, normally the main commercial property players, failed to make the list of the top 10 deals this year, Colliers Taiwan managing director Andrew Liu (劉學龍) said, calling the situation rare.

Liu attributed the absence to a series of interest rate hikes that drove up the minimum yield requirement to 2.875 percent for real-estate investments by insurance companies.

Rising property prices make it difficult to pass the test in the first place, he added.

Land deals were weaker despite help from auctions of public plots of land in Taichung and Kaohsiung this quarter, Liu said.

“It was unusual to see no land deals in excess of NT$5 billion this year,” Liu said, adding that credit controls and other unfavorable measures were to blame.

Hung Yuan Development Co (宏園建設) and Ruicheng Construction Co (瑞誠建設) jointly bought a plot of land in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) for NT$4.79 billion, making it the largest deal by value, Colliers Taiwan said.

Looking ahead, there is no reason not to be positive about the property market, Liu said.

The world is keen about the prospects for artificial intelligence, so Taiwanese firms in the supply chain would benefit and need more office space, Colliers Taiwan said.

Local insurers and developers also would boost their holdings once the US Federal Reserve lowers interest rates, it said, adding that inflation pressure appears to have been brought under control.

South Korea chip output rises as demand improves

Bloomberg

South Korea’s semiconductor industry has recorded the largest gains in years in production and shipments, underscoring a revival of technology momentum that bodes well for the nation’s economic outlook next year and the global technology sector.

Chip production jumped 42 percent last month from a year earlier, the most since early 2017, while shipments soared 80 percent, the biggest annual gain since late 2002, data released yesterday by Statistics Korea showed.

Inventories expanded by 36 percent in the smallest rise since February.

A Samsung Electronics Co. 16GB Double-Data-Rate (DDR) 4 memory module, top, and other DDR modules arranged for a photograph in Seoul, South Korea, on April 5. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg

The numbers suggest that South Korea’s most important industry is roaring back from a slump that weighed on the economy for more than a year and adds to optimistic signals for chipmakers such as Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc.

The figures also suggest that a nascent recovery in global technology sector demand might be gaining momentum.

South Korea’s trade-reliant economy has muddled through this year with suppressed demand for semiconductors and is forecast by the central bank to have expanded 1.4 percent, less than 2.6 percent last year, under higher interest rates, an economic slowdown in China and geopolitical risks.

The latest chip data suggest the nation’s technology manufacturers might help support growth. The strength of semiconductor makers drove a better-than-expected 5.3 percent expansion in the nation’s industrial output from a year earlier last month, suggesting that the economy is gathering steam in the fourth quarter.

Demand for high-performance semiconductors has in particular helped the chip and machinery industries, the South Korean Ministry of Finance said in a statement.

The Bank of Korea sees the economy expanding by 2.2 percent next year on the back of exports gaining further strength after they returned to growth in October.

Memorychip prices are starting to bounce back while emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence add to demand.

Norway fund drops Saudi Aramco and 11 other Gulf firms

AFP, OSLO

Norway’s largest pension fund yesterday said that it has divested from Saudi Arabian Oil Co (Saudi Aramco) due to the oil giant’s lack of climate action and from 11 other Gulf companies over human rights concerns.

KLP, which manages more than 700 billion kroner (US$70 billion), said that the exclusion amounted to US$15 million.

The fund dropped 11 companies in the telecommunications and real-estate sectors from Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates “over unacceptably high human rights violations’ risks.”

Signage above the Saudi Aramco booth on day two of the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (ADIPEC) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Oct. 3. Photographer: Christopher Pike/Bloomberg

Saudi Aramco was blacklisted due to its ties to the Saudi Arabian government, and for “contravening expectations over climate and energy transition plans,” the fund said.

“The overall rationale for these exclusions is that Gulf states remain characterized by authoritarian systems of government that restrict freedom of expression and political rights, including of critics and human rights activists,” Kiran Aziz, head of responsible investment at KLP, said in a statement.

The telecoms were excluded because “the development of advanced technology, including AI [artificial intelligence], reinforces the ongoing risk of systematic surveillance and censorship,” Aziz said.

He added that reforms have “not gone far enough” in the real-estate sector, where African and Asian migrant workers have faced discrimination and human rights violations.

Saudi Aramco is 90 percent owned by Saudi Arabia and was excluded primarily due to its lack of an energy transition plan, the fund said.

“The company’s climate policy and lobbying efforts reflect the dominant owner’s active opposition to the phasing out of oil and gas as a climate mitigation measure,” it said in a statement.

Xiaomi unveils its first electric sedan, the SU7

AFP, BEIJING

Chinese consumer electronics giant Xiaomi Corp (小米) unveiled its first four-wheeled electric vehicle (EV) yesterday, with company founder and chief executive officer Lei Jun (雷軍) saying it has ambitions to become a global automotive powerhouse, despite fierce competition at home.

Beijing-based Xiaomi, which is the world’s fourth-largest smartphone manufacturer, is also a leading provider of tablets, smartwatches, headphones and electric scooters.

The company in 2021 announced its intended foray into EVs, joining a trend that has seen several major Chinese tech companies pivot toward the highly competitive sector.

Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun speaks at an event on the company`s first electric vehicle (EV) SU7, in Beijing, China yesterday. Photo: REUTERS/Florence Lo

Lei took to the stage in Beijing yesterday to unveil the SU7, a sedan that is scheduled to enter the market in 2025.

The model is integrated with Xiaomi software to enable functionality across the firm’s range of devices and would be produced by local manufacturer BAIC Group (北汽集團), the company said.

“The goal is to become one of the world’s top five automotive manufacturers through 15 to 20 years of hard work,” Lei said.

The SU7’s batteries are to be supplied by China’s largest electric automaker, BYD Co (比亞迪), as well as domestic battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology Co (寧德時代).

Many top tech firms in China — which is the world’s largest automotive market — have invested recently in the country’s EV sector.

BYD was the undisputed leader of China’s EV market last month with more than 300,000 models sold, ahead of Tesla Inc’s more than 80,000, China Association of Automobile Manufacturers data showed.

Founded in 2010, Xiaomi has achieved rapid growth through its strategy of marketing high-end devices at affordable prices, which were initially sold directly through online channels.

The firm was placed on a blacklist by the US in 2021 due to alleged links to the Chinese military.

Drivers’ delights

People look at vehicles at the booth of German automaker BMW AG on the first day of the Taipei Auto Show at Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center’s Hall 1 yesterday. After a four-year hiatus, this year’s trade show has attracted more than 20 automobile and motorcycle brands, as well as energy storage and power solution providers, with nearly 1,000 booths featuring new vehicles and a wide range of electric vehicle charging accessories. The trade show runs through Monday.

Photo: CNA

EDITORIAL: Third group endorsement important

In Japanese academic Yoshiyuki Ogasawara’s book On the Taiwanese Presidential Election (台灣總統大選－台灣認同的成長與爭奪), he made a careful analysis of the past seven presidential elections by categorizing Taiwanese voters into three groups: The first endorses Chinese nationalism; the second, Taiwanese nationalism; and the last, a Taiwanese identity. The difference between the latter two is that voters in the last might value Taiwan’s sovereignty, but consider themselves both Taiwanese and Chinese, and usually support maintaining the “status quo” while developing an inclination for Taiwan’s democratic system.

Ogasawara’s theory states that no matter if it is the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) or the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), when either party takes a Chinese nationalism or Taiwanese nationalism stance, that party loses the presidential election. The results of every presidential election since 1996 have long rested on the third group’s endorsement.

During the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1996, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) marginalized his rivals — Peng Ming-min (彭明敏) of the DPP and independent Lin Yang-kang (林洋港) — who respectively represented Taiwanese nationalism and Chinese nationalism, and maximized support from the group favoring a Taiwanese identity. In 2000, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) triumphed and secured a second term with his “New Middle Way” (新中間路線), a policy that promised to transcend Taiwanese independence and Chinese unification. The DPP’s replacement of the “Taiwan Independence Clause” (台獨黨綱) with the “Resolution on Taiwan’s Future” in 1999 also helped. In 2012, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) won with the so-called “1992 consensus,” the difference being that the consensus was based on the principle of “one China, different interpretations.”

President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) two consecutive victories were also closely associated with the group. The Sunflower movement in 2014 unleashed a political tidal wave that reshaped the political landscape. Tsai’s vow to push back against a KMT pivot toward China and the cross-strait service trade agreement saw her elected. In 2020, following China’s crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy demonstrations, as well as former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) “China-friendly” cross-strait stance and mocking of the DPP’s “sense of the nation’s impending doom” turned the tide in Tsai’s favor when she vowed again to maintain the “status quo.”

Yet in terms of next month’s elections, the cross-strait policy of past elections has been sidelined, with only the KMT appealing to voters that the election is a choice between “war or peace.”

Since all three candidates are benshengren (本省人) — people who came to Taiwan before World War II and their offspring — who vow to maintain the “status quo,” the DPP has no edge or “material” to work with as before, complicating predictions on who would win the last group’s support this time, Ogasawara said.

Instead of cross-strait trade, public discourse has centered on private property — DPP presidential candidate Vice President William Lai’s (賴清德) old family home, TPP Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) Hsinchu County farmland and KMT presidential candidate and New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi’s (侯友宜) Kaisuan Condominium.

Vetted as a rising star of the DPP, Lai was renowned for his rectitude, uprightness and integrity ever since entering politics 30 years ago. As his rivals fail to dig up dirt on him, the only “fault” they could find seems to be the old family home they claim is an “illegal structure.” However, compared to Lai’s old family house, valued at less than NT$1 million (US$32,554), Hou’s Kaisuan Condominium and Ko’s “farmland” have been more damaging.

