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【記者吳玉惠/臺南報導】 114 年全國運動會於 10 月 23 日圓滿落幕，臺南市代表隊在本屆賽事中表現突出，總計奪得 28金、27銀、38 銅的亮眼佳績，其中金牌數為歷年最佳，並勇奪考試院院長獎殊榮。為感謝選手、教練及隊職員的努力與貢獻，市府特於11月23日（星期日）晚間6時假大象寬廷宴會廳舉辦慶功會，由黃偉哲市長親自出席，對所有參與人員表達肯定，並與大家分享得牌的榮耀與喜悅。黃市長也期勉選手持續精進，冀望在 116 年於屏東縣舉辦的全國運動會再創高峰，持續為臺南爭光。

▲.黃偉哲市長頒獎（軟網委員會）。黃偉哲市長表示，今年臺南市在全運會的整體表現十分優異，不僅締造17項連霸紀錄，更刷新3項大會紀錄，成果令人振奮。這些成績都是選手長期訓練的累積，以及教練團隊專業指導的具體展現。為肯定各項目團隊的辛勞，市長於會中頒發獎勵金予包含軟式網球、帆船、田徑、游泳、籃球、羽球等在內的 27 個單項委員會，總獎金金額高達 新臺幣 4,156 萬 7,000 元，期望藉此激勵選手與教練持續投入訓練，追求更高成就。

▲.黃偉哲市長頒獎（田徑委員會）。體育局長陳良乾指出，本屆賽會臺南市選手在多項運動項目中皆有亮眼突破，包括田徑、游泳、帆船、輕艇、舉重、空手道、跆拳道、射箭、軟式網球、羽球及籃球等。許多選手不僅刷新個人最佳成績，更改寫大會紀錄，展現強大競爭力與新世代運動員的潛能。例如田徑好手陳玟溥勇奪三金，並於100公尺項目跑進10秒內，創下臺灣田徑里程碑；舉重選手陳柏任在抓舉、挺舉與總和三項目突破自身大會紀錄；女子舉重選手方莞靈以189公斤完成二連霸，同時刷新抓舉與總和紀錄；空手道選手簡慧萱達成女子個人形六連霸；輕艇選手劉妍廷則締造靜水競速女子200公尺單人愛斯基摩艇六連霸優異表現。

帆船代表隊於澎湖馬公海域同樣展現強勢實力，拿下7金、7銀、4銅 的佳績；軟式網球隊奪得5金、3 銀，其中男子團體賽達成七連霸、女子團體賽亦完成四連霸。值得注意的是，3對3籃球首度成為正式賽事，臺南代表隊便勇奪女子組金牌與男子組銀牌，展現深厚實力。年僅 12 歲 的游泳小將何康婗表現更令人驚豔，個人摘下1金、1銀、1 銅，並於 4×100公尺混合式接力再添1面銅牌，展現無限潛力，替臺南泳壇注入新生力量。

▲114年全國運動會慶功宴會場。體育局表示，市府高度重視選手培訓資源，自113年起，不再僅於全運會舉辦年度（雙數年）提供補助，更於單數年度持續挹注培訓經費，並透過體能訓練、運動傷害照護、教練增能研習等多元計畫，建構完善的選手支持體系，讓選手得以在訓練與比賽中獲得最充足的後援，期盼選手們持續累積能量，在下一屆全國運動會再創佳績，讓臺南的光榮持續閃耀全國。

taiwan-subdivisions: 臺南市 澎湖 馬公 屏東縣 臺南

title: 114年全國運動會臺南市代表隊勇奪 28 金 27 銀 38 銅 榮獲考試院院長獎　市府舉辦慶功會慰勉選手及隊職員


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RECOGNITION:  It was important that the resolution said ‘Taiwanese nationals,’ rather than ‘residents’ or ‘people,’ as it asserted Taiwan’s subjectivity, Shen said

The Liberal International, a global alliance of liberal and progressive democratic political parties, yesterday unanimously passed a resolution proposed by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) to condemn China’s transnational repression against Taiwanese.

The motion was passed on the first day of the Liberal International’s 209th Executive Committee Meeting in The Hague, Netherlands.

Fan, who is the Liberal International’s vice president and attending on behalf of the DPP, proposed an emergency resolution to support DPP Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) and counter transnational repression.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators Fan Yun, center, and Puma Shen, first right, pose with event attendees at a forum held on the sidelines of the Liberal International Executive Committee Meeting at The Hague, Netherlands, in an undated photograph. Photo courtesy of the DPP

China’s Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau late last month listed Shen as “wanted” for crimes of “separatism” for promoting “Taiwanese independence.”

On Nov. 9, the state-run China Central Television aired a segment which suggested that Interpol should pursue Shen.

The meeting in The Hague gathered nearly 170 representatives of liberal parties and democracy advocates from 48 countries across Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia, Fan said.

All representatives supported her motion of “countering transnational repression,” she said, adding that what is more important is that another representative motioned to change the wording from “transnational repression” to “transnational repression by the People’s Republic of China’s on Taiwanese nationals,” explicitly pointing out China’s threat toward Taiwan.

The eight points in the resolution include: condemning ongoing transnational repression by China, urging all member parties and governments to strengthen their laws to protect people from such transnational repression, and calling all members to counter China’s political coercion aimed to silence Taiwanese.

The resolution also includes supporting Taiwan’s democratic resilience and its important role as a partner defending global democratic values, and encouraging the development of international mechanisms to monitor, prevent and respond to transnational repression.

It also calls for the international community to firmly uphold the rules-based international order and peaceful diplomacy regarding Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait; clarify the legal boundaries of UN Resolution 2758 through multilateral cooperation among countries, allowing Taiwan’s meaningful participation in appropriate international organizations, without harming the “status quo.”

Finally, the resolution called for countries to prioritize dialogue, international laws and conflict prevention to ensure regional security and stability.

Shen, who also attended the meeting in the Hague, yesterday wrote on social media that a key moment during the process of passing the resolution was when a representative motioned to change the title to highlight China’s transnational repression on “Taiwanese nationals.”

“Taiwanese nationals — not the People of Taiwan, nor Residents of Taiwan, but ‘Taiwanese nationals,’” Shen said, adding it not only adds accuracy to the resolution’s wording, but also shows the international society’s recognition of Taiwan’s subjectivity.

Additional reporting by CNA

title: Alliance condemns Beijing repression


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NO CHANGES: A Japanese spokesperson said that Tokyo remains consistent and open for dialogue, while Beijing has canceled diplomatic engagements

A Japanese official blasted China’s claims that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has altered Japan’s position on a Taiwan crisis as “entirely baseless,” calling for more dialogue to stop ties between Asia’s top economies from spiraling.

China vowed to take resolute self-defense against Japan if it “dared to intervene militarily in the Taiwan Strait” in a letter delivered Friday to the UN.

“I’m aware of this letter,” said Maki Kobayashi, a senior Japanese government spokeswoman.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi arrives for the second day of the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Johannesburg yesterday. Photo: Pool Photo via AP

“The claim our country has altered its position is entirely baseless,” she said on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Johannesburg on Saturday.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately reply to a request for comment made outside working hours.

A crucial sticking point is the fundamental mismatch between how both sides understand Takaichi’s remarks. For China, her comments publicly linking a Taiwan Strait crisis with the possible deployment of Japanese troops deviated from decades of strategic ambiguity. Tokyo maintains her response to a hypothetical question did not change its stance.

“We’ve repeatedly explained to the Chinese side the gist of the remarks and our consistent position,” Kobayashi said, adding Tokyo was “committed to dialogue” with its neighbor.

The G20 would not be the venue for that. China said there are no plans for Takaichi to meet Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強), who is representing his country at the gathering, although on Saturday they were stood just three people apart for a group photo.

Underscoring the acrimony, Chinese state media pointed out Takaichi was “about an hour late” to the summit, after she missed the red carpet arrivals.

China has also reportedly canceled a trilateral meeting with the culture ministers of South Korea and Japan that was scheduled for this month.

In the absence of diplomacy, the war of words is intensifying. On Friday, the Chinese embassy in Japan wrote on social media that China would have the right to carry out “direct military action” without needing authorization from the UN Security Council if Japan took any step toward renewed aggression. That post cited UN Charter clauses regarding “enemy states” during World War II, without further elaboration.

It is unclear where the off-ramp lies in a fallout that has already seen some Chinese tourists cancel trips to Japan, and Beijing impose curbs on seafood imports from its neighbor. While Takaichi has said she has learned her lesson and would refrain from specifying a possible scenario in which Japan could deploy troops in future, she has refused to recant.

China is Japan’s biggest trade partner.

“China is an important source of importation of rare earths,” Kobayashi said, adding that Tokyo has worked to decrease that reliance.

“Peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait are vital for national security,” he added.

title: Tokyo criticizes China’s ‘entirely baseless’ claims


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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned China for distorting historical facts and contravening the UN Charter’s provisions in its letter to the UN threatening to invoke the right of self-defense against Japan.

The ministry issued the statement after Chinese Permanent Representative to the UN Fu Cong (傅聰) sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres claiming that if Japan dares to intervene militarily in the Taiwan Strait situation, it would constitute an act of aggression, and that Beijing would exercise the right of self-defense granted by the UN Charter.

The letter said Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi committed “a grave violation of international law” and diplomatic norms when she said a Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs logo is pictured in Taipei in an undated photograph. Photo: Taipei Times

The ministry yesterday said Fu’s letter is not only arrogant and unreasonable, but also maliciously distorts historical facts and violates Article 2, Paragraph 4 of the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of threats or force in international relations.

“The ministry strongly condemns and refutes it,” it said.

Maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait has become a strong consensus within the international community, it added.

This includes Germany’s foreign minister, who has repeatedly cited the UN Charter prohibition of the use of force in opposing its use in the Taiwan Strait, and repeatedly emphasizing the importance of peace and stability in the region, the ministry said, adding that these statements highlight the shared values of countries with similar principles, underscoring their commitment to international law and a rules-based international order.

