Interesting editorial on the Go South strategy from United Daily News, yes, it is written from a blue viewpoint but makes some worthwhile points.
Has no impact on the contents of that article, but I noticed that the page introduction for Dateline Taipei says he will only translate from pan-blue media and calls the DPP a “soft dictatorship.”
[quote]Sometimes the nominally “Pro Reunification Media” will carelessly, or worse, intentionally use terms such as “Taiwan” and “Taiwanese” as if they were interchangeable with “Republic of China” and “the Chinese people on Taiwan,” or “citizens of the Republic of China.”
Such mistakes, intentional or otherwise, will be translated in a manner consistent with the Original Intent of the Constitution of the Republic of China. Where the original text reads “Taiwanese,” I will substitute “the Chinese people on Taiwan” or “citizens of the Republic of China.” Where the original text reads “Taiwan” I will substitute “Republic of China.”[/quote]
and
This guy… is divorced from reality. Again, doesn’t affect the validity of the article you shared, which I haven’t had time to read yet.
Whatever his views are or who he is, he performs a valuable service translating editorials from UDN and China Times which I wouldn’t be able to read in Chinese. There are already sites that give the green side in English so it is helpful to have blue commentary in English as well.
[quote=“hansioux”][quote=“Dirt”]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2920219/How-fat-country-nations-highest-obesity-rates-new-maps-surprise-you.html
With 2015 data, Saudi Arabia has just as many people who are obese by % of population. They don’t allow American (ractopamine) beef in their country.[/quote]
You know that obesity is much more common amongst female than male in those countries, which is against the global trend? Something about not being allowed to see the light of day does that to ya.[/quote]
Source?
[quote=“schwarzwald”]Interesting editorial on the Go South strategy from United Daily News, yes, it is written from a blue viewpoint but makes some worthwhile points.
datelinetaipei.blogspot.tw/2015/ … le-to.html[/quote]
Lol. What are the worthwhile points? The fact is the Ma government has been pushing to diversify Taiwan’s trade just as much as LTH and CSB.
Don’t believe me? Here are his own words from 2014:
Or this year:
Go south is a policy all presidents have encouraged and will continue to encourage.
There is a lot of really flimsy proof in this thread that ractopamine is THE cause for obesity in the US. There are dozens of reasons why there is a problem. One big problem is that many Americans eat zero healthy meals during the day. Many don’t exercise at all. Portion sizes are completely out of control. Sugar is out of control. Workoholism where many don’t take time off or trips at all. Some of these might be the same as AU/NZ but to single out ractopamine as THE cause is a stretch. A big stretch.
[quote=“Mucha Man”]
[quote]
Go south is a policy all presidents have encouraged and will continue to encourage.[/quote][/quote]
Exactly, if everybody has been promoting this policy for the last 20 years what’s the point of Tsai rehashing it and stating the obvious?
I never said it was THE cause. But a likely contributing cause. And when mixed with steroid growth hormones (also fed to cows) plus mind-altering drugs that humans take (like Prozac), you’ve go the unstudied waters of drug interactions. It can alter both your physical and mental health.
One of the things I mentioned earlier was America’s strange propensity for road rage and school shooting incidents, which I think can be exacerbated by ractopamine. And now this morning’s news: A 26-year-old nerdy guy just murdered 10 students at an Oregon college. Yeah, I know you fans of ractopamine will say it had absolutely nothing to do with that drug, even though it drives normally docile farm animals to violence. No one will even look at this. There will be plenty of discussion over gun control, some discussion about the effect of violence in the media, how we need more prisons and tougher laws, but I doubt that anyone will ever consider what this guy was eating.
And not only him - he had an audience. What you’re not going to see in the news is a discussion on 4chan. Seems that the perv told all his 4chan online friends that he was going to do it. Some of them thought it was a joke, some tried to talk him out of it, but many actually encouraged him to do it, and when he actually did it and you had all kinds of fellow perves cheering! Not just a few, but a lot.
I could post a link to that discussion, but I know the moderators will take it down. So if anyone wants the link, send me a PM. It’s a very revolting discussion, especially after the murders happen and you got people going “Whoo-hoo, ha, ha, ha ha…” Are they human? Or racto-steroid-Prozac heads? Under the TPP, even if it’s proven that these food additive and drug combinations cause obesity, heart attacks, and violence, Taiwan wouldn’t be able to ban it without paying massive penalties for interfering with free trade. Hey, maybe we’ll have to pay penalties for banning heroin too.
[quote=“Dirt”][quote=“hansioux”][quote=“Dirt”]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2920219/How-fat-country-nations-highest-obesity-rates-new-maps-surprise-you.html
With 2015 data, Saudi Arabia has just as many people who are obese by % of population. They don’t allow American (ractopamine) beef in their country.[/quote]
You know that obesity is much more common amongst female than male in those countries, which is against the global trend? Something about not being allowed to see the light of day does that to ya.[/quote]
Source?[/quote]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_obesity
“Global Prevalence of Adult Obesity” (PDF). International Obesity Taskforce. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
iotf.org/database/documents/ … mber08.pdf
I never said it was THE cause. But a likely contributing cause. And when mixed with steroid growth hormones (also fed to cows) plus mind-altering drugs that humans take (like Prozac), you’ve go the unstudied waters of drug interactions. It can alter both your physical and mental health.
One of the things I mentioned earlier was America’s strange propensity for road rage and school shooting incidents, which I think can be exacerbated by ractopamine. And now this morning’s news: A 26-year-old nerdy guy just murdered 10 students at an Oregon college. Yeah, I know you fans of ractopamine will say it had absolutely nothing to do with that drug, even though it drives normally docile farm animals to violence. No one will even look at this. There will be plenty of discussion over gun control, some discussion about the effect of violence in the media, how we need more prisons and tougher laws, but I doubt that anyone will ever consider what this guy was eating.