It is strange that a presidential election to determine cross-strait relations would center on private property. This is due to voter fatigue on cross-strait issues, and because of Lai’s clean past and upright character.

More needed for minority voters

By Jet Yang 楊方儒

With generational differences and partisan loyalties in the pan-blue and pan-green camps, the three main parties — the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) — remain close in polls running up to the presidential and legislative elections.

They need to consider how they could attract support from minority groups outside of their established voter bases.

Hong Kong celebrity Chapman To (杜汶澤) is to vote in Taiwan for the first time after receiving his national identification card. He is just one of many Hong Kongers who have immigrated to Taiwan over the past few years.

There are about 590,000 “new immigrants” — 300,000 of whom have the right to vote. Many are parents, with the number of children reaching as many as 450,000; they are sure to be on the lookout for a better future for their kids.

There are 1,028,000 first-time voters considered to be in minority groups between the ages of 20 and 24, with 580,000 being indigenous people who are largely forgotten by politicians; 5 percent of the population identifying as non-heterosexual; residents of eastern Taiwan, as well as those living on outlying islands, all of whom could have a major impact on election results as significant minority voter groups.

However, on issues and policies related to minorities, all major parties, whether they are the governing majority or the opposition, still have much room to improve. Nominating indigenous legislators and legislator-at-large slots or new immigrants is little more than window dressing. Similarly, legacy media and online commentators rarely have a handle on the political preferences of minority groups.

How to win support from new immigrants and indigenous people, whose voices are usually neglected, as well as first-time swing voters, often escapes the minds of campaign staffers. What is worse, when the KMT, DPP and TPP struggle to devise appropriate political policies or have anything to show regarding minorities, they only obfuscate and accuse their rivals of not doing enough for these underrepresented groups.

Minorities were not seen as important in the past three transfers of political power. Ethnic ties, factions and generational differences were the main factors keeping younger generations and minorities outside of politics.

Even within these different groups, we see established patterns of political loyalty. Hong Kongers who relocated to Taiwan and LGBTQ+ groups tend to be pro-green, residents of outlying islands and rural areas are generally pro-blue and the children of new immigrants tend to be pro-TPP.

The majority and mainstream media find it hard to convince minorities to join their side. Taking advantage of concurrent social network promotion and on-the-ground activities is a good way to achieve this, but how to convert this into votes is the real challenge.

Due to their different stances on gender equality, the KMT’s presidential candidate, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), and TPP Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) did not attend Kaohsiung Pride.

The DPP’s presidential candidate, Vice President William Lai (賴清德), who lacks supporters in Kinmen County could only stand back and watch blue camp figures advocate for peace on the anniversary of the 823 Artillery Bombardment. Lai and his running mate, former representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴), do not see the outlying islands as fertile ground for garnering support.

As examples of targeted policies, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) won the 2020 presidential election due to younger voters, while former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) won the local election by calling on Kaohsiung residents working in northern Taiwan to return to vote.

In next month’s elections, how to persuade minorities to vote for you instead of your opponent will be crucial.

Jet Yang is editor-in-chief of Knowing Media Group.

Translated by Chien Yan-ru

India is eyeing Taiwan’s elections

By Sana Hashmi 胡莎娜

On Jan. 13, an estimated 19.5 million eligible voters are to partake in the selection of Taiwan’s next president and 113 members of the Legislative Yuan. The forthcoming elections carry substantial weight, not solely within Taiwan, but also for its potential to delineate the trajectory of cross-strait relations and wield considerable influence over the country’s foreign policy in the ensuing four years.

Bound by a two-term limit, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is to exit office, paving the way for her successor. The next president is to assume leadership during a precarious period, characterized by strained relations with China, currently entrenched at their lowest ebb. Whoever emerges victorious would face the daunting challenge of delicately balancing the imperative to stabilize relations with China while upholding the remarkable strides Taiwan has achieved in its foreign policy outreach.

Upon assuming office, Tsai implemented the New Southbound Policy as one of her initial policy directives. Acknowledging the significance of expanding engagement in the region, the New Southbound Policy framework played a pivotal role. Tsai specifically highlighted India as a key priority country within this framework. Subsequently, gradual yet tangible advancements have materialized in relations between Taiwan and India.

Naturally, India is closely observing the elections. Over the past four years, Taiwan-India relations have witnessed unprecedented growth. India has shifted from adhering strictly to China’s red lines to fostering connections with Taiwan.

Taiwan has made significant strides on the global platform. This progress includes carving out a distinct position for Taiwan, advocating for increased international engagement and expanding its global footprint. India’s outreach to Taiwan has been facilitated by Taiwan’s proactive approach through the New Southbound Policy. This initiative led to consistent engagement with India, whereby the latter became a crucial component of Taiwan’s Indo-Pacific policy.

The pressing threat posed by China propelled the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration to seek partners within the Indo-Pacific region. The looming threat posed by China extends beyond Taiwan, as several countries have come to recognize China’s growing aggression as a threat to their national interests and territorial sovereignty. This realization has been a compelling factor driving countries to turn their attention toward Taiwan, and India is no exception.

Following the 2020 Galwan clashes between China and India along the Himalayan border, India underwent a reassessment of its China policy. Taiwan, previously perceived as an offshoot of New Delhi’s China policy, began to carve out its distinct position within India’s strategic considerations and economic outlook. Bolstered by their shared challenges with China, Taiwan and India discovered several areas of mutual interest and alignment.

The Taiwan-India Parliamentary Friendship Forum, initially established in 2016, was revitalized in 2020, indicating sustained efforts to bolster bilateral relations. Endeavors to fortify commercial ties have been evident, showcased through a number of initiatives. Examples include the signing of an upgraded investment treaty in 2018, burgeoning bilateral trade surpassing the US$10 billion mark and a consistent rise in Taiwan’s Foreign Direct Investment in India. Over the past few years, India has notably transcended its erstwhile reluctance to openly discuss matters concerning Taiwan, culminating in unprecedented public support for Taiwan within India.

It is crucial to recognize that countries such as India have been receptive to Taiwan due to the latter’s proactive stance, taking the initial steps in fostering these connections. Taiwan’s proactive approach became especially significant amid the concurrent decline in relations with China, which created a strategic window for Taiwan when China was constraining its international presence.

Successive administrations in Taipei have sought to strengthen relations with India. When it was in power, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) also recognized the significance of ties with India, yet its efforts were sporadic, often overshadowed by the relationship with China. An illustrative instance was during the administration of then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), when the prospect of a free-trade agreement (FTA) with India was deferred, despite India’s willingness and even commissioning of a feasibility study. The Ministry of Economic Affairs at the time announced: “It is not yet time to conduct official FTA talks with India.”

On Wednesday last week there was a strong sense of deja vu during the televised presidential policy debate when the KMT’s presidential candidate, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), raised questions about the now-shelved India-Taiwan mobility and migration pact. The potential of this pact to enhance relations between the two countries was apparent. However, Hou’s reservations about the pact and use of it as a weapon against the incumbent evoke concerns about the KMT’s commitment to prioritizing India’s importance if his party were to secure victory. As Taiwan undergoes significant transformation, it is crucial to recognize that India’s significance should transcend mere election rhetoric. This concern gains significance given India’s central role in the Indo-Pacific policies of several countries, coupled with its growing interest in nurturing closer ties with Taiwan.

The response of several countries toward Taiwan hinges significantly on Taiwan’s outreach to China. Therefore, it would be paramount for the incoming president to maintain the momentum achieved on the foreign policy front, especially considering the cautious approach adopted by countries toward Taiwan in the past. Abandoning this progress would represent a missed opportunity and risk eroding the established trust between Taiwan and countries such as Japan, India and Australia. It could potentially convey a perception that, for Taiwan, prioritizing relations with China supersedes any other country, leading to the belief that other relationships hold only temporary significance.

India seeks to uphold and deepen its relationship with Taiwan, emphasizing the strengthening of existing areas of cooperation. Significant momentum has already been achieved, making it imperative for the next president to ensure the continuity and maintenance of Taiwan’s current India policy.

Sana Hashmi is a fellow at the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation and George H.W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations.

Best way to avoid war is to not be phased by Xi

By Gerrit van der Wees

For Taiwan, the threat of a conflict with China is a major issue in the run-up to the Jan. 13 elections. Over the past few years, Beijing has stirred up tensions, made threatening military moves and has continued increasingly offensive incursions with fighter jets and ships across the median line of the Taiwan Strait and into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone.

The threatening posture was made clear when on Tuesday, during a speech to commemorate the 130th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) birth, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) said he would “resolutely prevent anyone from splitting Taiwan from China in any way,” and that “the motherland must be reunified, and inevitably will be reunified.”

Xi forgets to mention that Mao earlier in life had advocated for Taiwan’s independence. In Red Star Over China, US writer Edgar Snow quoted Mao in 1937 as saying: “We will extend them [the Koreans] our enthusiastic help in their struggle for independence. The same thing applies for Taiwan.”

Xi also seems to forget that Taiwan has not been a part of China for more than a century and prior to that, China’s claim was dubious at best. While the ancestors of most of Taiwan’s current inhabitants came from coastal provinces of China, they intermarried with indigenous inhabitants and gradually developed their own identity.

Most importantly, Taiwanese have worked hard to achieve their democracy and are not willing to let that be taken away. Through their words and actions, they must make clear to Xi that Taiwan’s future is to be decided by Taiwanese alone, based on principles of self-determination, as enshrined in the UN Charter.

So, what choices could and should Taiwanese make to avoid a conflict and work toward peaceful coexistence with China?

History shows that appeasing repressive regimes never works: It only grows the tyrant’s appetite for more concessions.