After the end of World War II, the internationally binding San Francisco Peace Treaty replaced the Cairo and Potsdam declarations, the ministry said.

The treaty did not transfer Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the PRC has never governed Taiwan, it said, adding that therefore, Taiwan is by no means a part of the PRC.

Since the mid-1980s, Taiwan has initiated a bottom-up political liberalization and democratization process, the ministry said.

In 1996, Taiwan held its first direct presidential election, establishing an effective government of the Republic of China in Taiwan, it said, adding that this government is the only legitimate representative of Taiwan in foreign relations.

Only Taiwan’s democratically elected government can represent the nation’s 23 million people in the international community, and in international organizations and mechanisms, it said.

“China has no right to interfere or intervene,” it said.

title: MOFA condemns Beijing’s distortion of UN Charter


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Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) yesterday urged people to avoid contact with poultry or wild birds when traveling abroad, in response to the first reported human death from complications of H5N5 avian influenza (bird flu) in the US on Friday last week.

The Washington State Department of Health on Friday confirmed that a resident of the state — an older adult with underlying health conditions — who was undergoing treatment for bird flu died that day.

Testing at a lab identified the virus as H5N5, making the case the first recorded infection with this variant in a person globally, and that the result was confirmed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC).

Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang speaks to reporters in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Lin Chih-yi, Taipei Times

The first case of a person infected with the H5N5 virus was in the US, and no other cases have been reported in other countries, Shih said on the sidelines of the Taiwan Joint Conference of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in Taipei, adding that it is a new recombinant virus, and the US CDC says there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission.

“The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control [CDC] will continue to keep a close eye on the situation to see if there are any changes,” Shih said.

“In the meantime, during the current winter migratory bird season, we urge people to avoid contact with poultry or birds when traveling abroad,” he said.

The Taiwan CDC yesterday said “novel influenza A virus infections” are human illnesses caused by influenza viruses that are different from the seasonal flu viruses (H1N1 and H3N2), often originating from birds or swine.

A Level 1 “Watch” travel notice for novel influenza A virus infections was issued in Washington State in April, but as the recent case has not shown evidence of human-to-human transmission, nor have close contacts of the case been confirmed with infection, the notice level would remain the same, the CDC said.

The CDC urged people to implement “five dos and six do nots” in daily life to prevent the risk of novel influenza A virus infection.

The dos are: Thoroughly cook meat and eggs; frequently wash hands thoroughly with soap; wear a mask when symptoms appear and inform the doctor about recent travel or exposure when seeking medical attention; get a flu vaccine if work involves contact with poultry; and keep a balanced diet and exercise regularly.

The six do nots are: Do not eat raw or undercooked eggs or egg products; do not buy meat from unclear sources; do not approach or feed livestock; do not release or abandon livestock, do not allow domestic livestock to cohabit with other animals; and avoid going to poorly ventilated or crowded venues.

title: Health minister warns of avian flu risks abroad


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Climate deal a ‘win’ for unity, but fossil fuels untouched

Nations sealed a modest agreement at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in the Brazilian Amazon on Saturday as many countries swallowed weaker terms on a fossil fuel phase-out to preserve unity.

Nearly 200 countries approved the deal by consensus after two weeks of exhaustive negotiations on the fringes of the rainforest, with the notable absence of the US, as President Donald Trump shunned the talks.

Applause rang out as the gavel was brought down in steamy Belem, capping a dramatic summit that witnessed raucous protests, a damaging fire and massive street marches.

COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago strikes the gavel symbolizing the approval of the agreements reached at the closing COP30 plenary session in Belem, Brazil, on Saturday. Photo: EPA

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who staked political capital on the success of COP30, said the pact was proof that a fractured world could still unite in crisis.

“The international community faced a choice: to continue or to give up. We chose the first option,” Lula said in South Africa, where he was attending a G20 summit. “Multilateralism won.”

There was less euphoria in Belem, where defeated European ministers admitted they only took the watered-down deal to keep the entire process from imploding.

“We’re not going to hide the fact that we would have preferred to have more,” EU Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth Wopke Hoekstra said.

“I know it’s a bit intangible, but there is huge value in doing stuff together,” he said.

The head of China’s delegation, Li Gao (李高), said that the summit would go down as a success.

“We achieved this success in a very difficult situation, so it shows that the international community would like to show solidarity and make joint efforts to address climate change,” Li said.

India hailed a “meaningful” deal in a statement read on behalf of major emerging markets Brazil, South Africa, India and China.

The Alliance of Small Island States — a bloc of 39 of the world’s most climate-imperiled nations — said the deal was “imperfect, but necessary progress” for a global body that operates by consensus.

Dozens of countries had threatened to walk away from the talks without an exit strategy from oil, gas and coal — instead, the deal points to a previous pact on fossil fuels, without explicitly using those words.

“We know some of you had greater ambitions for some of the issues at hand,” said COP30 president Andre Correa do Lago, who offered to create a voluntary “roadmap” away from fossil fuels as a consolation.

Colombia “does not accept” the deal, said President Gustavo Petro, whose country is hosting a world-first summit on a fossil fuel phase-out in April next year.

The roadmap idea picked up pace after an early endorsement from Lula, but ran into predictable opposition from oil giants like Saudi Arabia, coal producer India, and others.

“President Lula set the bar high in calling for roadmaps to end fossil fuels and deforestation, but a divided multilateral landscape was unable to hurdle it,” Carolina Pasquali from Greenpeace Brazil said.

Brazil sought to manage expectations of landing a major deal given the state of geopolitics and a hostile US.

Even so, optimism took root that Brazil — a champion of developing nations and home to the world’s biggest rainforest — could pull something out of the bag.

In a coup for developing countries, the world agreed to “at least triple” by 2035 money for poorer nations to adapt to climate change.

However, this was the bare minimum, one negotiator from Bangladesh said, vowing the “fight will continue.”

Raju Pandit, a negotiator from Nepal, said the summit “had not met the expectations of climate vulnerable countries.”


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THE GOOD WORD:  More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken

A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said.

At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange, and several colleges and industrial institutions.

The National Palace Museum and the National Center for Traditional Arts participated in the event for the first time, aiming to combine cultural legacies with language education to showcase the cultural depth and richness of Taiwan, creating more engaging learning experiences for Mandarin students.

Representatives from Taiwan’s education sector pose for a photograph at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages convention in New Orleans, Louisiana, in an undated photograph. Photo courtesy of the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan

FICHET executive director Lin Tzu-pin (林子斌) said that with support from the Taiwan-US Education Initiative and the Executive Yuan’s Mandarin education scheme, the Ministry of Education’s Taiwan HUAYU Best program has helped establish ties between 23 local universities and 79 US universities,

Seven Mandarin learning centers were set up in the US to provide systemic teaching support and Mandarin teacher training, he said.

Under the initiative, the ministry promotes bilateral education exchanges between Taiwan and the US jointly with the American Institute in Taiwan, with an exhibition held during the convention to unveil the outcomes of bilateral cooperation in Mandarin education.

A “Taiwan Night” with performances by Taiwan’s folk-dance troupes at dinner was held, and there was a symposium during the convention for representatives from the government and academia to discuss how to build a more comprehensive global Mandarin-learning ecosystem based on the initiative.

In a related development, the National Central Library (NCL) last week donated Taiwan-published books to start a “Taiwan Corner” at the Hawaii State Library (HSL).

The books range across various fields, including literature, history, arts, nature and social sciences, while the HSL gave 22 books related to Hawaii’s cultures and conventions to the NCL in return.

NCL Director-General Wang Han-ching (王涵青) said the HSL has long been devoted to knowledge popularization in Hawaii and the Taiwan Corner is expected to be a starting point for locals to learn more about Taiwanese cultures.

Hawaii State Public Library System State Librarian Stacey Aldrich said Hawaii and Taiwan are similar in terms of indigenous cultures, and a geography of high mountains and the ocean.

The Taiwan Corner would boost locals’ understanding of Taiwan and enrich the HSL’s Asian book collections, she said.

title: Taiwan, US universities tighten ties on Mandarin


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The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said it is closely monitoring Apex Aviation (安捷航空) flight and maintenance operations after one of its aircraft reported damage, possibly caused by a heavy landing during a medevac last year.

The general aviation service operator dispatched Tecnam P2012 Traveller — a twin-engine utility aircraft — for emergency medical service in Kinmen on Nov. 4 last year. The aircraft flew to Kinmen to stand by, but the left tire on the landing gear blew out upon landing. No one was injured.

However, maintenance personnel removed the fairing of the left landing gear box beam the following day and discovered deformation on the exterior fuselage skin, with seven attachment rivets broken. After removing the interior fuselage panels two days later, they discovered deformation in the fuselage frames front and back of the left landing gear box beam.

The Civil Aviation Administration’s logo is pictured in a screen grab from its Web site. Photo: Screen grab from the Civil Aviation Administration’s Web site

An investigation report by the Taiwan Transportation Safety Board showed that, when landing the aircraft, the pilot might have inadvertently applied the left brake pedal during rudder operation, causing brake pressure on the left main wheel caliper upon touchdown. This prevented the left main wheel from rotating, resulting in the tire tread and reinforcement layers wearing through during runway roll, ultimately leading to a tire blowout, the report showed.

The board also showed the aircraft’s airframe structure might have been subjected to impact forces exceeding its load capacity upon touchdown. Prior to the incident, however, the operator had not inspected the damaged area, and there was no data to verify the time of damage or whether it resulted from previous flights, it said.

“Apex Aviation relied on its personnel to report any possible heavy landing incident, making it impossible to inspect the aircraft as well as discover fuselage damage immediately after the incident. This has endangered flight safety,” the board said.

