[quote=“Charlie Jack”][quote=“dulan drift”]All these projects are part of the BOT. Not sure what that stands for. . . .[/quote] I think it stands for Build-Operate-Transfer. I don’t know anything about it, but here are a couple of paragraphs on it: investopedia.com/terms/b/botcontract.asp
Wikipedia has an article on it, too.[/quote]
Thanks, that’s probably it, though there’s no talk of transferring - guess that was a case of ‘lost in translation’.
I thought maybe it stood for those, ‘Bastards Operating Taiwan’.
As for the weekend’s protest activity, I can now claim that i have participated in a human movement/dance performance, which was the centre-piece of the event. Even though my role was roughly equivalent to being the tree in the school play, I am still happy to chalk that up as a kind of artistic extremity that i didn’t think i would experience in this lifetime. There was also a human chain that extended along the beach perimiter of the building - it takes a fair few people to do that. And some singing of songs. By their nature, peaceful protests are, i admit, a bit on the gay side, but there was a lot of media there and a reasonable, if not quite a ‘people power’ dimention turnout, so i would say it was a success.
Anyway, this coming weekend, there’s another event happening - a grand finale - your more traditional music festival style with a few other performing arts thrown in for good measure. It’ll be a collection of the best local performers from around Taidong and even if you couldn’t give a shit about the BOT, then it would still be a good night. The date: this Sun, July 10, beginning at 3pm until whenever.
The goal is to get 1000 people there - that seems pretty optimistic even by my standards, but we’ll see.
Heres’ a link to some of the media coverage for last weekend’s event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d14GClL278o
I believe you guys should start a written petition against the hotel and get as many signatures as you can from the protest participants. You never know, maybe some rich kid of a government official might just sign that particular petition and things might change all of a sudden.
Bastards. Already over-populated and polluted the hell out of their country, now they want to ruin ours? It’s at times like this I’m sorry we don’t have religious or other type extremists here who would go a little over the top with sabotage or something.[/quote]
it takes 2 hands to clap… the taiwanese should ask themselves what kind of government officials have been elected in the first place… as far as I know, taiwanese politics are just as black as the chinese…
this is a obvious case of some taidong politicians looking to make a quick buck and name for themselves
[quote]
You may well be right TC but we’re not throwing in the towell just yet. The Taidong council gave it the green light from the get-go, so nothing has changed there. However, the fact remains that it is an illegal development. The High Court in Kaohsiung declared it illegal. Can you even get more illegal than that? The Taidong council, which is allegedly a play thing of local gangsters (think of the cement contracts that would be floating around), are just ignoring it and going ahead. The vote was carried 12-1 (the ‘1’ did turn up at the camp for a few nights, and it was interesting to hear her stories). [/quote]
Didn’t some guy just blame the Mainlander Chinese for thrashing Taiwan? Looks like they needed some Taiwanese partners to do so afterall.
And I was criticized for making racist remarks when I said that the Chinese are experts at backstabbing each other.
BTw, if president ma doesn’t reply to any initial thrusts by the protests, writing to the opposition DPP is always useful…
DPP will jump on this opportunity to carve president ma up and make him look bad if he refuses to rein in the mainland chinese investors…’’
this reminds me of the movie a civil action where the main actor John Travolta took up a personal campaign against a leather manufacturer who was polluting the environment… after a number of years of expensive litigation and court fees, he lost the campaign in the end but sent all the case files, a truck load of them, to the National Environmental Agency… That Agency closed the factory down in a matter of months…
I say the OP and his crew write a truckload of petitions to president Ma and make a copy of every letter sent… then if president Ma fail to respond to this obvious case of Mainland China ECONOMIC INVASION, then use the copies of the letters sent as proof that President Ma doesn’t run his shit well… and send these proofs to the DPP
Dulan, I believed you started a similar thread a few months ago about how this project was allowed to continue despite the illegal judgments by a gaoxiong court… so you do have legal grounds to stand on…
This is clearly a case of ECONOMIC INVASION by the mainland chinese and if the taiwanese refuse to band together to defend this invasion, then they deserve to be controlled by the mainlander chinese…
Let the DPP do the work for you of closing the “factory” down… a matter of “borrowing the knife to kill someone” so as to speak…
[quote=“crystaleye”]BTw, if president ma doesn’t reply to any initial thrusts by the protests, writing to the opposition DPP is always useful…
Dulan, I believed you started a similar thread a few months ago about how this project was allowed to continue despite the illegal judgments by a gaoxiong court… so you do have legal grounds to stand on.[/quote]
That’s a good point about the DPP, and i coincidentally had it on the tip of my tongue at the meeting tonight but somehow the conversation moving on and an aging forgetfulness conspired to have me come home with it still unsaid. I will ask and find out the DPP’s position next time.