On the contrary, it is essential to maintain a steady course, remain firm on principles of democracy and human rights, and build alliances with like-minded countries.

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has kept a cool head, built up Taiwan’s own deterrence by developing defensive capabilities and significantly strengthened Taiwan’s ties with the US, Japan, South Korea, Australia and European countries.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate, Vice President William Lai (賴清德), together with former representative to the US, Hsiao Bikhim (蕭美琴), are be expected to continue this policy. Their presidential ticket represents the best guarantee of stability. Xi might not like it and might make waves, but putting up with elevated tension in the short term might be necessary to ensure long-term peace.

In another aspect: Many young Taiwanese do not seem to care much for the “ideological” debates between the DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). They would prefer it if more attention were given to daily life issues such as adequate wages and affordable housing.

Those issues can and should be resolved under a democratic system of governance.

However, if China gains irreversible control of the political system, those issues become moot — as we have seen in Hong Kong, where Beijing is now in full control via local proxies.

The best way to avoid war is for Taiwan not to be intimidated by Xi, and deepen and strengthen relations with other like-minded countries, so it could be accepted as a full and equal member in the international community.

Gerrit van der Wees is a former Dutch diplomat who teaches Taiwan history and US relations with East Asia at George Mason University, and previously taught at the George Washington University Elliott School for International Affairs in Washington.

EDITORIAL CARTOON

EDITORIAL CARTOON

This was Japan’s big year of soft power

Audience tastes are changing, and this year showed that they are skewing further east

By Gearoid Reidy / Bloomberg Opinion

In a year in which Walt Disney Co struggled with expensive flops and audiences finally fell out of love with superhero movies, Japan scored a best-ever series of soft power hits.

Little by little, the country is getting better at pitching its copious wares overseas, and this year proved that. From Super Mario’s domination at the theater, to Netflix Inc’s adaptation of best-selling manga One Piece, it was a year when audiences demonstrated their increasing fondness for the soft-power superpower.

With The Super Mario Bros Movie, Nintendo Co’s tie-up with Minions creator Illumination Entertainment Inc, the Kyoto-based video game maker scored the second-highest grossing movie of the year worldwide, beaten only by Warner Bros Discovery Inc’s Barbie.

Illustration: Mountain People

Nintendo is the prime example of a Japanese company with a world-class library of intellectual properties that it has, until now, been content not to exploit. That is starting to change: The Mario film ties into Donkey Kong, the ape who will be at the center of the expanded area opening in Osaka’s Universal Studios Japan theme park early next year.

Nintendo also scored a hit with its Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom video game on Switch, which has sold 20 million copies. Zelda will also be the next of Nintendo’s properties to get the silver-screen treatment, with the company’s shares soaring after announcing a live-action adaptation. With Illumination, Nintendo’s choice of partner for Mario was inspired. It remains to be seen whether director Wes Ball, who is helming next year’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, would prove as on-point a choice.

However, Nintendo is far from the only Japanese firm getting more bang for their bucks overseas. With Godzilla Minus One, Toho Co has not only had the most success ever with one of its Godzilla films overseas — it has produced the highest-grossing live-action Japanese movie at the US box office ever, as well as one of the year’s most critically acclaimed blockbusters.

Elsewhere, legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki’s magnum opus The Boy and the Heron was the first of his films to open at the top of the US box office. The movie, along with Mario and Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume, has been nominated for best animated feature at the Golden Globes — meaning the Japanese properties make up fully half of the nominations.

This time last year, I wrote about how Japan is falling out of love with Hollywood, a trend that was only accelerated this year. Much of the rest of the world often seems to be following suit. Suzume was a smash hit in South Korea, the highest-grossing foreign movie of the year. Its success in Asia was overshadowed by another property perhaps less familiar to English-language readers: The First Slam Dunk, based on the 1990s basketball manga. Much of its box office of US$280 million was earned overseas, with the movie particularly popular with Chinese audiences. Its success is perhaps the most illustrative example yet of how Japan is getting better at exploiting its massive library of intellectual property and generating revenue overseas.

On the small screen too, Netflix finally broke its streak of live-action animation duds with One Piece, the most-watched show worldwide upon its release. While I was not a fan, I am hardly the target audience: The series has been so successful that Netflix is doubling down, not only greenlighting a second season, but commissioning a brand-new animated adaptation of the comic by WIT Studios.

Adaptations of Japanese comic books are a core part of the streaming giant’s strategy, with One Piece joined by the recently released Yu Yu Hakusho. Next up, the streaming platform is planning an adaptation of the superhero manga My Hero Academia, helmed by the director of Alice in Borderland, itself an unusual Japanese-language live-action success exclusive to the platform.

Sales of Japanese comics have long since passed those of Marvel or DC in US stores, but from the success of Sony Group Corp’s dedicated streaming site Crunchyroll, to the sight of rapper Megan Thee Stallion’s viral cosplay of Jujutsu Kaisen characters, the influence of Japanese animation on Gen Z is increasingly evident — and in a world where streamers are hungry for more, the country’s content farms are stepping up. The anime market has more than doubled in size in the 10 years to 2021 to ￥2.74 trillion yen (US$19.5 billion), driven by a fourfold increase from outside Japan.

For a nation that is often said to be staid and unable to innovate, I often contrast the constant string of new franchises that manga and animation churn out against the endless recycling of US comics’ same handful of big hits. The most anticipated comic projects in Hollywood are James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy (the fourth iteration of the Man of Steel on the silver screen), and yet another adaptation of X-Men that will integrate the mutants into Marvel’s cinematic universe. Is it little wonder that audiences are tiring and turning to something new?

It was a more mixed year for Japan’s music industry, which has struggled for decades to sell itself overseas — and has been long since left in the dust by K-pop’s far more savvy management. In one bright spot, Yoasobi became the first Japanese act to score a No. 1 on the Billboard Global ex-US chart. However, the year would be blighted by the downfall of J-pop agency Johnny & Associates Inc, after revelations of sexual abuse committed by deceased founder Johnny Kitagawa came to light after an investigation by the BBC.

Finally, one other notable soft-power success for Japan this year has been in the world of sports, particularly baseball: It defeated the US in the World Baseball Classic, while Shohei Ohtani became the world’s highest-paid athlete with his deferred US$700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. And he will be joined by the hottest property playing in Japan, star pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Millions would be watching their endeavors back home in Japan. Similarly, the Internet, smartphones and translation tools continue to make accessible all kinds of content that would have been considered incredibly niche even a decade ago. Audience tastes are changing, and this year showed they are skewing further east. Of course, the very word itself is Japanese

Gearoid Reidy is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Japan and the Koreas. He previously led the breaking news team in North Asia, and was the Tokyo deputy bureau chief. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Weelchair Barbie is like looking in the mirror, this is progress

Disabled children get to wake up on Christmas morning to toys that reflect their lives — and children with disabled loved ones can do the same

By Frances Ryan / The Guardian

It is mid-November and I am browsing Christmas presents online for my niece. I scroll through a sea of dolls, small bricks and future landfill until I notice her: Wheelchair Barbie. She is blonde, her long glossy hair draped down her back. Her accessories include a watch, movable joints and a bright pink ramp. She is wearing a rainbow-colored playsuit. It is like looking in a mirror.

Growing up in the 1990s as a disabled child, I had no doll that looked like me. I could play with a dog that went to outer space or a flame-haired troll who skateboarded, but a toy with a disability was apparently beyond what any corporate executive could imagine.

Over the past decade, this has slowly changed. Go to any toy store and you would be likely to see shelves speckled with diversity: dolls of color (notably, the “Barbie Fashionistas doll with wheelchair” also comes with an afro-haired option); those with Down’s syndrome; even dolls that look as if the have seen a carbohydrate. I believe they call this progress.

Scroll social media when such a product is launched, and you would be forgiven for thinking a “woke toy” was one of the four signs of the apocalypse (If your blood pressure rises at the thought of a doll who sits down, may I humbly suggest you consider time with a therapist?) And yet any backlash from bigoted adults feels insignificant compared with the significance of diverse toys for children. It is hard to put into words what representation does for a young mind, partly because the effects are rarely conscious. It is a drip, drip — a wordless message that says: you belong.

It is not just a minority’s own sense of self that is affected by inclusion, but also how others see you. Research by Queen Margaret University found that children develop “a more positive friendship attitude towards their peers with disabilities” after playing with toys that represent them for just three minutes.

At four years old, my niece is starting to notice that some people are different to her. As anyone who has ever spoken to a child will know, children are naturally accepting. Also narcissistic. On the rare occasions my niece asks about my disability, she will listen to my answer and then ask what is for her tea. I like the idea of showing her a doll that fills in the blanks for her. I like the idea that something she loves — Barbie, not me — includes disability.

I am not going to suggest that a doll will fix society. My general rule is that egalitarianism would not be achieved by anything you can buy in John Lewis. Corporations are not here to save us (no matter how good the Barbie movie was).

When it comes to progress for disabled women, I would much prefer society addressed the pay gap than the toy box, but I will say that there is something unquestionably hopeful about seeing a toy carved out in your shape, not least when it is a shape that mainstream culture too often tells you is ugly and shameful. When I first saw Barbie in her black and lilac wheelchair, I found myself smiling. This was not a tragic or miserable figure. She was unapologetically joyous and fun – and she knew how to accessorize.

I am not alone in this feeling. After the actor Ruth Madeley appeared in Doctor Who this month with rockets in her wheelchair, she told the Times that many disabled children are now asking for the fictional gadget for Christmas. These children had watched a wheelchair-using character be cool and powerful — and they were able to see themselves in her. Those who cannot understand the wonder of that feeling have probably never glanced at a television or magazine and seen no one who looks like them. Representation tends to seem less important when you have always been represented.