Apex should improve its procedure for monitoring and reporting heavy landing incidents, allowing it spot fuselage damage faster, said the CAA, adding that the operator should also increase flight crew training approaches and landings. The CAA said it has required Apex to revise its aircraft maintenance plan, shorten inspection intervals for landing gear and fuselage assemblies and put in place new hard landing inspection standards. The flight operator must submit analyses of total flight data to CAA every month, it added.

Apex said it has revised the hard landing warning limit to 1.6G, adding it has not exceeded the limit since it began tracking every flight at the end of November last year.

“We have reinforced pilot training for landing flights at night and reduced the fuselage inspection interval to every 250 flight hours from every 550 hours,” Apex said.

title: Flight company assessed after hard landing


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K-pop group Twice drew massive crowds in Kaohsiung over the weekend as Taiwanese member Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜) returned home to perform for the first time, attracting thousands of fans to Kaohsiung National Stadium.

Greeting fans in Mandarin, the 26-year-old on Saturday night said she was thrilled to finally bring her bandmates to Kaohsiung.

Fans began lining up early on Saturday to buy official merchandise, and by afternoon more than 10,000 people had gathered to listen to the group’s rehearsal, cheering loudly as the music carried across the stadium grounds.

People crowd a Kaohsiung MRT station after attending K-pop group Twice’s concert on Saturday. Photo courtesy of the Kaohsiung City Government

Large numbers of foreign fans were seen in the area, packing nearby MRT stations, where many posed for photos with oversized posters of Chou.

The concerts pushed the Kaohsiung Metro’s ridership to 350,000 on Saturday, the highest single-day figure this year and the ninth-highest in the system’s history. Light rail usage also reached 54,000 trips, according to officials.

Officials said the surge was not solely driven by Twice’s concerts, but by other major weekend events, including performances by Wu Bai (伍佰) and Sun Shu-may (孫淑媚), as well as city festivals.

Fans of K-pop group Twice take pictures in front of a banner featuring Taiwanese member Chou Tzu-yu near the Kaohsiung National Stadium yesterday. Photo: Lee Hui-chou, Taipei Times

Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) wrote on social media that her feed had been filled with Twice-related posts and shared a “blue hair” photo with Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) to match the group’s fan color.

Tsai said Chou’s long-awaited first concert in Taiwan had made many proud to support a Taiwanese artist performing on their home soil.

people: 陳其邁 蔡英文

title: Twice packs the house for first concert in Taiwan


title: ‘A Foggy Tale’ wins big at Golden Horse awards

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A Foggy Tale (大濛) emerged as the biggest winner at the 62nd Golden Horse Awards ceremony on Saturday evening, taking four honors at the awards considered a Chinese-language equivalent of the Oscars

The film, directed by Taiwanese filmmaker Chen Yu-hsun (陳玉勳), edged out Queerpanorama (眾生相) by a vote of 8-7 to win best narrative feature, according to the judging panel.

The other nominees were The Waves Will Carry Us (人生海海), Left-handed Girl (左撇子女孩) and Mother Bhumi (地母).

Crew members of Best Narrative Feature award for A Foggy Tale pose at the 62nd Golden Horse Awards in Taipei on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

A Foggy Tale depicts the lives of ordinary citizens during the White Terror era, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government persecuted perceived political dissidents as part of efforts to prevent infiltration by the Chinese Communist Party.

The story follows a girl who travels to northern Taiwan to retrieve the body of her executed brother. She forms a bond with a former soldier and rickshaw driver who help her along the way.

A Foggy Tale entered this year’s awards with 11 nominations — the most of any film — and claimed wins in prestigious categories including best original screenplay, best makeup and costume design and best art direction.

Jun Li holds his award for Best Director for the film “Queerpanorama” at the 62nd Golden Horse Awards in Taipei on Saturday. Photo: AP

Lucky Lu (幸福之路) and Mother Bhumi each won three honors to tie as the second-biggest winners, taking home best actor and best actress, respectively.

Left-handed Girl, which is representing Taiwan in next year’s Academy Awards for best international feature film and had the second-most nominations with nine, finished with one honor — best new performer for Ma Shih-yuan (馬士媛).

Family Matters (我家的事) and Palimpsest: The Story of a Name (隱蹟之書:重寫自我) each won two awards.

Hong Kong filmmaker Li Jun (李駿碩) was named best director for Queerpanorama.

Taiwanese actor Chang Chen (張震) was awarded best actor — the second time in five years — for his role in Lucky Lu, in which he portrays an immigrant delivery worker living in a Chinatown neighborhood in the US who struggles against multiple hardships while striving to support his family.

Chinese actress Fan Bingbing (范冰冰) was named best actress for her performance in the film Mother Bhumi, in which she portrays a widowed farmer in the late 1990s who lives a frugal life with her children amid political turmoil in northern Malaysia.

Fan did not attend the ceremony and director Chong Keat-aun (張吉安) accepted the award on Fan’s behalf.


title: Tamkang students launch rocket 7km

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By Wu Po-hsuan, Lo Kuo-chia, Chen Yen-ting and Shelley Shan / Staff Reporters

The Tamkang II rocket (淡江二型), developed by the Aerospace Technology Laboratory of Tamkang University’s (TKU) Department of Aerospace Engineering, was successfully launched to an altitude of over 7km yesterday, with data transmission functional throughout the flight.

The rocket, launched at 6:46am from Hsu-Hai Research-use Rocket Launching Area in Pingtung County, was the fourth built by the lab. TKU aerospace engineering professor Wang Yi-ren (王怡仁), the project’s principal researcher, said the Tamkang II rocket was launched to test the rocket’s avionics system.

During yesterday’s test flight, active propulsion lasted 13 seconds, with a total ascent time to the apogee of 38 seconds, Wang said.

Tamkang University’s Tamkang II rocket is launched from a site in Pingtung County’s Hsuhai Village yesterday. Photo courtesy of Taiwan Space Agency

The rocket reached an altitude of more than 7km, based on the last record of data transmitted to the control center, he said.

“We are really proud that the rocket’s avionics system could steadily conduct real-time transmission in a high-speed operation with intense vibration,” he said. “This paves the way for further development toward attitude control.”

Department professor Ouyang Kwan (歐陽寬) said TKU has worked with the Taiwan Space Agency for multiple launches, adding that students have honed their expertise in pushing the rocket for higher flight altitudes, building scientific payloads and developing avionics capable of robust data transmission.

Members of the Tamkang University team pose for photos after the launch of Tamkang II rocket in Pingtung County’s Hsuhai Village yesterday. Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Space Agency

Professor Hsiao Fu-yuan (蕭富元), who oversaw the three previous rocket missions during his term as the department’s chairman, said the school uses a resin-based nitrate composite solid propellant that is different from traditional solid propellants, offering greater stability, which makes it suitable for instructional use.

TKU has validated the reliability of its self-developed engines through multiple test firings. The team was selected by the Taiwan Space Agency to be responsible for developing the standard engine for the Taiwan Rocket Cup this year, he said.

Yesterday’s test was significant, as it had to overcome wind effects, which came from the northeast monsoon weather as it climbed over the central mountain range from the east coast. Prior to the launch of the rocket, TKU had launched three other rockets: Tamkang I, Jessie and Polaris.

While Tamkang II was launched to validate the performance of the team’s self-developed avionics system, the first test with Tamkang I focused on validating the performance of the propulsion system. The second test with Jessie verified composite material strength, while the third with Polaris tested the shock-absorbing system. The Tamkang II rocket is 2.22m long and weighs 52.3kg, with a diameter of 14cm. It produces an average thrust of 2,765 newtons and a total thrust over the burn — the total impulse — of 26,000 newton-seconds.

The installation of a next-generation avionics system enhances communication and telemetry performance of a rocket, the school said.


content_text:
Migrant workers, new immigrants honored at literature award in Taipei

Migrant workers and new immigrants were celebrated yesterday at Taipei Main Station for their contributions to Taiwan’s literary landscape, with many awardees using the moment to express both their gratitude for Taiwan and their frustrations over the limits they continue to face.

“We, the migrants and immigrants in this foreign land, are just so lucky that Taiwan has been generally kind to us,” Marvin Joaquin Alamag, a Filipino who won one of the three “Choice Awards,” said at the ceremony for the 10th Taiwan Literature Award for Migrants.

Taiwan, he added, “never fails to make us feel that we are seen, that we are heard, that we are valued.”

Winners of the 10th Taiwan Literature Award for Migrants pose for a photograph during an award ceremony at Taipei Main Station yesterday. Photo: CNA

Alamag, 38, won NT$20,000 (US$637.45) with his Tagalog story “Ang Pagbabalik” (The Return), which follows the spirit of a Filipino worker who took his own life, as he navigates the memories of discrimination and exploitation he endured in Taiwan.

The fictional account drew inspiration from his 12 years working in an electronics-testing factory, Alamag said.

Despite the celebration, Alamag said he feels “sad” as he prepares to leave Taiwan in mid-December after reaching the maximum 12-year stay allowed for most migrant workers.

“It’s so hard to leave a place where I’ve lived for such a long time,” he said. Earning about NT$35,000 a month including overtime, he added he had already sent most of his belongings home to the Philippines. After returning home, he plans to take a break before seeking work opportunities in Europe.

“If I had the chance to work longer than that [12-year limit], I would love to,” he said.

The ceremony ended with the presentation of the “First Prize” to Nguy?n Th? Hi?n, a 23-year-old student from Vietnam. She received NT$150,000 for “The Rooftop Barber Shop” (頂樓的理髮店), a story that judges praised for its intimate portrayal of everyday migrant life in Taiwan.

Award founder Chang Cheng (張正) said the prize money is meant for immigrants “who are helping to write Taiwan’s history, and their own history.”

For Taiwan, he said, “they are carrying its history forward and writing a different kind of history.”


content_text:
LOYALTY CONFLICT: If Chinese spouses are allowed to retain their citizenship and also hold office, they would be torn between their duty to China and Taiwan, an expert said

A national security official yesterday warned of national security risks in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) plan to allow Chinese spouses to run for public office without renouncing their Chinese citizenship.