And not only him - he had an audience. What you’re not going to see in the news is a discussion on 4chan. Seems that the perv told all his 4chan online friends that he was going to do it. Some of them thought it was a joke, some tried to talk him out of it, but many actually encouraged him to do it, and when he actually did it and you had all kinds of fellow perves cheering! Not just a few, but a lot.
I could post a link to that discussion, but I know the moderators will take it down. So if anyone wants the link, send me a PM. It’s a very revolting discussion, especially after the murders happen and you got people going “Whoo-hoo, ha, ha, ha ha…” Are they human? Or racto-steroid-Prozac heads? Under the TPP, even if it’s proven that these food additive and drug combinations cause obesity, heart attacks, and violence, Taiwan wouldn’t be able to ban it without paying massive penalties for interfering with free trade. Hey, maybe we’ll have to pay penalties for banning heroin too.[/quote]
Again this is all flimsy and based on zero real data. Yes, it is possible that it is a contributing factor but most likely it is <10% considering all of the other more obvious factors.
[quote=“schwarzwald”][quote=“Mucha Man”]
[quote]
Go south is a policy all presidents have encouraged and will continue to encourage.[/quote][/quote]
Exactly, if everybody has been promoting this policy for the last 20 years what’s the point of Tsai rehashing it and stating the obvious?[/quote]
Hmm. So again, what exactly in that UDN article did you think were worthwhile points? The article was laughing at Tsai, and saying she was just repeating failed policies of the past. There is no mention that the Ma government continued those same policies more or less and sees them as necessary for Taiwan.
[quote=“Mucha Man”][quote=“schwarzwald”][quote=“Mucha Man”]
[quote]
Go south is a policy all presidents have encouraged and will continue to encourage.[/quote][/quote]
Exactly, if everybody has been promoting this policy for the last 20 years what’s the point of Tsai rehashing it and stating the obvious?[/quote]
Hmm. So again, what exactly in that UDN article did you think were worthwhile points? The article was laughing at Tsai, and saying she was just repeating failed policies of the past. There is no mention that the Ma government continued those same policies more or less and sees them as necessary for Taiwan.[/quote]
If you didn’t find anything interesting or worth your while in the article, that’s ok. Something I wasn’t aware of is that the Go South strategy also works as a complement to Taiwan’s China trade and not only as a diversification. In an article in The Economist from 2013, it explains
“Taiwan companies are pursuing a strategy of diversification, rather than cutting their ties to mainland China altogether. Annual approved investment to the mainland still outweighs that going elsewhere. Flows will continue to be underpinned by the growth of the country’s inland manufacturing hubs, as well as expanding opportunities in its services sector. It is also clear that the investment in Southeast Asia has been made partly with an eye towards China. Some manufacturers basing themselves in the region will have done so in order to benefit from a reduction in export tariffs to the mainland that followed the signing of the China-ASEAN free trade agreement in 2010. The island’s banks want to provide services to the growing number of mainland Chinese companies operating overseas.”
This has been discussed in other threads when people argued that Taiwan would lose out on the mainland market if it didn’t sign the trade agreement Ma wanted. Only it already had backdoor access through Singapore so this was a bit of a red herring.
Glad to see you’ve come to realize the UDN article was rubbish. What’s weird about this all is that Tsai has to present a policy that is already part of the current government’s strategy as something new. I don’t think this reflects badly on her. It’s just weird.
She’s the front runner but she can’t remain silent on what she intends to do. So, she trots out something that’s already being done but will sound good to the electorate that thinks Taiwan is relying only on China.
Kind of like how Ma trotted out increased trade with China after the supposed horrors of the Chen years where trade with and investment in China actually increased massively.
I don’t know if it happens in Parliamentary politics, but in a Presidential democracy, we call it “pandering to the base.”
edit: Oh wait, Parliamentary democracies do have pandering: Netanyahu is a PM.
[quote=“Mucha Man”]
Glad to see you’ve come to realize the UDN article was rubbish. [/quote]
Your words, not mine.
During the Chen era the Go South strategy pretty much floundered as people from his own government admitted. A 2004 Taipei Times article titled “`Go south’ strategy threatened” says
“Two years after President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) reintroduced the government’s “go south” policy, many think the strategy lies in tatters.”
taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ … 03204811/1
According the article the strategy was poorly executed so business people turned to China instead and trade with China exploded during the Chen years. It has since then actually declined a bit.
Since we are talking about business and Taiwan’s economy I stumbled across this letter to the editor in the TT from someone who has been doing business in Taiwan for 30 years and had some harsh words to say about Taiwan’s business people and practices.
[quote=“schwarzwald”][quote=“Mucha Man”]
Glad to see you’ve come to realize the UDN article was rubbish. [/quote]
Your words, not mine.[/quote]
No, you are saying this, too. You’re just disagreeing and agreeing in different posts. 
[quote]During the Chen era the Go South strategy pretty much floundered as people from his own government admitted. A 2004 Taipei Times article titled “`Go south’ strategy threatened” says
“Two years after President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) reintroduced the government’s “go south” policy, many think the strategy lies in tatters.”
taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ … 03204811/1
According the article the strategy was poorly executed so business people turned to China instead and trade with China exploded during the Chen years. It has since then actually declined a bit.[/quote]
That’s irrelevant. I doubt any honest assessment of Ma go south policies would call them a major success either as Taiwan is still too heavily dependent on China.
The point is, all presidents have been pursuing diversification and have been concerned with over-reliance on China. Tsai will be no different but you can bet UDN will make her look like a radical who just hates China.
I think that is something we can agree on. As usual the devil’s in the details. It’ll be interesting to see where things are at one year from now.