I do not know if my niece’s generation growing up with diverse toys will make a difference. Maybe it will lead them to be more tolerant or caring. Maybe the toys will end up on Vinted by the new year, but I hope it can play a small part in change. The dolls that we play with as children enable us to imagine what the world could be like, just as the little hands that comb their hair today will one day be the hands that sign the laws and write the books. On Christmas morning, disabled children now get to wake up to toys that reflect their lives — and children with disabled loved ones can do the same. Barbie might not change the world, but it does provide a ramp for doing so.

Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist

LawConnect edges Comanche by 51s

‘NERVE WRACKING’: LawConnect skipper Christian Beck said that the other boat took the lead pretty close to the line and thought there was no way to get back

AP, HOBART, Australia

LawConnect yesterday won line honors in the 78th edition of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, holding off the crew of Andoo Comanche, the defending champions, by less than a minute in an exciting finish between the super maxis.

The pair of 100-foot yachts had dueled for much of the race and were well ahead of the rest of the fleet of 103 that started the race on Tuesday in Sydney Harbour.

LawConnect, runners-up in the past three editions of the race, finished in 1 day, 19 hours, 3 minutes, 58 seconds. Comanche’s time was 1 day, 19 hours, 4 minutes, 49 seconds — a margin of just 51 seconds.

Super maxis Andoo Comanche, left, and LawConnect duel for the lead near the finish of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race in Hobart, Australia, yesterday. Photo: AP

It was the second-closest finish in Sydney to Hobart history after Condor of Bermuda beat Apollo by seven seconds in 1982.

In yesterday’s finish, both yachts performed several late jibes as they attempted to secure the lead.

“I can’t believe that result. Honestly, it is a dream come true,” LawConnect skipper and owner Christian Beck said. “They took the lead pretty close to the line and we thought there was no way we could get it back.”

LawConnect skipper and owner Christian Beck receives the John H. Illingworth Challenge Cup for line honors after the Sydney to Hobart yacht race at Constitution Dock in Hobart, Australia, yesterday. Photo: EPA-EFE

“A wind gust came around. It was a complete surprise. There were guys who couldn’t watch,” Beck said.

“It was very nerve wracking,” he added.

Comanche set the race record of 1 day, 9 hours, 15 minutes, 24 seconds when it won the race in 2017.

“It is pretty painful, we’ve got an amazing boat that should have won,” Comanche skipper and owner John Winning Jr said of yesterday’s result. “The other guys sailed their guts out and left nothing on the table. They beat us with an underdog boat, those guys deserve all the praise they get.”

“It was one of the most epic finishes in probably any sailing race I know,” Winning said. “In the last three minutes, I think the lead changed three times.”

Comanche and LawConnect were clear front-runners from just out of Sydney Harbour. The pair began the trip down the New South Wales south coast at a fast clip, but fell off the race record pace.

The finish was at Constitution Dock in Hobart, the capital of the island state of Tasmania.

Manchester City inspired by Club World Cup title

AP, LONDON

Trailing 1-0 against Everton at halftime on Wednesday, Manchester City did not much look like the newly crowned FIFA Club World Cup champions, despite the new golden FIFA badge on the front of the players’ shirts.

However, Pep Guardiola had a simple message to his players at the break.

“The manager [told us] at halftime to just keep believing, we haven’t got this badge for no reason,” Manchester City midfielder Phil Foden said. “In the second half, yeah, wow, I think we blew them away with the way we played.”

Manchester City’s Phil Foden, center, reacts during their Premier League game against Everton at Goodison Park in Liverpool, England, on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters

Foden started the comeback by equalizing in the 53rd minute before Julian Alvarez’s penalty and a late goal by Bernardo Silva secured a 3-1 win to put the defending champions back into the Premier League’s top four.

“That’s why we’re the world champions. The best team in the world,” Guardiola said with a smile in a post-game interview on Amazon Prime. “Now I’m going to remind them every day. We have a standard to keep.”

The trip to Saudi Arabia for the Club World Cup was perhaps a bit of a distraction and allowed rivals Liverpool and Arsenal to widen the gap at the top.

Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Hwang Hee-chan celebrates after scoring during their Premier League game against Brentford at the Gtech Community Stadium in London on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters

However, Manchester City now can now fully refocus on the task of winning an unprecedented fourth straight Premier League title and this was a vital first step in showing that they cannot be counted out despite a recent poor run of form.

They are five points behind leaders Liverpool with a game in hand, while Arsenal had a chance to go six points ahead of Guardiola’s team in their game against West Ham United, which was to start after press time last night.

“We know after six games with just one win, the people were asking, which is normal because it is all about results,” Guardiola said about his team’s recent run. “I have a feeling this team, we’re going to be there.”

Even with Erling Haaland still out with a foot injury, Manchester City showed that they have more than enough attacking threat to turn things around against a team who had beaten Newcastle United and Chelsea in their past two league home games.

However, it came as a cost as centerback John Stones went off with an ankle injury before halftime.

“It doesn’t look good, but we will see,” Guardiola said about the injury.

League victories at Stamford Bridge have been hard to come by for Chelsea this year, but their final home game of the year ended in a 2-1 win over Crystal Palace after substitute Noni Madueke converted a late penalty for the hosts.

It was just Chelsea’s sixth home league win of the calendar year.

The Blues took the lead through Mykhailo Mudryk in the 13th minute, but they missed several chances to double their advantage before Michael Olise equalized just before the break.

Just as it looked like Chelsea’s inefficiency up front would cost it again, Madueke was tripped by Eberechi Eze inside the area and stepped up to the spot himself to send goalkeeper Dean Henderson the wrong way in the 89th minute.

Meanwhile, Brentford might need to start worrying about a relegation scrap after Thomas Frank’s team fell to a sixth loss in seven games after making a couple of defensive howlers in a 4-1 home defeat against Wolverhampton Wanderers.

South Korea forward Hwang Hee-chan scored twice as Wolves took full advantage of Brentford’s mistakes, including one that came straight after the kickoff following the visitors’ opening goal.

Nathan Collins’ back-pass to goalkeeper Mark Flekken was underhit, allowing Hwang to round him and tap into an empty net barely 10 seconds after the restart.

Brentford are in 14th place, just four points outside the relegation zone, while Wolves climbed to 11th.

LeVert hits go-ahead three in Cavaliers win

AP, DALLAS

Caris LeVert scored 29 points on Wednesday, hitting the go-ahead three-pointer late in the fourth quarter as the Cleveland Cavaliers rallied from 20 points down in the first half to beat the Dallas Mavericks 113-110.

Jarrett Allen and the Cavs are counting the games until Donovan Mitchell returns from a longer-than-expected absence from an illness for a team short-handed well beyond the star guard.

They are finding ways to win them, too.

The Cleveland Cavaliers’ Caris LeVert, left, defends as Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks controls the ball during their NBA game at American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday. Photo: Kevin Jairaj-USA Today

The Mavericks went five minutes without scoring in the fourth quarter as a nine-point lead turned into a 111-105 deficit with 1 minute, 13 seconds remaining.

Allen had 24 points and 23 rebounds, one off his career high, and Isaac Okoro scored 22 points as the Cavs improved to 3-1 in the four consecutive games Mitchell has missed with an illness.

He was on the bench in street clothes, chatting with teammates during timeouts.

Cleveland are also missing their No. 2 and 3 scorers with long-term injuries to Darius Garland (broken jaw) and Evan Mobley (knee surgery), yet they are 5-1 since a three-game losing streak.

“It’s a big lift for us,” Allen said. “As long as we can hold down the fort until we get healthy again, that’s what we’re looking forward to. You can’t just discount this team. We’re going to step to every single matchup and give it our all.”

Luka Doncic scored 39 points for Dallas to get to at least 30 for the 14th time in 15 games, nine of them in the 10 straight games All-Star sidekick Kyrie Irving has missed with a right heel injury.

With Irving out, the Mavs rested Doncic longer than usual to start the fourth — almost six minutes — but they could not score after the four-time All-Star returned.

Cleveland’s 15-0 run for the lead started as soon as Doncic came back.

LeVert, Allen and Max Strus scored at the rim before a two-minute scoreless drought for both teams ended with two free throws from LeVert, who scored 15 points in the fourth quarter after missing the previous game with a knee injury.

Seth Curry scored a season-high 19 points for Dallas, but he and Doncic combined to go two of 11 from the field in the fourth quarter.

“We got some good looks,” Mavs coach Jason Kidd said. “We just didn’t make them. Luka had looks. Curry had looks. Everybody had looks. They just didn’t go down for us.”

The Mavs trailed by six with 21 seconds left, but still had a chance to tie on a final possession after Georges Niang missed two free throws with eight seconds remaining.

Cleveland trapped Doncic near midcourt after he caught the inbound pass and Curry’s desperation three at the buzzer was blocked by Strus.

“We’ve got to get stops, and at the end, we didn’t get the look we wanted,” Kidd said. “We’ve got to be better late game.”

Elsewhere on Wednesday, it was:

‧ Magic 92, 76ers 112

‧ Nets 122, Bucks 144

‧ Rockets 113, Suns 129

‧ Thunder 129, Knicks 120

‧ Wizards 102, Raptors 132

Japan’s Yoshinobu Yamamoto joins LA Dodgers in MLB

AP, LOS ANGELES

Just over six years after Yoshinobu Yamamoto watched an MLB playoff game from the raucous Dodger Stadium stands and decided he absolutely had to play in the major leagues one day, the right-hander pulled on his white No. 18 jersey and a blue cap in the center field pavilion.