The remarks came after KMT Legislator Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) on Thursday said the government was depriving Chinese spouses of their rights,

Chinese spouse Deng Wanhua (鄧萬華), who served as warden of Syuetian Village (學田) in Hualien County’s Fuli Township (富里), was removed from her post on Aug. 1 after she could not produce evidence that she had renounced her Chinese nationality. The Hualien County Government recently ruled in her favor after she appealed the ruling.

Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) cited Article 20 of the Nationality Act (國籍法) as stipulating that people who are elected to public office must renounce any foreign nationality within one year of taking office.

However, Lo said regulations concerning Chinese spouses are under the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例).

To ensure Chinese spouses’ political rights, the KMT caucus said it would propose an amendment that would exempt Chinese spouses married to Taiwanese from adhering to Article 20 of the Nationality Act.

LOYALTY ISSUE

A national security official who declined to be named said public officials are obligated to pledge loyalty to Taiwan, which is why the Nationality Act requires them to renounce any foreign nationality.

China poses an obvious threat to Taiwanese sovereignty and is legally defined as a foreign hostile force, the official said.

If Chinese spouses who serve in a public office do not renounce their Chinese nationality, loyalty would be an issue, they added.

The KMT’s plan would not solve that issue and would draw strong public backlash, they said, citing opinion polls that showed that more than 70 percent of Taiwanese believe Chinese spouses are obligated to adhere to the loyalty standards in the Nationality Act.

People elected to public office should renounce any foreign nationality, the official said, adding that Chinese nationality should not be exempted.

If Chinese spouses take public offices and are exempt from renouncing their nationality, it would be equivalent to allowing 1.3 billion Chinese citizens to participate in Taiwan’s election, they said.

Such legislation must be approached with extreme caution and undergo thorough public debate, the official said, adding that the amendments would allow Beijing to effectively decide who holds key government positions in Taiwan.

Taiwan cannot leave its doors wide open and give the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) an opportunity to exploit it, they said, adding that it would deal a heavy blow to national security.

OPEN TO INFILTRATION

Tunghai University Cross-Strait Research Center deputy executive director Hung Pu-chao (洪浦釗) yesterday said the CCP would step up its “united front” efforts once Taiwan lowers the bar.

The KMT’s plan would not be a mere immigration policy adjustment, but a significant change risking national security, the boundaries of the political community and the integrity of Taiwan’s system, he said.

China is an authoritarian country that has long been infiltrating and exerting pressure on Taiwan, which is a context that should not be ignored, Hung said.

If Chinese spouses do not have to renounce their nationality to take public office, it would be equivalent to allowing the Chinese government to legally and openly accumulate political influence, forming a new vehicle for its “united front” work, he said.

Those most easily infiltrated are grassroots officials, such as village wardens and local council members, but could also include members of the Legislative Yuan, he added.

China’s laws, such as the National Intelligence Law, National Security Law and Anti-Espionage Law state that people have the duty to “assist and cooperate” with China’s national security and intelligence work, he said.

If people who retain their Chinese citizenship are allowed to hold public office or exercise official authority in Taiwan, it would create a conflict in their legal duties and give China the opportunity to directly interfere with Taiwan’s political operations, Hung said.

Once Taiwan lowers its institutional thresholds, China could fully integrate naturalized Chinese spouses into its “united front” operations, and comprehensively enhance the legitimacy and penetration of its efforts, he said.

ROAD TO NATURALIZATION

Government data showed that as of the end of September, there were 390,790 Chinese spouses, 367,362 of whom were from China, and 23,428 from Hong Kong and Macau.

Of the Chinese spouses, 108,224 people hold entry and exit permits for family visits or reunions, and 118,991 people hold resident certificates — with 75,662 on dependent residency and 43,329 on long-term residency, the data showed.

A total of 163,575 Chinese spouses have applied for permanent residency, it showed.

An official familiar with immigration affairs yesterday said the fastest path for a Chinese spouse to obtain full citizenship in Taiwan would be four years of dependent residency, followed by two years of long-term residency, after which they may apply for settlement, the official said.

Settlement grants voting rights, the official said, adding that if they want to run for public office, they need 10 years of settlement.

If the naturalization period for Chinese spouses is shortened to four years — as KMT legislators have also proposed — it would be unfair to foreign spouses who have to renounce their nationality to be naturalized, the official said.

See QUESTION on page 8

taiwan-subdivisions: 萬華 富里

people: 劉世芳 羅智強

title: KMT’s spouse changes a security risk


title: Sanctions a key part of deterring China: US report

content_text:
SENDING A MESSAGE: Allies must signal to China that taking Taiwan would be a difficult fight and that it would emerge substantially weaker, the US report said

Economic measures such as sanctions would serve as key elements in a broader toolkit to deter Chinese aggression, a report by the US-based RAND Corp published earlier this month said.

The report, titled Economic Deterrence in a China Contingency, said deterring a Chinese attack on Taiwan is at the core of security planning by Washington and its allies. Sanctions — while a key part of that strategy — should be combined with diplomatic and military instruments, and backed up by allies to maximize effectiveness, it said.

“Japan has the technical ability to impose sanctions relatively quickly, but the political decision would be difficult,” the report said.

The report was published a day before Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments, which started an ongoing row with China.

Takaichi on Nov. 7 said that if an emergency involving Taiwan were to occur alongside the use of force, it could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” under Japanese law, one which allows Japan to exercise its right of collective self-defense.

The report examined scenarios of a Chinese blockade or invasion of Taiwan within the next three to six months, and discusses what economic actions the US, Australia, Japan and the UK could take to deter such aggression, as well as what measures might affect Beijing’s decisionmaking.

If there is credible evidence that China is preparing to attack Taiwan imminently, the US could impose preventive sanctions, the report said.

However, Australia would only employ economic deterrence tools if it judged the situation to be an existential threat or if Canberra’s security interests were gravely and irreversibly at risk, it said, adding that it would likely only join meaningful actions under US pressure.

Japan has the capacity to impose sanctions relatively quickly, but Tokyo would take time to consider the effectiveness of such sanctions, the possibility of Chinese retaliation, and the safety of Japanese nationals and assets in China, the report said, adding that it, too, would require pressure from the international community, particularly the US.

The UK could face significant economic costs in the event of Chinese retaliation, but if its allies — especially the US — reach a strong consensus and applied pressure, it might also impose severe punitive measures against Beijing, it said.

The biggest unknown in evaluating the effectiveness of preventive sanctions is China’s level of preparedness, the report said.

Although Beijing is working to build an economy more resistant to external pressure, China’s economic performance and employment remain heavily dependent on exports, it added.

If a crisis appeared possible within three to six months, the US should assess whether preventive economic measures could impact China’s plans and signal its intention to impose sanctions, the report said, adding that sanctions should target major Chinese banks and China’s cross-border banking payment systems or other mechanisms that enable cross-border transactions.

The report also recommended that the US impose export controls on goods critical to any Chinese attempt to occupy Taiwan, and work to ensure that allies participate in such economic sanctions.

Sanctions alone are unlikely to achieve deterrence, but they could serve as an important component of a broader deterrence toolkit, it said.

The most effective approach remains the combination of multiple instruments — including diplomatic coalition-building to counter potential aggression — and visible, credible military preparations that signal China would face a difficult fight, it added.

The main goal would be to prevent Beijing from achieving its goals and ensure that if China were to attempt to seize Taiwan, it would emerge substantially weakened, the report said.


content_text:
By Fang Wei-li, Chen Cheng-yu and Jason Pan / Staff reporters

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers Puma Shen (沈伯洋) and Fan Yun (范雲) over the weekend in The Hague raised international awareness about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) cognitive warfare by highlighting the threats and challenges Taiwan faces from China’s influence operations and “gray zone” tactics.

They represented the DPP at Liberal International’s Executive Committee Meeting, which ran from Friday to yesterday.

Shen during a panel discussion on Saturday provided an analysis on cyberwarfare, citing his own experiences in fighting against China’s increasingly sophisticated use of propaganda and “cognitive warfare” targeting Taiwanese.

Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Puma Shen poses for a photograph in The Hague, Netherlands, in an undated photograph. Photo: CNA

Democratic countries cannot just stay on the defensive or merely respond to fake news and slander, Shen said.

China is using online and offline means, as well as other tactics, to collect the digital footprints of Taiwanese people and organizations, and integrate those into its cyber-physical system, he said.

The CCP has been infiltrating local communities, buying influence to set up contacts and proxies at the grassroots level, and has reached key figures in local temples, where they tap into social networks to collect information, Shen said.

They also compare that with online information, allowing them to make a fairly precise attack on a chosen target, he added.

These are all part of China’s “united front” campaign, which involves planting and using proxies in Taiwan, and using technology to aid its cyberwarfare, Shen said.

Taiwan must swiftly establish a comprehensive legal framework and mechanism for data governance, and enhance digital security measures to protect the nation from enemy intrusion, he said.

“Only when we have a legal framework that ensures ‘digital sovereignty’ could we have an effective defense against authoritarian regimes, which are using artificial intelligence to surveil their own citizens, and manipulate public opinion at home and against foreign countries,” Shen said.

Fan during her panel discussion talked about lessons Taiwan has learned, and its successes in fighting against the expansion of China’s manipulation and influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Taiwan’s civil society and activist organizations work to combat the dissemination of fake news and falsified information, Fan said, adding that legislators have also pushed for an increase in the national defense budget, while the president has launched the Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee.

Fan urged the international community to clearly and loudly support peace in the Taiwan Strait to form an effective deterrence, continuously back Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations and deepen international cooperation to counter transnational repression.

title: Lawmakers raise awareness of CCP’s cognitive warfare


title: Cross-party delegation in Dallas to meet US officials

content_text:
A cross-party delegation led by Deputy Legislative Speaker Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) arrived in Dallas, Texas, on Saturday, where they met with city officials and visited a newly opened Taiwan trade office.