Regarding the legal position (legal expert input very welcome here), my understanding is that according to Taiwan’s division of powers, the Taidong Council still has ultimate say over Taidong lands - so in effect, they were able to ignore the High Court. However, the National Government must still be able to step in. So I agree - forget the Taidong Council, the shutters are down there, it would be like trying to convince Fox he was wrong in an argument - the only way to stop it is to go straight to the top. Besides, it’s not just Taidong, but Hualien as well.
And Crystal Eye, there are petitions - hope you can make it down this weekend and sign one!
Not sure about the DPP angle as this project was started under the DPP administration of Chen. Also, much of the problem is probably directly related to that admin’s push for tourism starting in 2002. In order to get tourism going the government allowed projects to fast track their environmental assessments, and also to apply for permits under relaxed regulations. It was a boneheaded move and one famous result of this was the Moakong Gondola. The gondola had been rejected for decades but Ma, as mayor, was permitted to change the designation from an transport project to a tourism project. The project passed the perfunctory assessment and we all know what that led to.
I should add that the east coast development bill seems to have bi-partisan support.
Ultimately, I hope a few people can start running as independents - or even start a completely new party, one that has some focus on the environment - they could call it, i don’t know, how about ‘The Greens’?
Hopefully, on the back of the plasticizer scandal and the groundswell against the BOT developments and nucleaur waste dump issues and the new nuclear power plants planned, they can gain a bit more traction. In fact, i wonder why they haven’t been more successful here. It would be nice to have even one elected representative to champion these causes - and that balance of power position can be quite influential if the numbers are tight.
The DPP won the election in 2000 with the help from myriad civil and environmental groups. Many thought that with their man in power they now had direct access to power and policy. It didn’t turn out that way and by 2006 many had stopped looking to politicians to directly make changes and have returned to lobbying and engaging in protest. But you are looking at almost a lost decade of mispent efforts.
Times are changing and environmentalism is on the upswing but I’d give it another ten years before we really see a shift in overall government attitudes. The old guard needs to retire. I remember in 2006 interviewing junior members of the Forestry Bureau who were chaffing at the policy of the senior bureaucracy of wanting roads into remote regions so they were accessible to ordinary people. The younger thinking eventually won out in the end but if you look at the highway department it is the same old pave and pour mentality. What, Taiwan still has a stretch of coastline without a road: pave baby pave. And they really think they will have accomplished something meaningful by doing so.
I did ask about the the DPP tonight and although the KMT was seen as worse, no-one is pinning their hopes on the DPP. There does, as MM pointed out, seem to be a growing number of special issue groups mobilizing, and i would love to see a bit more communication and co-ordination between them. I know the Shan Yuan Beach group communicates with and supports other grassroots BOT protest groups on the east coast as well as the anti-nuclear dump movement on Orchid Island (the lease has expired, the residents don’t want to renew it, but they haven’t removed the waste), but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of cross-issue stuff happening on an organized political level. Haven’t seen the Green Party Taiwan down here so far, but they would be very welcome in a support role.
BTW, did you hear the one about why the hotel is building so many swimming pools on the beach? It’s because with all those mainland tour bus shit-loads getting flushed out into the sea it will actually be unsafe to swim in the bay anymore.
The protest concert was a massive success that exceeded everyone’s expectations, and it’s not too much to say that a little bit of history was made in terms of indigenous and environmental consciousness in Taiwan. I thought the aim of 1000 people was overly optimistic, but there were well over 1000 that came down throughout the afternoon and evening and it was very nice to feel that groundswell of people coming together for a cause - and everyone there was getting into that vibe. Then throw in the who’s who of East Coast talent for a giant beach party, including hot young reggae outfit, Matzka, and the recipe is there for a magical night (including the seasonal presence of phosphorous micro-plankton that light up when you go into the water). If there is ever another one of these concerts, then you would be mad to miss it. You were already to mad to miss this one.
The thing now, is to keep the momentum going. The movement received a large bump up this weekend, but it does need to go to the next level. Although the concert was just part of a 7 year fight by core activists, a lot of people were talking about Sunday being just the beginning.
Someone mentioned donations before, and now that there does seem to be more of a clear path forward, they would be most welcome. The money will go to financing events such as the one on the weekend as well as producing promotional material. If you are not able to actively participate, and for a lot of people it’s just not practical, but you do want to do something to stop your favourite east coast hang out (and be assured, it’s the most beautiful ones that they will be targeting) being trashed, then contributing to a bit of financial muscle would really make a difference.
The details are:
That junior technical college in the background may have a dorm.[/quote]
That would be cool. I’d have a great view of the protests, PLUS an air conditioned room and the Travel Channel on cable!