The consensus best pitcher outside North America on Wednesday reached one of his goals, joining the Dodgers on a 12-year contract that is reportedly the largest and longest ever guaranteed to a major-league pitcher.

However, the 25-year-old ace of Japan’s top league will not be satisfied without many chances to experience the Los Angeles playoff atmosphere he absorbed as a teenager watching Kenta Maeda on the mound at Chavez Ravine in 2017.

Newly signed Los Angeles Dodgers player Yoshinobu Yamamoto attends a news conference at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Wednesday. Photo: EPA-EFE

While he is to play alongside Shohei Ohtani with his new club, Yamamoto also intends to inspire any dreaming youngsters in the Dodger Stadium stands.

“From today moving forward, I promise to all the fans of LA that I will focus my everything to become a better player, and to become a world champion as a member of the Dodgers,” Yamamoto said through an interpreter. “I will stop simply admiring the players that I have looked up to, but rather strive to become the player that others want to become.”

Yamamoto has been Japan’s most dominant pitcher over the past few seasons and he was sought by teams across the majors after he elected to leave the Orix Buffaloes this off-season.

The big-budget, pitching-poor Dodgers landed Yamamoto to cap their prolific winter spending spree after signing two-way American League Most Valuable Player Ohtani to a US$700 million contract and inking right-hander Tyler Glasnow to a US$136.5 million, five-year deal after his acquisition from the Tampa Bay Rays.

“This has been a monumental off-season for all of us,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s a privilege to be here, but I don’t think the expectations have changed. The roster has been bolstered with some good young players, but our goal is always to compete for championships.”

The Dodgers did not disclose the value of the deal, but several media reports have tagged it at US$325 million.

Son Heung-min to lead South Korea at Asian Cup

AFP, SEOUL

Tottenham Hotspur’s Son Heung-min yesterday was named in South Korea’s Asian Cup squad and coach Jurgen Klinsmann said it was “about time” they ended their 64-year continental title drought.

Wolverhampton Wanderers forward Hwang Hee-chan was also among Klinsmann’s 26-man selection for the tournament, which is to start in Qatar on Jan. 12.

Son is to captain a squad that includes Bayern Munich defender Kim Min-jae and 22-year-old Paris Saint-Germain attacking midfielder Lee Kang-in.

South Korea coach Jurgen Klinsmann speaks during a news conference in Seoul yesterday to announce the South Korea squad for the Asian Cup. Photo: AFP

South Korea have not won the Asian Cup since 1960.

“It’s all about timing now and I think we are ready for this big, big competition,” Klinsmann said. “It’s 64 years — 64 years is a long time for [South] Korea. It’s about time that we get this done.”

South Korea have been drawn in Group E and face Malaysia, Jordan and Bahrain in the group stage.

They lost 1-0 to eventual champions Qatar in the quarter-finals of the 2019 Asian Cup in the United Arab Emirates.

Klinsmann, a FIFA World Cup winner with Germany in 1990, will have one of the strongest squads in the tournament in Qatar and he said he could “see it in their eyes that they are hungry for it.”

“I have a good feeling because they’re doing well at their clubs,” he said. “They’re healthy, they’re fit, they’re ambitious and they’re very hungry. This is the foundation for playing a good tournament.”

“We have a lot of different pieces in that roster and that makes us one of the favorites for the Asian Cup,” he said. “We have to fine-tune these elements over the next couple of weeks and then go into the tournament with confidence.”

Michigan court denies ban for Trump

CONTROVERSY: The state’s law differed from Michigan’s ‘in a material way’ in requiring candidates to be ‘qualified’ to run, a supreme court judge said

AFP, WASHINGTON

The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an attempt to remove former US president Donald Trump from the crucial swing-state’s primary ballot next year over his role in the 2021 storming of the US Capitol.

It was the latest in a series of bids to block Trump from appearing on ballots in multiple states under the 14th amendment of the US constitution, which says officials who take an oath to support the US constitution are banned from future office if they “engaged in insurrection.”

However, Michigan’s high court said in a brief ruling it was “not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this court” ahead of the state’s Feb. 27 presidential primary.

Former US president Donald Trump arrives to speak to his supporters during the Florida Freedom Summit held at the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center in Kissimmee, Florida, on Nov. 4. Photo: Reuters

The decision contrasts with the recent ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court, which kicked Trump off the state’s primary ballot over his role in the Capitol riot, which he is accused of inciting. Trump hailed the Michigan ruling, slamming a “Desperate Democrat attempt” to stack the deck against him as he seeks another term in the White House.

“This pathetic gambit to rig the Election has failed all across the Country, including in States that have historically leaned heavily toward the Democrats,” he posted on Truth Social, his social media platform.

Colorado’s highest court issued a stay or freeze of its bombshell ruling until Thursday next week pending an expected appeal by Trump’s lawyers to the US Supreme Court.

Granting the Colorado case for review would thrust the country’s top court into the center of the White House race, as any ruling it makes on whether Trump engaged in insurrection and on his eligibility could be binding on lower courts nationwide.

The Michigan lawsuit was filed in September by Free Speech For People, a pro-democracy advocacy group that also pursued an unsuccessful 14th amendment challenge against Trump in Minnesota and has filed a case in Oregon.

“The court’s decision is disappointing but we will continue, at a later stage, to seek to uphold this critical constitutional provision designed to protect our republic,” election lawyer Mark Brewer, who joined the group in the lawsuit, said in a statement. “Trump led a rebellion and insurrection against the Constitution when he tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election and he is disqualified from ever seeking or holding public office again.”

Michigan’s lower courts dismissed the case on procedural grounds early in the process, a decision upheld on appeal, meaning the question of whether Trump engaged in insurrection was never addressed.

US Justice Elizabeth Welch, one of four Democratic-nominated justices on the seven-member panel, acknowledged the Colorado decision, but said that state’s election law differed from Michigan’s “in a material way” in requiring candidates to be “qualified” to run.

The 77-year-old Trump is scheduled to go on trial in Washington in March on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by US President Joe Biden.

Protesters storm refugee shelter in Indonesia

Reuters, BANDA ACEH, Indonesia

A large crowd of Indonesian students stormed a convention center housing hundreds of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, on Wednesday, demanding they be deported.

A Banda Aceh police spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Footage showed the students, many wearing green jackets, run into the building’s large basement space, where crowds of Rohingya men, women and children were seated on the floor and crying in fear. The Rohingya were then led out, some carrying their belongings in plastic sacks, and taken to trucks, as the protesters looked on.

Rohingya refugees gather in front of an Indonesian government building, after demonstrating university students forced them to relocate from a previous government facility, in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement that it was “deeply disturbed to see a mob attack on a site sheltering vulnerable refugee families, [a] majority being children and women” and called for better protection.

“The mob broke a police cordon and forcibly put 137 refugees on two trucks, and moved them to another location in Banda Aceh. The incident has left refugees shocked and traumatized,” it said.

It added the attack was the result of a coordinated online campaign of misinformation and hate speech.

Rohingya refugees have experienced increasing hostility and rejection in Indonesia as locals grow frustrated at the numbers of boats arriving with the ethnic minority, who face persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has blamed the recent surge in arrivals on human trafficking and pledged to work with international organizations to offer temporary shelter.

More than 1,500 Rohingya have landed in Indonesia since last month, UNHCR said.

Arrivals tend to spike from November to April, when the seas are calmer, with Rohingya taking boats to neighboring Thailand, and Muslim-majority Indonesia and Malaysia.

Wariza Anis Munandar, a 23-year-old student in Banda Aceh speaking at an earlier protest rally in the city on Wednesday called for the deportation of the Rohingya while another student, 20-year-old Della Masrida, said: “They came here uninvited, they feel like it is their country.”

Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, but has a history of taking in refugees if they arrive.

For years, Rohingya have left Myanmar, where they are generally regarded as foreign interlopers from South Asia, denied citizenship and subjected to abuse.

India targeting journalists with spyware: Amnesty

PEGASUS: Since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014, India has fallen 21 spots to 161 in the World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders

AFP, NEW DELHI

The Indian government has again targeted high-profile journalists with Pegasus spyware, Amnesty International and the Washington Post said in a joint investigation published yesterday.

Created by Israeli firm NSO Group, Pegasus can be used to access a phone’s messages and e-mails, peruse photos, eavesdrop on calls, track locations and even film the owner with the camera.

Watchdogs have documented widespread use of the spyware — which is normally only sold to governments or security agencies — against journalists and activists in dozens of countries, including India. Amnesty said journalists Siddharth Varadarajan of The Wire and Anand Mangnale of The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) had been targeted with the spyware on their iPhones.

A padlock is pictured in front of the word “spyware” on May 4 last year. Photo: Reuters

“Increasingly, journalists in India face the threat of unlawful surveillance simply for doing their jobs,” said Donncha O Cearbhaill, head of Amnesty International’s Security Lab.

That threat compounds an already hostile climate for reporters also facing “imprisonment under draconian laws, smear campaigns, harassment and intimidation,” he added.

Indian government did not immediately respond to the report, which said the most recent identified case of spyware use occurred in October.

In 2021, New Delhi was accused of using Pegasus to surveil journalists, opposition politicians and activists, with leaked documents showing the spyware had been used against more than 1,000 Indian phone numbers.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s main political rival, Indian National Congress president Rahul Gandhi, was among those targeted.

The government denied conducting “illegal surveillance” but refused to cooperate with an Indian Supreme Court probe into the allegations, the findings of which have not been made public.

The OCCRP, one of the two target organizations named in yesterday’s report, published an investigation in August into the financial dealings of Indian tycoon Gautam Adani, a key business ally of Modi.

Adani’s conglomerate shed more than US$100 billion in value earlier this year after a US short-seller investment firm made explosive allegations of accounting fraud, which the Indian company dismissed as an organized “smear campaign.”