The 14-member group, which consisted of lawmakers from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the smaller opposition Taiwan People’s Party, arrived in Dallas after concluding a three-day trip to Taiwan’s South American ally, Paraguay, the Legislative Yuan said yesterday.

Accompanied by Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Houston Director Yvonne Hsiao (蕭伊芳), Chiang hosted a banquet attended by Texas Senator Brent Hagenbuch, Taiwan-born state representative Angie Chen Button, Plano Mayor John Muns and Richardson Mayor Amir Omar, the statement said.

A delegation of lawmakers led by Deputy Legislative Speaker Johnny Chiang, fourth right, pose for a photograph at the Taiwan Trade and Investment Service Center in Dallas, Texas, in an undated photograph. Photo courtesy of the Legislative Yuan via CNA

Chiang during a speech at the banquet said the visit to Texas was his third trip to the US state in a little more than one year.

He lauded the opening of the Texas Taiwan Office in July last year and the launch of direct flights from Taiwan to Dallas last month as concrete efforts to boost bilateral exchanges.

The delegation on Saturday also visited the newly opened Taiwan Trade and Investment Service Center in Dallas, the statement said.

The office was inaugurated on Aug. 14 to deepen bilateral trade and economic ties, and expand supply chain cooperation, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement issued at the time.

Texas is the second-largest economy in the US, with a strong presence in sectors such as artificial intelligence servers, aviation, biomedicine, electric vehicles, energy and semiconductors, which are highly complementary to Taiwan’s industrial development, the ministry said.

Chiang and the delegation departed Taiwan on Nov. 16. Their trip began in Detroit, where they attended a Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce of North America event to better understand the needs of overseas Taiwanese businesses before they arrived in Paraguay on Tuesday last week.


content_text:
Over the first nine months of the year, a record 6 percent of newborn babies in Taiwan were given their mother’s maiden name, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday

Of the 81,381 babies born in Taiwan during that period, 4,884 babies, or about 6 percent, were given their mother’s maiden name, up from 5.2 percent during the same period in 2020, the ministry added.

Meanwhile, 93.9 percent of babies took their father’s surname, while fewer than 0.1 percent were given an indigenous name, ministry data showed.

Babies who were born on Jan. 1 this year sleep in a hospital nursery in an undated photograph. Photo: Lee Wen-hsin, Taipei Times

Taitung and Hualien had the highest number of babies who took their mother’s maiden name, at 16.8 percent and 16.5 percent respectively, followed by Pingtung (9 percent), Nantou (7.4) percent and Keelung (7.3 percent), the ministry said.

Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology adjunct research fellow Yang Wen-shan (楊文山) said the high numbers in Taitung and Hualien were due to their large indigenous populations, which tend to be more matriarchal.

As of the end of September, 79,175 babies, or 97.3 percent of the total, were given surnames decided by both parents, the ministry said.

Of those babies, 96.5 percent took their father’s surname, while 3.4 percent took their mother’s, the ministry added.

Meanwhile, of the 2,037 babies, or 2.5 percent of the total, whose surname was chosen by one parent, 99.1 percent took their mother’s surname, while 0.8 percent took their father’s, the data showed.

Under Article 1059 of the Civil Code, mothers and fathers are required to jointly decide whose surname their child will take before the child is registered at a Household Registration Office.

If the parents cannot reach an agreement, the child’s surname is determined by drawing lots at the registration office, the article states.

title: Record 6 percent of babies take mother’s maiden name


content_text: The Dragon Beauties, cheerleaders for the Wei Chuan Dragons baseball team, pose for a photograph before a signing session at a Wei Chuan Dragons fan event at the Taipei Arena yesterday.

title: Dragon cheer


content_text: Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an, on stage, front, sixth right, waves to runners taking part in the 2025 Taipei Real Estate Agency Happy Home Charity Run event hosted by the Taipei Association of Real Estate Brokers yesterday.

title: Go time


title: Promoting Taiwan

content_text: Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in San Francisco Director-General David Wu Chih-hsiang, sixth right, and office Tourism Division Director Sylvia Lee, fifth right, pose with others for a photograph at a pop-up event promoting Taiwan in San Francisco yesterday.


title: Eyes on divided Fed’s policy meeting

content_text:
RATE DECISION DRAMA: Five of the 12 Fed officials who vote on policy this year have indicated they are leaning toward keeping rates on hold at next month’s meeting

Division at the US Federal Reserve has intensified in the past few weeks, with officials staking out disparate positions ahead of the central bank’s policy meeting next month — all while Fed Chair Jerome Powell stays silent.

The drama was amped up on Friday when New York Fed President John Williams, sometimes seen as a proxy for the Fed chief, signaled his support for a rate cut after several other policymakers came out leaning against one.

Powell himself has not spoken publicly since the central bank’s last rate decision on Oct. 29, but a tally of recent remarks suggests the other voting members of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) are nearly evenly split over what to do, all but ensuring some would vote against the Dec. 10 decision regardless of the outcome.

Once a rarity under Powell, dissents have increased this year. As officials wrestled with competing objectives of supporting a flagging labor market and keeping inflation in check, there has not been a unanimous vote since June. The US government shutdown, which delayed several key economic data releases, further complicated their ability to agree on which goal to prioritize.

The Fed has long prided itself on making rate decisions by consensus, and it has been a hallmark of Powell’s tenure at the helm, which began in 2018 and is set to conclude in May next year.

The resulting low number of dissenting votes at the Fed’s eight annual policy meetings telegraphs confidence in their decisions, and some research suggests it ensures clear and effective communication of the committee’s intentions. However, critics argue it also leads to “group-think” that suppresses potentially important arguments.

“On the group-think thing, people who are accusing us of this, get ready. You might see the least group-think you’ve seen from the FOMC in a long time,” Fed Governor Christopher Waller said on Monday.

Waller dissented from the Fed’s decision to hold rates steady in July along with his colleague Michelle Bowman — the first time two Fed governors had voted against the chair in 32 years.

At the following meeting in mid-September, Fed Governor Stephen Miran — who joined the Fed board that month after being nominated by US President Donald Trump — voted against his colleagues’ decision to lower rates by a quarter point, instead favoring a bigger rate reduction.

At the Fed’s Oct. 28-29 meeting, Miran dissented again for the same reason, while Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid dissented in the opposite direction. Schmid wanted to hold rates steady, arguing that further cuts could reignite inflation.

That is a sentiment that has been expressed by more Fed policymakers in the weeks since. Five of the 12 officials who vote on policy this year have indicated they are leaning toward keeping rates on hold next month.

“We need to be careful and cautious now about monetary policy,” Fed Governor Michael Barr, who in the past has leaned toward providing support for the labor market, said last week.

Other past doves have also indicated they might be more comfortable holding rates steady next month. They include Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee, who has not dissented in his nearly three years at the Fed, but said he would if he felt like he needed to.

“If I end up feeling strongly one way, and it’s different from what everybody else thinks, then that’s what it is. That’s fine. I think that’s healthy,” Goolsbee said on Thursday in a call with reporters. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with dissenting.”

He acknowledged there have been more dissents this year than in recent Fed history, but also called that healthy.


content_text:
Japan is open to intervening in the currency market “to mitigate the side effects of a weak yen,” a Japanese government panel member said, reflecting Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s concerns about inflation.

Takaichi’s administration “will intervene more actively in the foreign exchange market, I believe,” Takuji Aida, who is also chief economist at Credit Agricole SA, said yesterday during a live broadcast on NHK.

He added that the nation has more than enough foreign exchange reserves, as Japan’s economic situation is not dire.

Aida’s comments echo remarks he made last week warning traders that currency intervention could come sooner than many expect. The threshold of 160 to the US dollar is seen as a line in the sand after authorities bought the yen on several occasions last year after it weakened past that level.

Aida on Thursday said that Japanese authorities could step into the market before the yen reaches that level, if currency moves “become sharp.”

After weakening last week to a 10-month low that took it past 157 to the US dollar, Japan’s currency drifted a tad higher to about 156.40 as of yesterday in Tokyo, just days after Takaichi unveiled the nation’s biggest fiscal stimulus package since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The stimulus plan would feature ￥17.7 trillion (US$113 billion) in general account spending, the Japanese Cabinet Office said on Friday — representing a clear jump from last year that would be reflected in an upcoming extra budget. The total package is valued at ￥21.3 trillion, with the bulk of the measures aimed at price relief.

“We’ve put together this package to protect livelihoods, and particularly to respond quickly to the problem of inflation,” Takaichi said after the details of the measures were released.

Last week’s moves prompted an escalation in verbal intervention from Japanese authorities, with Japanese Minister of Finance Satsuki Katayama saying on Friday that authorities would respond appropriately to excessive currency moves, and that currency intervention is an option.

Speculation that Takaichi, known to support reflationist policies, might discourage the Bank of Japan (BOJ) from a near-term rate hike has helped weigh on the currency since she became prime minister last month. While Aida is also a reflationist, his comments as a member of the prime minister’s advisory panel reflect the administration’s concern that a weak currency could spur inflationary pressure.

The BOJ is to next set policy on Dec. 19. BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda met with Takaichi last week. He said he explained that the central bank is in the process of rolling back the degree of policy easing undertaken by his predecessor, and she understood that description.

Aida also said yesterday it is important to invest in artificial intelligence, naval frigates, defense and other sectors even if Japan needs to issue bond to do so.

The new administration would look to balance steady economic growth with efforts to balance inflation, he added.

title: Takaichi open to intervening on yen, panelist says


content_text:
Gasoline and diesel prices are to remain unchanged this week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday, despite crude oil import costs falling.

Gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to stay at NT$27.1, NT$28.6 and NT$30.6 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said.

The price of premium diesel is to remain at NT$25.5 per liter at CPC stations and NT$25.3 at Formosa pumps, they added.

The companies’ announcements came after international crude oil prices last week fell about 3 percent, as renewed US efforts to push for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal weighed on oil market.

