Forbe's Five Signs Taiwan Is Not Developed article

forbes.com/sites/ralphjennin … developed/

Ralph Jennings listed 5 main reasons why Taiwan isn’t really a developed country. I’m going to paraphrase them.

  1. Fugly cityscape
  2. Not enough green spaces or road side trees
  3. Reference only laws
  4. Low quality of life due to pollution, poor city planning and terrible daily life customs
  5. Fake friendliness and the people being inconsiderate of others unless in a face to face situation

Kind of why I’ve always referred to Taiwan as a developing country. Work in progress…

Thanks for summing up, whenever I try to open Forbes my AdBlock goes crazy.

The think is, I’m really not sure how he justifies these five things as being key indicators of development. I’m sure you could reel off a list of five shitty things from every country in the world, that’s essentially all he’s done here. Most of his points have weight, but essentially they’re just some shitty aspects to Taiwan, I don’t really see them as any worse that many of the issues that the UK has. Clickbait article.

It was a shitty excuse for an article, but probably four out of five points are valid. It depends how you interpret these things of course.

yep, the reason Taiwan has not made the jump is too complex for these five points.

Such click bait articles can be published on Forbes?! What has the world come to.

He’s referring to “developed” in a non-economy-related way. I agree with most of the points though number five is a strange one. I mean it true sometimes but every country even Japan has people like that.

If one wants to read a real analysis on the subject by a seasoned writer one may reference my post on this very subject along with accompanying discussion. :whistle:

I’ve always said Taiwan has bits of everything. A little bit of a developed country (HSR, MRT) a bit (or a lot) of third worldness. And a lot of second worldness too.

A lot of those things are caused by the same sort of attitude. I think thats gonna be slow to change but things do improve here, which is nice. Back home things just get shittier…

Ralph Jennings seems to have a fairly narrow world view. He appears totally unaware of the problems that exist in his country of origin and I can’t recall him ever making comparisons between Taiwan and other Asian countries.

An “Old Asia Hand” he definitely is not.

He extrapolates his petty annoyances to national problems. “Somebody cut in front of me ! Taiwan is not a developed country!”

. forbes.com/sites/ralphjennin … nsparency/Lack of language skills and local connections may also hamper his work. His article a couple days later does not quote any Taiwanese sources.

Give him credit for being accepted as a regular contributor to Forbes and the AP as a regular Taiwan-based writer. Most major media stories about Taiwan are now sourced fom HK or Beijing (and once, gawd forbid, from Indonesia).

Whilst i agree with many of those points, trying to pinpoint down a developed/non-developed country according to this is… pretty undeveloped.

I´m sure you find a 3rd world country somewhere where people are super friendly and have nice surroundings and awesome air quality (due to no cars…?) but does this make it a developed nation… :laughing:

Certainly Taiwan has some way to go (more so in the Southern/Middeling parts than in Northern ones) but its on its way from what ive seen here.