Mangnale said that he was targeted “within hours” of sending questions to Adani Group on behalf of the OCCRP.

“I can’t blame the Adani Group or the government of India for it, because we don’t have the evidence yet,” he added. “But, the chronology itself is really telling.”

Varadarajan of The Wire suggested to the Washington Post that he had been targeted for leading opposition to the detention of a prominent news publisher in New Delhi.

India has fallen 21 spots to 161 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders, since Modi took office in 2014.

Russian stars’ semi-naked party sparks huge backlash

Reuters, MOSCOW

A Russian rapper who attended a celebrity party with only a sock to hide his modesty has been jailed for 15 days, sponsors of some of Russia’s best known entertainers have torn up their contracts, and Russian President Vladimir Putin is reported to be unamused.

An “almost naked” party at a Moscow nightclub held at a time when Russia is engaged in a war with Ukraine and the authorities are pushing an increasingly conservative social agenda has provoked an unusually swift and powerful backlash.

A video clip of Putin’s spokesperson listening to an explanation from one of the stars who attended has been circulating online, and Baza, a news outlet known for its contacts with the security services, has reported that troops fighting in Ukraine were among the first to complain after seeing the footage and that photographs of the event reached an unimpressed Putin.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday asked reporters to forgive him for not publicly commenting on the burgeoning scandal, saying: “Let you and I be the only ones in the country who aren’t discussing this topic.”

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the event had “stained” those who took part, but that they now had a chance to work on themselves, according to news outlet Ura.ru.

The fierce backlash from the authorities, pro-Kremlin lawmakers and bloggers, Russian state media, and Orthodox Church groups has been dominating the headlines for days, displacing stories about rising egg prices and inflation.

The party, in Moscow’s Mutabor nightclub on Thursday last week, was organized by blogger Anastasia Ivleeva and was attended by well-known singers in various states of undress who have been staples on state TV entertainment programs for years.

Ivleeva, who has since become one of Russia’s most recognized names and who attended wearing jewelery worth 23 million rubles (US$255,700) at a time when some Russians are struggling to get by, has issued two public apology videos.

In the second tearful one, released on Wednesday, she said she regretted her actions and deserved everything she got, but hoped she could be given “a second chance.”

Her name has since disappeared as one of the public faces of major Russian mobile phone operator MTS, the tax authorities have opened an investigation that carries a potential five-year jail term and a Moscow court has accepted a lawsuit from a group of individuals demanding she pay 1 billion rubles for “moral suffering.”

If successful, they want the money to go to a state fund that supports Ukraine war veterans.

Nikolai Vasilyev, a rapper known as “Vacio” who attended wearing only a sock to cover his penis, was jailed by a Moscow court for 15 days and fined 200,000 rubles for propaganda of “non-traditional sexual relations.”

Other more famous names have had concerts and lucrative state TV airtime canceled, contracts with sponsors revoked and, in at least one case, are reportedly being cut out of a new film.

One woman who said her nephew had lost both legs in combat wrote in a post to the League for a Safe Internet that the stars should pay for prosthetic legs for her relative and others to make amends.

“That would be a better apology,” the unidentified woman wrote.

Former European Commission president Jacques Delors dies at 98

AFP, PARIS

For both fans and foes of the European project, former European Commission president Jacques Delors was Brussels’ driving force during the EU’s greatest period of integration, the creation of the single market and the euro.

In his native France the statesman was a respected figure in the remaking of the centre-left under former French president Francois Mitterrand. Dead on Wednesday at the age of 98, the champion of an ever closer EU and the bugbear of British Thatcherites received tributes from across the continent he sought to unite.

“Generations of Europeans will continue to benefit from his legacy,” said European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, a Maltese conservative hailing a French socialist.

Then-European Commission president Jacques Delors listens to a question during a news conference at EU headquarters in Brussels on Oct. 21, 1994. Photo: Reuters

Another conservative, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, said: “Jacques Delors was a visionary who made our Europe stronger. His life’s work is a united, dynamic and prosperous European Union.”

Delors stood down as president of the European Commission in 1995 after disappointing his French supporters by declining to stand for office as president of his homeland.

However, he had already played a transformative role as the European Community, which became the EU during his term, took on a central role in the continent’s affairs.

This reflected his previous role under Mitterrand as the French minister of finance, as he imposed rigor on public accounts and rewrote the romantic language of the center-left in a more “realist” register. In 1984, Mitterrand wanted to make Delors prime minister, but he offended the president by asking to keep his finance portfolio alongside the top job, and he was sidelined.

Mitterrand would later declare bitterly: “He’ll be remembered for his role at the European Commission, but in politics: zero.”

However, it would indeed be in his Brussels role that Delors would enter history, taking the job of EU chief executive in 1985 after two years in the European Parliament.

Delors’ vision of Europe as a federation of nation states and his workaholic doggedness would see him compared to the post-war founders of the European project, former High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community president Jean Monnet and former European Parliament president Robert Schuman.

Under the Delors presidency the man who had once reassured world markets that France’s budget was in safe hands would lay the foundation of what would become Europe’s monetary union.

A passionate educationalist, he would also found the Erasmus program of university exchanges, helping educate a whole new generation of young Europeans with a greater EU identity.

This passion for closer union also made him enemies. Across the Channel in the UK, former British prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major adopted him as a foil — the archetypal “Brussels bureaucrat,” constraining British sovereignty.

In 1990, top-selling British tabloid the Sun urged its readers to take to the streets at midday and to raise a two-fingered salute in Brussels’ direction under the front-page headline: “Up yours Delors.”

World News Quick Take

AGENCIES

SOUTH KOREA

Embassy deletes video

The Israeli embassy removed a video showing an imaginary scenario in which Koreans are attacked by masked assailants in Seoul, a reference to Hamas, the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The ministry said in a statement that the video was deemed “inappropriate” and that it had asked the Israeli embassy to take it down. The video, which is no longer available on the embassy’s social media, depicted a distressing scenario in which a South Korean woman in the capital is abducted by an armed assailant on Christmas Day and forcibly separated from her young daughter, a clip published by South Korean broadcaster YTN showed. The Israeli embassy wrote, alongside the now-removed video posted on its Facebook account on Tuesday: “On October 7th, Israel was attacked by Hamas terrorists. 1,200 men, women and children were killed, and over 240 people were taken hostage in Gaza. Imagine if it happened to you. What would you do?”

UNITED STATES

Decades-old body identified

Remains found by hikers in a shallow grave 47 years ago near a lake on the border of Arizona and Nevada have been identified. The man was Luis Alonso Paredes, who was from El Salvador, but might have been living or working in the Las Vegas area at the time of his death, the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office announced on Tuesday. The remains were discovered on Nov. 23, 1976, in a desert area in northwestern Arizona, just east of Lake Mohave. An autopsy at the time revealed that the victim was likely in his early to mid-30s and had been shot in the head at close range, the sheriff’s office said. However, despite authorities collecting fingerprints during the autopsy, the case soon went cold and the victim remained nameless for close to five decades.

AUSTRIA

Inventor of Glock guns dies

Gaston Glock, the Austrian developer of the handgun that bears his name, died on Wednesday. He was 94. The Glock company announced his death, the Austria Press Agency reported. Glock, a reclusive engineer, founded the company in 1963 in Deutsch-Wagram, near Vienna. It has since expanded worldwide, including a US subsidiary founded in 1985. Glock handguns are used by police and some countries’ military forces, as well as private customers. The weapon was significantly lighter, cheaper and more reliable than the models available when it was created. Glock said on its Web site that its founder “not only revolutionized the world of small arms in the 1980s, but also succeeded in establishing the Glock brand as the global leader in the handgun industry.”

RUSSIA

Plane lands on frozen river

A Soviet-era Antonov 24 aircraft carrying 30 passengers landed on a frozen river near an airport in Russia’s east yesterday because of pilot error, transport prosecutors said. The Polar Airlines An-24 landed safely on the Kolyma River near Zyryanka in the Yakutia region, the prosecutors said. “According to preliminary information, the cause of the aviation incident was an error by the crew in piloting the aircraft,” a spokesperson for the Eastern Siberian transport prosecutor said in a statement. Prosecutors published pictures of the aircraft on a frozen river. The Izvestia newspaper published pictures of passengers disembarking. “The An-24 aircraft landed outside of the runway of the Zyryanka airport,” Polar Airlines said in a short statement. “There were no casualties.”

Is Taipei really a food paradise?

A recent survey about food in Taipei relies on a questionable methodology that does a disservice to foodies looking for a culinary destination

By Steven Crook / Contributing reporter

Whenever international comparisons make Taiwan look good, local media are usually quick to share the news. So it’s surprising that one recent analysis, which listed Taipei as the world’s fifth best city for foodies, seems to have gone ignored.

The Food Lovers’ Index, created for UK tour company Titan Travel and published on Dec. 8, rated Paris, Barcelona, Miami and Amsterdam as numbers one through four. Ranking just below Taipei, and filling out the Top Ten, were Denpasar (on the Indonesian island of Bali), Kuala Lumpur, New York, London and Las Vegas.

Another recent report, summarized by a handful of local Chinese-language Web sites, concluded that Taiwan’s capital is the ninth best place on the planet in terms of restaurants.

Winners of a Michelin star take the stage on Aug. 31 in Taipei. Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times

Resonance Consultancy’s 2024 World’s Best Cities overall ranking — which weighs prosperity, population diversity and prominence in international media, among other metrics — placed Taipei 42nd out of 270-plus featured cities across the world, just below Copenhagen and one position above Austin, Texas.