Front-month Brent crude oil futures — the international oil benchmark — last week fell 2.84 percent to settle at US$62.56 per barrel on the Intercontinental Exchange, while West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures — the US oil gauge — lost 3.38 percent to US$58.06 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

title: Gasoline, diesel prices remain the same this week


content_text:
BACKLASH: Taiwan’s strong export performance is driven by AI, Kung Ming-hsin said, adding: ‘We are not sick. It is those who make such claims who are sick’

A recent article in The Economist arguing that the central bank has long kept the New Taiwan dollar undervalued has sparked debate among officials and academics, who say the analysis overlooks major shifts in Taiwan’s industrial structure.

The magazine used its Big Mac Index to claim the central bank’s currency policy has weakened purchasing power, driven up housing prices and created financial risks — a view that National Development Council (NDC) Minister Yeh Chun-hsien (葉俊顯) said fails to reflect how Taiwan’s export mix has changed over the past 30 to 40 years.

Yeh on Wednesday said that Taiwan’s industries were once dominated by traditional manufacturing, but the rise of semiconductors and upgraded conventional sectors means firms with unique products or technologies are no longer as vulnerable to exchange rate swings.

New Taiwan dollar, left, and US dollar banknotes are pictured in Taipei on Monday last week. Photo: CNA

Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said that Taiwan’s strong export performance has been driven by artificial intelligence (AI) demand, not currency manipulation.

“We are not sick. It is those who make such claims who are sick,” he said on Thursday.

Debates over the exchange rate are not new. From 2008 to 2013, exporters frequently urged the central bank to weaken the NT dollar, including then-Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀), who openly clashed with then-central bank governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南). Chang at the time criticized Taiwan’s stronger currency compared with South Korea’s, saying cost pressures were hurting competitiveness. Perng countered that exchange rates cannot solve all export problems.

At the time, South Korea was clearly using depreciation to support its industries, National Central University economist Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮) said, adding that TSMC was not the global leader it is today and was more sensitive to margin pressures.

Taiwan’s central bank has generally maintained a “dynamic balance,” keeping the currency slightly weaker, but avoiding aggressive intervention, Chiou said.

Still, criticism has persisted from various sectors, he said.

With TSMC now dominant in advanced manufacturing, the calls for depreciation have subsided, and most businesses now prefer exchange rate stability over rapid swings, Chiou added.

Today’s challenges — from trade protectionism and US-China tensions to geopolitical risks — are far more complex than a decade ago, he said.

While AI has boosted Taiwan’s resilience, traditional industries face pressure mainly from China’s overcapacity and weak demand, with exchange rates only worsening an already difficult situation, he added.

Global political and economic shifts — including tariff battles, trade negotiations and new carbon costs — have made the old low-cost model harder to sustain, Chiou said.

Meanwhile, US scrutiny of currency manipulation limits how far Taiwan can intervene, which could be an opportunity to move toward a more flexible, stable approach, he added.

title: Currency claim by ‘The Economist’ sparks pushback


people: 習近平 黃仁

title: US mulls letting Nvidia sell H200 chips to China

content_text:
US President Donald Trump’s administration is considering green-lighting sales of Nvidia Corp’s H200 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China as a bilateral detente boosts prospects for exports of advanced US technology to China, people familiar with the matter said.

The US Department of Commerce, which oversees US export controls, is reviewing a change to its policy of barring sales of such chips to China, the sources said, stressing that plans could change.

The White House and the commerce department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Nvidia logo is pictured at the company’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California, on Tuesday last week. Photo: EPA

Nvidia did not comment directly on the review, but said current regulation does not allow the company to offer a competitive AI data center chip in China, leaving that massive market to its rapidly growing foreign competitors.

The possibility signals a friendlier approach to China, after Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) last month brokered a trade and tech war truce in Busan, South Korea.

China hawks in Washington are concerned that shipments of more advanced AI chips to China could help Beijing supercharge its military, fears that prompted the former US president Joe Biden’s administration to set limits on such exports.

Faced with Beijing’s muscular use of export controls on rare earth minerals, critical for producing a raft of tech goods, Trump this year threatened new restrictions on tech exports to China, but ultimately rolled them back in most cases.

The H200 chip, unveiled two years ago, has more high-bandwidth memory than its predecessor, the H100, allowing it to process data more quickly.

It is estimated to be twice as powerful as Nvidia’s H20 chip, the most advanced AI semiconductor that can legally be exported to China, after the Trump administration reversed its short-lived ban on such sales earlier this year.

Earlier last week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whom Trump has described as a “great guy,” was among the guests at the White House during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s visit.

The US Department of Commerce last week announced that it had approved shipments of the equivalent of up to 70,000 Nvidia Blackwell chips, Nvidia’s next-generation AI chip, to Saudi Arabia’s AI start-up Humain and G42 of the United Arab Emirates.


content_text: A man bends over to observe a unique creature, Branchinella kugenumaensis, at Xiangtian Pond in Yangmingshan National Park yesterday. Commonly known as “Xiangtian shrimp” or “fairy shrimp,” this species lives in limited areas in Asia and in Taiwan, where it is only found in Yangmingshan National Park. It can only be seen when the lake appears at Xiangtian Pond.

title: On a mission


content_text:
Tokyo-Beijing relations have been rapidly deteriorating over the past two weeks as China tries to punish Japan over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks about Taiwan earlier this month, and the off-ramp to this conflict is yet to be seen.

Takaichi saying that a “Taiwan contingency” could cause a “situation threatening Japan’s survival” — which would allow Japan to act in self-defense — has drawn Beijing’s ire and sparked retaliatory measures. Her remark did not gain public attention until Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) made an apparent threat to behead her.

The two sides lodged protests against each other, with China repeatedly demanding that Takaichi retract her words, which she has refused. China resorted to verbal threats, diplomatic pressure, economic coercion, “gray zone” operations and fabricating media narratives to attack Takaichi, while also trying to influence Japanese politics to force her to back down.

In its latest attempt to reinforce pressure, China on Friday accused Japan of threatening “an armed intervention” over Taiwan, saying it deems that an act of aggression and that it “will resolutely exercise its right of self-defense” in response.

Aside from lodging protests and warning its citizens to stay safe in China, Japan has been avoiding tit-for-tat retaliation and calling for dialogue. It also remained firm on its stance, saying it neither contradicted nor deviated from the previous government’s stance.

Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, Takaichi’s political mentor, in 2015 described Taiwan as “an important partner and a precious friend of Japan,” leading a pivotal improvement in Taiwan-Japan relations. His government in the same year passed security legislation that allowed its military to engage in limited collective self-defense if there is a clear threat to Japan’s survival.

Abe in 2021 said “a Taiwan contingency is a contingency for Japan,” and that it was “a contingency for the Japan-US alliance.” A defense white paper that year also stated that with China’s intensifying military activities around Taiwan, “stabilizing the situation surrounding Taiwan is important for Japan’s security and the stability of the international community.”

Even earlier, following the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, shuhen jitai (situations in surrounding areas, 周?事態) became a key concept in Japan’s defense policy. Tokyo had refused Beijing’s demand that Taiwan be excluded from this policy.

Japan has not changed its long-standing position on a “Taiwan contingency,” but Takaichi’s remark could be seen as “popping the bubble” of strategic ambiguity the US and its allies, including Japan, apply to Taiwan. Her message could also serve as a deterrence, telling Beijing’s leadership that Taipei is not as isolated as it assumes.

As there is no reason to believe that Beijing is unaware of Tokyo’s long-standing stance, China’s exaggerated response could be seen as a “pressure test” on Japan and its new government, and serves as a warning to other democracies to stay away from Taiwan.

Although Taiwan is technically not involved in the rising tensions between Japan and China, it is at the core of the issue. Taipei should be careful not to trigger an escalation, but it should also show its support — such as by encouraging travel to Japan or imports of Japanese goods — and deepen cooperation with Japan and other like-minded countries in security and intelligence sharing.

Showing support for Takaichi and her government could reassure other democracies that supporting Taiwan and stability in the Taiwan Strait are welcomed and backed by actions. Moreover, it could reinforce the government’s “Taiwan can help” message, demonstrating the nation’s willingness and capability to contribute to maintaining peace and stability in the region. That is in sharp contrast to China, which forces other countries to put Chinese interests above their own.

title: EDITORIAL: Takaichi’s stance not a deviation


people: 顧立雄 賴清德 習近平

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Ryan Hass On Taiwan: America’s debates on Taiwan are interesting, Trump’s views are determinative

There has been much catastrophizing in Taiwan recently about America becoming more unreliable as a bulwark against Chinese pressure. Some of this has been sparked by debates in Washington about whether the United States should defend Taiwan in event of conflict. There also were understandable anxieties about whether President Trump would sacrifice Taiwan’s interests for a trade deal when he sat down with President Xi (習近平) in late October. On top of that, Taiwan’s opposition political leaders have sought to score political points by attacking the Lai (賴清德) administration for mishandling relations with the United States.

Part of this budding anxiety in Taiwan is a function of style. Trump’s diplomatic approach on Taiwan is different. He is not going to memorize and recite America’s longstanding One China policy. Trump likes to apply public pressure on Taiwan to spend more on defense, invest more in the United States, and buy more US exports. He does not pretend to care about shared democratic values. Where other leaders have sought to highlight the threat China poses to Taiwan, Trump is the exact opposite. Instead, he asserts (without evidence) that Xi has promised him China will not take military action against Taiwan so long as he is president.

Trump’s approach is disruptive, transactional, unsentimental, and amoral. Much the same could also be said about Trump’s posture toward America’s allies in Europe and Asia. Trump’s domestic supporters applaud this tougher approach, believing it will prod allies to invest more in their own defense and rely less upon the United States for their security. According to this logic, Trump’s tough love will force allies to grow stronger and more capable, leading to a world in which America and its partners end up in a more advantageous position to protect shared interests.

Critics of Trump’s diplomacy argue that he is undermining America’s foundational sources of strength on the world stage. These include America’s cohesion with allies and its ability to attract the world’s best and brightest minds to conduct research and launch transformative companies in the United States.