Resonance, which specializes in branding and promoting destinations, praised Taipei as “The birthplace of beloved boba (aka, bubble milk tea), Mongolian BBQ and Din Tai Fung’s Michelin-starred soup dumplings,” noting that its “dynamic culinary scene” includes markets, rechao (熱炒, fast stir-fried dish) establishments, and “gourmet restaurants like RAW and Mume.”

The invention of boba milk tea is usually traced back to Taichung, not Taipei.

Two men enjoy seafood inside Taipei’s Addiction Aquatic Development. Photo: Steven Crook

Titan Travel’s Food Lovers’ Index awarded each city a score out of 10 according to how many child-friendly restaurants, vegetarian eateries, vegan-option restaurants, fine-dining establishments and Michelin-starred restaurants it had per square kilometer.

Asked why per square kilometer, rather than per 100,000 or million inhabitants, was used as the basis of calculations, Grace Burton of Digitaloft, the UK firm which compiled the index for Titan Travel, told the Taipei Times by email that this approach was chosen because “it made more sense” when looking at cities which have a lot of visitors in addition to a substantial permanent population.

“The number of child-friendly, vegetarian, vegan-option and fine-dining restaurants was taken using the Tripadvisor Web site, using filters to collect results. The number of different cuisines was also taken from Tripadvisor, to find the cities with the most diverse cuisines,” she explained.

Staff at the Taipei 101 branch of Din Tai Fung make the restaurant’s famous soup-filled dumplings. Photo: Steven Crook

There’s an obvious flaw in this methodology: There are dozens of eateries in Taipei which fall into one of these categories, but which haven’t been reviewed on Tripadvisor.

For example, Happy Farm Vegetarian Restaurant (開心農場素食店), which on Google Maps scores an average 4.6 out of 5 from 461 reviews, doesn’t appear on Tripadvisor’s list of meat-free eating places in Taipei. Nor does Hemiao Vegetarian Food (禾苗素食), which has a 4.4 rating from 285 Google Maps reviews.

According to Burton, Digiloft began by looking at a list of the world’s top 30 most visited cities, from which Medina and Mecca were removed, due to the lack of non-religious tourism. Less-visited towns and cities were ignored, even though some Taiwanese would say that Tainan’s food is more delicious than Taipei’s, just as there are French people who prefer the food scene in Lyon to that in Paris.

A vendor prepares squid balls in Taipei’s Raohe Night Market. Photo: Steven Crook

DO FOODIES CARE ABOUT RANKINGS?

For Stanford Chiou, an American food enthusiast of Taiwanese descent, one of the great strengths of Taipei’s culinary landscape is its accessibility.

“While restaurants like Tairroir, Raw and MUME have put Taipei on the fine dining map, where Taipei shines is the availability of high-quality, affordable options, the most visible of which are the night markets,” says the New York resident.

“This accessibility isn’t only economic. Because dining with children is the rule rather than the exception, child-friendly options are plentiful. The vegetarianism of devout Buddhists and Taoists is well-catered to, and there are a growing number of restaurants that adhere to Western vegan strictures,” says Chiou, who most recently visited Taiwan in late November.

Food halls in New York, Berlin and Lisbon are trying to replicate the success of street vendors and night markets in Taiwan and other Asian countries, he’s noticed, “but higher rent and wages make this difficult to do at a comparable price point.”

In terms of pricing, Taipei’s night markets are competing with convenience stores and fast food outlets, whereas food-hall dishes in Western countries are no cheaper than fast casual chains like Chipotle Mexican Grill or Shake Shack, Chiou says.

He identifies another facet of Taipei’s eating scene which may disappoint international foodies: A relative lack of diversity.

“It’s not that Taipei doesn’t have African, South Asian or Latin American food. It’s that the options are fewer in comparison to New York or London,” he says.

Katy Hui-wen Hung (洪惠文) — co-author with this reporter of A Culinary History of Taipei: Beyond Pork and Ponlai and an occasional contributor to the Taipei Times — thinks there’s little point to lists like the one published by Titan Travel.

Since COVID-19 travel restrictions were lifted, Hung has been to several countries. She says that, based on her recent experiences, Kyoto and Lisbon are ahead of Taipei as food destinations, while London and Tokyo are “no less interesting” than Taiwan’s capital.

“Street food in Lisbon and Kyoto isn’t about being cheap and funky, whereas Taiwan’s is often marketed as being inexpensive and a fun night out,” she adds.

For Hung, the various food-safety scandals that erupted in the 2010s still cast a pall over Taiwan’s culinary scene.

“I’d say that Portugal has one of the best food scenes in Europe, especially the seafood, and there I never worried that the fish I ate came from a polluted pond,” she says. “Portuguese food preparation is simple and traditional, with good quality olive oil, showing the quality of the food. The way they prepare octopus is great — simple, soft, and fresh. But in Taiwan there’s always this safety concern, and I know that some people avoid seafood in Taiwan because of them.”

Steven Crook has been writing about travel, culture and business in Taiwan since 1996. He is the author of Taiwan: The Bradt Travel Guide and co-author of A Culinary History of Taipei: Beyond Pork and Ponlai.

Highlight: Combatting human trafficking

Staff writer

Mina Chiang will give a lecture on Jan. 5 to discuss her experiences combatting human trafficking.

Chiang, the founder of UK-based Humanity Research Consultancy, will discuss her organization and how it has since its inception in 2019 adapted to changing global attitudes towards human exploitation.

The lecture, hosted by the Lung Yingtai Cultural Foundation at its offices in Taipei’s Dihua Street, is titled Empowerment & Impact: My Social Enterprise Journey and runs from 7:30pm to 9pm.

Residents of ‘Maiti Nepal,’ a rehabilitation and orphanage home for HIV-affected children, women and victims of trafficking, last month light a candle on the eve of World AIDS Day in Kathmandu, Nepal. Photo: EPA-EFE

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) Global Report on Trafficking in Persons last year, cross-border trafficking fell significantly in 2020, with national reports suggesting “mobility restrictions resulting from COVID-19 containment measures may have contributed to this trend.”

Anecdotal evidence, the report says, from 2021 saw a furtherance of this trend, though lockdown measures may have simply pushed exploitation into less visible locations.

VICTIMS

The most common form of human trafficking is forced labor (38.8 percent), followed by sexual exploitation (38.7 percent). The victims of sexual exploitation are predominantly women and girls, and in some countries women make up the largest proportion of traffickers.

In some parts of the world, women trafficking women is the norm.

The report says that women and children face more violent exploitation. Female victims (women and girls) account for 60 per cent of the total number of detected victims in 2020.

BRIDGING THE GAP

With a mission to bridge the gap between clients from the global north and young professionals from the global south, Chiang’s consultancy has evolved over four years.

The consultancy is currently advising and assisting international stakeholders, including Interpol and the UNODC, and collaborating with a diverse array of international NGOs in their initiatives to end human trafficking.

The lecture and discussion will be held in English. The salon is free, but those wanting to attend must pre-register.

To register for the in-person discussion, visit: www.surveycake.com/s/zLvYY

The talk will also be screened live on Facebook. To register, go to: fb.me/e/1Lh65u3Ft

207, Sec 1, Dihua St, Taipei City (台北市大同區迪化街一段207號)

Jan. 5 from 7:30pm to 9pm.

Exposing Celie’s inner life

Finding new dimensions, sisterhood and healing in ‘The Color Purple’

By Lindsey Bahr / AP

It’s not a secret that Fantasia Barrino did not want to play Celie again. The American Idol winner hadn’t had the best time doing The Color Purple on Broadway.

The protagonist of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel tells her story of sexual, physical and psychological abuses in the early 20th century South in a series of letters to God. And it was a character she found it difficult to leave behind at the end of the day. Even the prospect of starring in her first major motion picture didn’t seem worth it.

But director Blitz Bazawule had a different vision: He wanted to give Celie an imagination. This Barrino found intriguing.

Danielle Brooks, center, in a scene from The Color Purple. Photo: AP

“Once she understood the assignment, she quickly agreed,” Bazawule said in a recent interview.

Now, four decades after The Color Purple became a literary sensation and a Steven Spielberg film, the story is on the big screen again. This time it’s a grand, big budget Warner Bros musical starring Barrino, Taraji Henson, as the sultry singer Shug Avery, and Danielle Brooks, reprising her Broadway role as the strong-willed Sofia.

“I’m glad that I didn’t allow my fear of my past experience with Celie, because of where my life was at that time, to hinder me from doing something is great,” Barrino said. “I’m riding on a high right now.”

Taraji Henson in a scene from The Color Purple. Photo: AP

Oprah Winfrey is one of several big-name producers on The Color Purple, alongside Spielberg, Quincy Jones and Scott Sanders. Winfrey got her acting break and first Oscar nomination playing Sofia in the 1985 adaptation, before helping Sanders turn it into a Broadway musical 20 years later.

Bazawule was not an obvious candidate to direct this film, however. The multi-hyphenate Ghanaian artist had received acclaim and recognition for co-directing Beyonce’s visual album Black is King. The only other film he had under his belt was the microbudget The Burial Of Kojo, which was made for less than US$100,000.

BLACK MUSIC HISTORY

A scene from The Color Purple. Photo: AP

But he had ambitious ideas involving large scale musical numbers that would take audiences on a dazzling journey through the history of Black music in America, from gospel to blues to jazz. And, of course, Celie’s inner life. He wasn’t at all sure he would get it, but he knew the story he wanted to tell.

“I thought, if I could just find a way to show the audience how this Black woman from the rural South was able to imagine her way out of pain and trauma it will debunk a myth that is that people who have dealt with abusing trauma are docile and passive or waiting to be saved,” Bazawule said. “If we could just imbue in (Celie) that scale, then that’s the version that needed to exist. Thankfully they said yes.”

They would have to jump through some hoops, however, to secure the kind of budget (reportedly around US$100 million) that they needed to support the vision, including auditioning Henson, an Oscar-nominated actor, and Brooks, who already had a Tony nomination for her portrayal of Sofia.

“We were not the studio’s choices” Henson said. “I just felt some way about having to audition. I’m Academy Award nominated. I had just got finished singing on NBC’s Annie Live. But I checked my ego and I did it. I went in as Shug. I found a dress, had a flower in my hair and faux fur stole and I kicked the door down because I didn’t want them to ever second guess me again.”

For Brooks, it was a six-month process that had her doubting herself. A lot of the people involved in The Color Purple felt the exhaustion of both having to prove themselves yet again, but also wanting to rise to the challenge nonetheless because this film was worth it.

“This is a huge undertaking to be part of,” said Brooks. “This movie is about legacy and it’s what I’ve been calling a cinematic heirloom.”

Her Broadway production was very minimalist and stripped down, so to be on location in Georgia, around Macon, Savannah, Atlanta and the small town of Grantville, was revelatory.

“My world really opened up because I got to use all of my senses,” Brooks said. “I got to explore all of Sofia because now I have a juke joint and I have a dinner table. I have a house. We had a white mob attacking me.”

The juke joint was a real set that required a real swamp to be dredged, where they’d stage Shug’s showstopper, Push Da Button.

“It’s probably the perfect confluence of my amazing technical and creative teams,” Bazawule said.

The film gives a new boldness to Celie and Shug’s relationship with one another and more dimensions to the male characters, including Colman Domingo’s Mister.

And all carry the weight of responsibility not only to the material and its predecessors, but also to future films made with primarily Black casts at this level.

“It’s not the first time I have been in a production of this scale but what matters to me is that it’s a Black production and it’s a production with Black producer, a Black director, predominately Black cast,” Henson said. “It’s like usually we’re supposed to make a dollar out of 15 cents. And after 20+ in the game, it’s like finally the studio trusted us to deliver.”

Mums at work: South Korean company’s pro-parent, office-free policies

By Cat Barton and Kang Jin-kyu / AFP, SEOUL

Early starts to workdays and late finishes are routine in South Korea, a country notorious for its hard-driving corporate culture, but Erin Lim knew she wanted to do things differently at her business.

The 38-year-old entrepreneur pioneered office-free work to help working mums like her in 2017 — well before work-from-home flexibility became a happy side effect of the pandemic, including for many parents.

After the birth of her first son, Lim, who describes herself as an “overwhelmingly picky customer,” could not find a baby carrier she liked.

Erin Lim, left, CEO of baby products company Konny, last month poses with her husband Kim Dong-hyun at her home in Seoul. Photo: AFP

So, with her six-month-old son in tow, she headed to Seoul’s main fabric market. Soon, she had a prototype of the baby wrap she wanted and, despite having no manufacturing or entrepreneurial experience, launched a business making and selling the carriers out of her front room.

“I’m a person who doesn’t take anything for granted. So, for example, when I started the company, I asked myself: why would I need an office?”

Now, Lim’s company has 55 staff members — 92 percent women, the majority working parents — and they all still work almost exclusively from home, offering flexible hours and keeping in-person meetings to the bare minimum.

“The reason: I wanted to watch my children grow up,” Lim said, adding that family life should take priority over a rigid, inflexible work schedule.

The daily school drop-off “is a really essential time — to walk with them to school,” she said.

So her company, Konny, enshrined the right to a school drop-off into its policies.

“I didn’t want to have a company culture that didn’t understand that,” she added.

CAREER GRAVEYARD

At first, Lim and her husband — the company’s second employee — stored their inventory in a spare room and did everything themselves.

But as orders flooded in, Lim soon became overwhelmed by customer questions.

She hired a customer service agent — a highly skilled executive who had previously left her decade-long job at a major South Korean gaming company over childcare issues.

“There is a Korean phrase: the graveyard of many women’s careers is the winter holiday for their kid’s first year at elementary school,” said Lim, referring to the first major school break, when many families run into childcare challenges.

South Korea has some of the lowest rates of female workforce participation among OECD countries, but the data — 55 percent for women versus 73.5 percent for men — disguises what activists say is an even worse reality of underemployment for working mothers.

Many mothers are forced out of hard-won, high-paying jobs after having children due to childcare issues, experts say, with the official “economic participation rate” for women in their 40s far lower than for men — 67.5 percent compared to 92.1 percent.

Unlike companies in many countries, most major South Korean firms quickly required workers to return to the office after the pandemic, with minimal work-from-home options.

“An average Korean company requires an employee to go to work early in the morning and finish work late at night with occasional after-work dinner. That is not sustainable,” Lim said.

DEMOGRAPHICS

South Korea has some of the world’s lowest birth rates, and despite hundreds of millions of dollars of government incentives, many women choose not to become mothers.

For Lim, a key part of the problem is that South Korean work culture does not make it easy to combine parenting and a career. But that is not the whole problem, she said.

“It’s not just limited to companies,” she said, adding that young people are “afraid to have children” as they think they will lose all their free time and disposable income.

“We need a culture where society values child-rearing,” she said. Even as Koreans have fewer babies, data indicate that overall spending on baby products has increased — and for Konny in particular, business is booming.

The company’s sales data suggest it has approximately a third of the domestic South Korean baby carrier market, and Lim’s baby wrap design has also proved wildly popular in markets from Japan to the US.

A column last month in the widely read Chosun Ilbo newspaper said the company’s success story showed that “the solution to low birth rates must ultimately come from people who have given birth and raised kids.”

Current government policy, created by bureaucratic committees and aimed at fixing the country’s demographic woes, “only looks half way at the cause of the problem,” it said.

“If the government just catches up with these internal policies of this baby carrier company, there will be some solution” to South Korea’s problem of low birth rates, the paper added.

Lim said having a workforce made up mostly of parents who understand the struggles of child-rearing made the company better able to provide for their customers.

“Our mission statement is ‘Make parents’ lives easier and more stylish,’” she said.

SPEAK UP: Taipei Dome opens after much delay 台北終於孵出大巨蛋

A: Wow, the newly opened Taipei Dome looks magnificent.

B: The construction was launched in 2012 and was scheduled to be completed in 2015. It’s a shame that the project was delayed for 8 years because of politics.

A: The Taipei Arena has 15,000 seats, but the Taipei Dome has 40,000, so Taipei will be able to host more large events from now on.

Photo: CNA 照片：中央社

B: Apart from the multipurpose stadium, will there be other facilities in this sports park?

A: Sure, there will be a department store, movie theaters, a luxury hotel and an office complex.

A: 新開幕的台北大巨蛋好壯觀啊！

B: 大巨蛋自2012年起動工，原本預計2015年就可以完工，可惜因為政治因素延誤了8年。

A: 小巨蛋能容納一萬五千人，大巨蛋能容納四萬人，以後就能舉辦更多大型活動啦。

B: 大巨蛋園區還會有哪些設施呢？

A: 之後還有百貨、影城、飯店、和辦公大樓唷。

（By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times／台北時報張聖恩）

Publication Notes

Language Tip 語文小提示

dome 1. archaic: a stately building or mansion 2. a large hemispherical roof or ceiling 3. a natural formation or structure that resembles the dome or cupola of a building 4. a form of crystal composed of planes parallel to a lateral axis that meet above in a horizontal edge like a roof 5. an upward fold in rock whose sides dip uniformly in all directions 6. a roofed sports stadium 7. a person’s head

Table of Contents

Taipei Times: 29 Dec, 2023

All articles

Election interference cases spike: ministry

Presidential platforms focus on economy, relations

No new students enrolled at 112 university programs

‘New York Times’ sues AI developers over content use

US provides US$250m in arms for Ukraine

Six special municipalities to convene over stabbing

Nation unlikely to reach traffic death reduction goal

Childcare workers protest ‘unfair’ work conditions

Tourism Administration unveils eldery subsidies

China put pressure on Mayday: sources

Candidates weigh in on school stabbing, policies

Pro-China view propped up by political pundit videos

Ko remark harms diplomacy: MOFA

Troll messaging shifts from ‘war’ to ‘service agreement’

No unification talks with China if elected: Jaw

Before kickoff

Stepping into the past

Capital showdown

Pegatron to forfeit control of subsidiary

Siemens Gamesa says expansion is ahead of schedule

Commercial property deals in Taiwan increase 2.8%

South Korea chip output rises as demand improves

Norway fund drops Saudi Aramco and 11 other Gulf firms

Xiaomi unveils its first electric sedan, the SU7

Drivers’ delights

EDITORIAL: Third group endorsement important

More needed for minority voters

India is eyeing Taiwan’s elections

Best way to avoid war is to not be phased by Xi

EDITORIAL CARTOON

This was Japan’s big year of soft power

Weelchair Barbie is like looking in the mirror, this is progress

LawConnect edges Comanche by 51s

Manchester City inspired by Club World Cup title

LeVert hits go-ahead three in Cavaliers win

Japan’s Yoshinobu Yamamoto joins LA Dodgers in MLB

Son Heung-min to lead South Korea at Asian Cup

Michigan court denies ban for Trump

Protesters storm refugee shelter in Indonesia

India targeting journalists with spyware: Amnesty

Russian stars’ semi-naked party sparks huge backlash

Former European Commission president Jacques Delors dies at 98

World News Quick Take

Is Taipei really a food paradise?

Highlight: Combatting human trafficking

Exposing Celie’s inner life

Mums at work: South Korean company’s pro-parent, office-free policies

SPEAK UP: Taipei Dome opens after much delay 台北終於孵出大巨蛋