In other words, America is in a period of strategic transition. Some foreign policy specialists question the orthodoxy of past US policy towards East Asia, including Taiwan. Others support the fundamentals of past American strategy even as they encourage revisions on the margins. This division has created an opening for new voices in the Taiwan policy debate to gain more prominence. The group of thinkers that has most capitalized on this opening can loosely be referred to as “restrainers.” They advocate for America to be more selective and judicious in exercising power abroad. This group is not a monolith. Some believe the United States should withdraw from an active global leadership role to focus more on America’s own challenges at home. Others argue that the United States needs to be more cautious about when and where it intervenes, but not necessarily become isolationist.

Arguments advocating for greater restraint are not new in the United States. Foreign policy scholars such as Michael Swaine, Chas Freeman, Charles Glaser, Lyle Goldstein, and others have been making variations of these arguments for many years. The difference now, though, is that the Trump administration is instinctively skeptical of longstanding policies, opposed to globalism and multilateralism, wary of becoming entangled in avoidable wars, and eager to embrace new arguments that validate Trump’s instincts.

Trump is drawn to arguments that justify shifting greater burden for addressing international challenges to others. And he is interested in differentiating himself from President Biden’s foreign policy, which was instinctively and sometimes unquestioningly supportive of allies and partners.

Even so, I still believe there are limits to how far Trump will go in upending America’s longstanding approach to Taiwan. First, Trump cares deeply and personally about his legacy for strength and peacemaking. He does not want his legacy to be one of being drawn into a cross-Strait conflict, or of being pushed around by Xi Jinping on Taiwan. Second, Trump is aware of Taiwan’s criticality for his goals around reindustrializing the United States and fostering leadership in artificial intelligence. Given Taiwan’s irreplaceable role in semiconductor chip production and advanced manufacturing, there is no substitute to Taiwan for making progress on Trump’s top economic goals.

During his first administration, Trump delegated much of the day-to-day management of US-Taiwan relations to his advisors. Trump’s first-term team was staunchly pro-Taiwan. After Trump watched his National Security Council officials testify against him at Congressional impeachment hearings toward the end of his first term, though, he soured on the National Security Council staff. Now that he is back in office, Trump retains greater control over sensitive and important policy issues such as Taiwan, rather than delegate them to his staff.

As such, Trump’s views will be determinative of America’s approach to cross-Strait issues for the coming years. Thus far in his second term, Trump has been timid in his approach to Taiwan. His administration has deferred a transit by President Lai, declined a planned visit by Minister of National Defense Koo (顧立雄), and exercised extreme caution on new arms sales packages.

At a strategic level, though, Trump has reiterated his interest in sustaining the cross-Strait status quo. He is not interested in being drawn into debates over Taiwan’s sovereignty or whether the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense if attacked.

Any forecast of Trump’s actions must also acknowledge that he is impulsive and self-assured. Trump continues to believe he can strike big deals with Xi Jinping. He seems to view flattery and concessions as preferred negotiating tools with Xi. Against this backdrop, Taiwan will need to remain nimble in how it presents its value proposition to the United States. Recitations of a struggle between democracy versus autocracy will not move Trump.

Ultimately, I expect debates over Taiwan within America’s foreign policy community will continue to percolate in the coming years. The debate might edge in a direction, but it will not be fully resolved before America’s 2028 elections, that is unless Beijing or Taipei takes unilateral actions that cause America to take countermeasures to uphold its topmost interest in peace and stability. Trump will maintain his unorthodox style, but at the end of the day, I expect his actions in aggregate will tend toward sustaining the cross-Strait status quo.

Ryan Hass is a senior fellow, the Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies, and the Director of the China Center at the Brookings Institution.


title: Question of a dual national’s loyalty

content_text:
Deng Wanhua (鄧萬華), the former warden of Syuetian Village (學田) in Hualien County’s Fuli Township (富里), was removed from her post on Aug. 1 after she was found to have contravened foreign nationality laws.

Deng, who is a Chinese spouse of a Taiwanese and has been in Taiwan for 28 years, still had Chinese citizenship, despite public officials being required to renounce any foreign nationality within one year of taking office. She filed an appeal, and the Hualien County government decided to revoke the original punishment on Oct. 29.

The question is, was her appeal reasonable and legally sound?

Deng said she had legally acquired Taiwanese citizenship and had been approved by the Central Election Commission to run for office. Furthermore, because Taiwan and China do not have mutual “state-to-state” recognition, the designation of “foreign nationality” as appears in the Nationality Act (國籍法) should not apply.

Although the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) differentiates between Taiwan and mainland China, it does not rule on the acquisition of nationality or the determination of citizenship status.

Article 1 of the act states that: “With regard to matters not provided for in this Act, the provisions of other relevant laws and regulations shall apply.” Therefore, the provisions of the Nationality Act are entirely applicable. Additionally, “foreign nationality” simply refers to holding citizenship from any country other than Taiwan, so without a doubt, Chinese nationals belong in this category.

The term “public office” refers to elected representatives and civil servants for central or local government agencies, according to the Judicial Yuan. They represent the state when they carry out public service duties. When people assume such a position, they enter into a particularly close relationship with the state, one based on loyalty and trust.

To safeguard national sovereignty and prevent foreign nationals from influencing domestic policy, the Nationality Act implements a reasonable precaution of restricting people with foreign nationalities from standing for public office.

A key consideration here is that in the event of a cross-strait conflict, which side would Deng — a dual-national, China-born spouse — ultimately be loyal to? Would it be Taiwan or the very country that seeks to annex it? It is unavoidable that conflicts of loyalty and obligation would arise in such a situation.

In making her case, Deng said that because cross-strait relations are not the typical state-to-state form, Chinese nationality cannot be considered a foreign nationality. However, after looking at legal provisions, it is clear that her argument is untenable in law and reason — it simply cannot hold water.

Yeh Yu-cheng is a civil servant.

Translated by Gilda Knox Streader


title: The nation is not under the Dutch disease trap

content_text:
The Economist recently published stories on Taiwan titled “The hidden risks in Taiwan’s boom” and “Taiwan’s amazing economic achievements are yielding alarming strains,” which said the New Taiwan dollar has long been undervalued.

According to the magazine, to avoid “Dutch disease” — where a single product or sector drives currency appreciation, squeezing other sectors — Taiwan has suppressed the value of its currency, which has driven purchasing power down, house prices up and accumulated financial risk in what it called the “Formosan flu.”

Dutch disease is driven by a boom in a pure-export industry typified by natural resources, for which Taiwan’s semiconductor and artificial intelligence industries have never fit the bill. In fact, the semiconductor industry functions as a highly import-reliant supply chain.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) depends on significant quantities of equipment and materials from the Netherlands, Japan and the US for its chips. Its growth does not directly drive up exchange rates nor create a one-way appreciation pressure the same way that natural gas exports do — like what happened in 1959 after the discovery of the Groningen gas field, which led to the coining of the term “Dutch disease.”

According to basic economic theory, Taiwan’s export strength and trade surplus should raise the value of the NT dollar, not lead to its chronic undervaluation. However, in practice the NT dollar’s fluctuations bear little relation to export performance, but are instead closely tied to the flows of foreign capital. Foreign investors hold more than US$720 billion of TSMC stocks, higher than Taiwan’s total foreign exchange reserves of US$600 billion. When the stock market is hot and foreign capital is flowing in, the NT dollar’s value rises; when tech stocks weaken or geopolitical tensions rise, foreign investors withdraw and the NT dollar suffers. These exchange rate mechanisms are not symptoms of Dutch disease, but are typical of capital markets highly dependent on foreign investment.

Chalking all of Taiwan’s economic woes up to exchange rates is too one-sided. Although exchange rates do impact the cost of living and could accentuate economic issues, they are more of a mirror than cause, reflecting the nature of an economy.

Taiwan’s real issue is with industrial imbalances and widening income inequality. Over the past 10 years, the tech industry’s success has pulled its wages far ahead of other industries. Meanwhile, the service sector and low-productivity domestic industries have struggled to keep up, and rising house prices have widened the generational wealth gap. The increase in house prices is driven not by exchange rates, but by wages failing to keep up with asset returns. Excessive industrial concentration is a result of overdependence on a few highly profitable sectors.

In this economic landscape, exchange rates reveal only the underlying problems. If we ignore what is going on beneath the surface, our understanding will always be distorted. What Taiwan needs is not intervention in exchange rates, but determination to address structural issues through industrial upgrading, investment in education, smarter resource allocation and regional development.

The Economist’s warning is useful, but Taiwan’s case is not an example of Dutch disease. What we are facing is the volatility of global markets and the structural risks of overconcentration in one sector. If we can maintain clarity in diagnosing the problem, policy can move in a pragmatic direction and avoid skating around our central economic challenges.

Dino Wei works in the information technology industry.

Translated by Gilda Knox Streader


title: EDITORIAL CARTOON

content_text: The central bank and the US Department of the Treasury on Friday issued a joint statement that both sides agreed to avoid currency manipulation and the use of exchange rates to gain a competitive advantage, and would only intervene in foreign-exchange markets to combat excess volatility and disorderly movements. The central bank also agreed to disclose its foreign-exchange intervention amounts quarterly rather than every six months, starting from next month. It emphasized that the joint statement is unrelated to tariff negotiations between Taipei and Washington, and that the US never requested the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar during the


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The American middle class is shrinking. But that’s goodWhy do the vast majority feel like the economy is broken when there is more wealth than ever in the US?

The good news is that Americans have never been richer. The bad news is that most of them do not feel like it.

There has been tremendous growth in income and wealth in the US in the last half century, even for poorer and middle-class households. However, because of the nature of that growth, as well as the changing structure of the national economy, a lot of the people who have benefited believe that the economy is not working for them.

It is true the middle class is shrinking. In the 1960s the income distribution of US households looked like a bell curve with a very thick middle. Today there are fewer Americans in the middle — largely because many have joined the ranks of the upper-middle class. In 1967, a little more than 5 percent of Americans earned or received more than US$150,000 (in 2024 dollars). Now more than 30 percent do. And it is not just the middle class that moved up: In 1967, more than 38 percent earned or received less than US$50,000. Now that figure is 21 percent.

Income inequality increased. The very rich — the top 5 percent and especially the top 1 percent — got much richer than everyone else, even the top 20 percent. The income distribution curve has flattened as more people have moved into the upper part, with the upper tail moving even further from everyone else.

The result? More Americans than ever are affluent — and more have the sense that something is wrong with the economy.

Americans earned more for several reasons. The first is that neoliberal economic policies worked as intended. In the last 50 years, there have been big increases in productivity, solid GDP growth and, since the 1980s, low and predictable inflation. All this helped make most Americans richer.

There has been a decline in unionization, which helped to compress wages between the upper tail of the income distribution and the middle. More Americans go to college, where they incur debt but increase their lifetime earnings, especially as technology favors people with degrees. Americans are older, and people tend to earn more later in their careers. On the lower end, income grew in part because the figure includes welfare benefits and tax credits.

There are legitimate reasons that many households feel poorer, even if their income is greater. It is a struggle to keep up with the price increases of many critical services in regulated sectors such as health care, education and housing. There is some justified anxiety that the earnings growth and prosperity will not continue. The last 60 years was the Era of the Baby Boomers, when income gains were large for anyone who went to college. The college premium still exists, but it has stopped growing and it comes at a higher cost.

And while technology and trade have made everyone richer, they have made a far smaller group of people much, much richer. It is not just the handful of people who are rich beyond comprehension. There are hundreds of Americans who are worth more than a billion dollars. This is in part because technology changed and a few firms earned more — and paid more — than the rest. Working in certain industries means much higher earnings. And a superstar economy rewards high performers much more than everyone else, whether that superstar is Taylor Swift or a talented manager in a fast-growing corporation.

To be clear, this system helps create economic growth that makes everyone better off. However, in the very top tier of income, it can feel like a zero-sum competition between the merely affluent and the truly rich.

This poses a challenge not just for economic planners but for the very meaning of prosperity. Growth and rising incomes are usually the goal of economic policy, including neoliberal economic policy. However, the last two decades show that rising incomes are not always enough to engender good feelings about the economy.

This intra-top-quartile resentment might help explain why more politicians want higher taxes on super-high earners but do not ask the upper middle class to pay any more. The taxes are not just a way to pay for more middle-class welfare benefits. They are a form of economic retribution.

The catch is that there is a tradeoff between growth and equality. At least some of the growth at the top came from more productivity. Innovative companies, some founded or led by billionaires, help make the American economy (or at least Americans’ stock portfolios) richer. Yes, there is room to increase taxes on the rich, but punitive taxes can harm growth.

The idea that the economy is rigged and zero-sum is leading to a rise in populism in both parties. The result would probably be less trade and more price controls, which would mean a slower-growing economy — or even one that is shrinking. Then Americans would learn that the only thing worse than rising inequality is flat or declining income.

Allison Schrager is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering economics. A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, she is author of “An Economist Walks Into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk.” This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.


title: Korea has two bubbles that give it anxiety

content_text:
The South Korean housing market and the AI boom both threaten to let go, and the central bank is unsure what to do

Key parts of South Korea’s economy are running hot and authorities are under pressure to cool things down. This is tricky territory for the central bank and it should be wary of trying.

This is a story of two bubbles: one in the property sector; the other, stratospheric spending on artificial intelligence (AI). The former is within the abilities of officials to tackle. The latter brings real benefits — along with froth — to the export powerhouse, but its decidedly global scope means the government’s ability to exert influence is negligible. Both shape policy, and Seoul is going to have to deal with the aftermath.

President Lee Jae-myung is in little doubt that the housing market is close to bursting. He has declared it a “ticking bomb” and does not want the Bank of Korea (BOK) to inflate the bubble. Governor Rhee Chang-yong, who has cut rates four times in the past year, has been leaning toward additional stimulus while being mindful of risks to financial stability. An accommodative stance, however, does not “slow the fire,” Rhee acknowledged in a Nov. 12 interview.

There is another surge that both men need to watch: The vast sums being thrown at AI. Demand for the chips made by companies such as Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc could push shipments up by 45 percent next year, almost twice the current speed, according to Bloomberg Economics, and fuel an acceleration in growth. The BOK’s easing cycle is effectively over, as a consequence.

RUNNING HOT

If additional rate cuts are forthcoming, they would probably be accompanied by a signal that further reductions would be a big ask. Gross domestic product jumped in the third quarter, consumer spending has been solid, and the threat of deflation has receded. The pace of price gains, at 2.4 percent in October, is nicely above the BOK’s target. Bond yields have climbed and the won strengthened. Throw in the real-estate excesses and the appetite for AI products, and its fair to ask whether rates should increase.

Most policymakers say they should not be in the bubble-popping game. Alan Greenspan, who led the US Federal Reserve for almost two decades, was reluctant to call time on investor enthusiasm. In one of his most celebrated — and critiqued — lines, Greenspan questioned the “irrational exuberance” of late 1990s stock markets. However, he demurred when it came to enforcing rationality. Greenspan saw the technology driven rallies reflecting the kind of deep change that came along only a couple of times every century. He correctly surmised that underneath the hype lay advances that allowed the economy to grow faster without inflation. The Dotcom Bubble did burst, contributing to a recession in 2001, and a painfully slow recovery over the next few years.

Japanese property values in the late 1980s was another epic bubble that caused much soul searching. Until they crashed, the country was widely viewed as being on track to eclipse the US as the main commercial power. The Bank of Japan (BOJ) took much of the criticism for tightening too late and too hard. In his book, Tumultuous Times: Central Banking in an Era of Crisis, former BOJ governor Masaaki Shirakawa expresses his frustration with short memories. Those who later blamed the BOJ for hiking also slammed it for not moving sooner. Officials could not win.

NO GOOD ANSWERS

That is no excuse for laxity. “The bank cannot escape criticism,” Shirakawa wrote. “Easing was not the sole cause of the bubble economy, but the bubble would not have swelled so much without the extended period of easy money.”

It is difficult to get it just right. Greenspan did foresee consequences and wrestled with the lessons from Japan’s experience. Pressed at a Federal Open Market Committee meeting in 1997, he conceded he was at a loss. The only tool available was a very blunt one: lifting rates.

“We have one instrument and conflicting goals,” Greenspan said in an interview. “I do not know what to do.”

South Korea’s economy is doing fine, but adding helium by cutting rates would be a mistake. As far as housing is concerned, long-term demographic forces are as much a driver as borrowing costs. About half the nation’s people live in the capital, and more are coming.

No central banker likes to hear that they are powerless. While that overstates the constraints on Rhee, doing little is not the worst thing. However, he better be ready for the cleanup.

Daniel Moss is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian economies. Previously, he was executive editor for economics at Bloomberg News. This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.


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As crypto crashes once more, who will pay the most?

The crypto crash has come again. And it is as brutal as ever. In barely six weeks, more than US$1.2 trillion has evaporated from cryptocurrencies’ market capitalization. The sell-off has sent bitcoin back to levels last seen in April. The world’s largest cryptocurrency briefly fell below US$90,000 this week, shedding almost a third of its value since its October peak.

The key to understanding crypto is that it has no “value” in any economic sense. It generates no income, commands no productive capacity and pays no dividends. Unlike state money, it is not backed by a tax base or a fiscal authority. What props up its price is not cashflow but expectation: the hope that someone else could validate today’s valuation tomorrow. When sentiment turns sour or people pull their money out, there is nothing to break cryptocurrencies’ fall. Prices do not correct, they collapse. In 2023, MPs rightly said that cryptocurrency trading in the UK should be regulated as a form of gambling — a demand rejected by the then Tory government.

The volatility of cryptocurrencies is not accidental but structural. The Financial Times reported that investors pulled out of crypto because there was a shunning worldwide of speculative assets amid concerns about sky-high artificial intelligence valuations and the path of US interest rates. While the crash is global, Britain is uniquely vulnerable to its fallout. No other large economy has so thoroughly hollowed out social mobility while selling to its young the myth of entrepreneurial escape. No surprise then that Britons are more likely to have bought into crypto than other Europeans.

Regulators warn that too many young people in Britain are turning to crypto, often borrowing to do so because they want to “win big.” The UK has become, in effect, a one-shot society — a place where stagnant wages and unaffordable housing leave millions clutching at any chance, however illusory, to escape. The US rapper Eminem captured this mentality in his hit Lose Yourself: “Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity. To seize everything you ever wanted… would you capture it?”

For a generation locked out of asset ownership, crypto is marketed as that “one moment.”

It is in many ways the clearest symbol of an economic system running out of road: a promise of freedom built on an asset class whose standing depends on decisions made in Washington. Cryptocurrencies rise and fall with the Nasdaq; the dollar system is their unseen plumbing; and their values are determined by the White House. However, the crisis has been viewed as an opportunity by the political right. They sell crypto to the masses as rebellious empowerment.

Having once dismissed bitcoin as “based on thin air,” US President Donald Trump now revels in his role as “crypto president.” Under Trump, crypto has become a machinery of patronage, deregulation and self-enrichment that is unprecedented in modern US politics. Former US president Joe Biden’s attempts to regulate crypto businesses — which have provided routes for fraud and money laundering — have been eviscerated.

Those on the right of politics who want to be supplicants to Trumpian power, whether that is Argentine President Javier Milei or MP Nigel Farage, embrace crypto aggressively. It lets them pose as the insurgent alternative to a “rigged” system — accepting donations in anonymous digital payments to prove the point — while sucking up to Trump. Crypto is not the end of politics in money. It resembles nothing so much as the latest way for the powerful to profit from the powerless.