Posts

How time flies! It is already the second week of April (Earth Month). For the mid-actions plan check in, some action was completed with success and some I had a very hard time to even do it. The first week action plan I did not encounter any difficulty in completing it, all I need to do was to talk to people and gave them exposures about Taiwan’s current status, and the past events in history that lead to current situation in present time. When I described the story to people, their reaction from it were all “oh, I never knew that! That’s very interesting, thank you for telling me!” And every time when people told me that, I always feel a sense of fulfillment, knowing that I have taught a piece of “forgotten history/current event” to people. Before the action plan was initiated, I forecast that I will encounter people that will disagree with me because of different view point, but so far with my action plan, I had not encounter anybody that openly disagreed with me. I am continuing to stay up to date with Taiwan-American relation through news channel (I can only get those news through Taiwan media, because the U.S media has been focusing on events in other places of the world) and with the current U.S administration, frequent actions has been made by the US regarding East Asia region. The second action for the second week, I had significant trouble to complete it. My second week’s action is to attend club meeting in OSU that has to do with Taiwan, so Taiwanese American in OSU or Taiwanese in OSU. However, due to my already near full schedule with classes and other clubs meeting, I had not been able to go to any of the Taiwanese club meeting. I will continue to try to work around my schedule to try to find time to go to those meeting, but I should say here out front, it is unlikely that I will ever find time to make it to those meetings. This schedule availability also present a challenging factor to my other two actions plan in the coming weeks, but I have confidence that I can at least complete one of the action for the next two weeks.

My takeaway from the guest speakers of last class was that non-profit organization can have many different objective and initiative. Before the class all I could think about the for non-profit was to try to eradicate poverty, hunger, or advocating for sustainability. (Well technically, CRIS’s objective does fall under trying to fix the issue of poverty by helping the refugees and immigrants to be economically self-sufficient). Since both speakers came from trying to fix the social issue. The objective is a different from UNPO organization I found from Through the Lens writing, the only similarity the organizations have is to serve the humanity. After doing both the political action assignment and the non-profit assignment. I think the best way for me to approach the issue is to combine both lens together, with a little more focus on political action than non-profit since my issue is a political issue. A rough idea for the potential action are as follow: write letters to US government officials to voice my concerns (political action). Talking to people to try to “educate” or spread awareness of Taiwan political status issue (neither non-profit nor political action, but more of citizen duty). Trying to get involve with UNPO regarding Taiwan’s issue, but it will be a stretch because they currently do not need any volunteering or internship (non-profit). And lastly, trying to get involve with on-campus club organizations that are relates to Taiwan (a somewhat non-profit action). Details are to follow with a more specific plan of action for my issue.

With the earth month approaching, I have organized the following four actions for each week to complete.

 

Week 1:

The first week I had plan to talk to people about their awareness of the Taiwan political status. If people does not know anything about that issue, then I will be the lecturing them about the issue, from the end of Chinese civil war in 1949 to current time. I will also bring up some key events that are important because some events, including the three Taiwan Strait crises, the diplomatic turnover between PRC and ROC, and the UN General Assembly Resolution 2758. The primary goal is for people to be aware of the current issue that is still ongoing, and if I can, make people feel sympathize for Taiwan’s situation. The difficult part of this action is to stay bias free and stay calm and patience when people do disagree with me.

 

Week 2:

My actions for second week will be attending clubs like Taiwanese student association in OSU or Taiwanese American Association in OSU. The goal for such action is to stay up top of news in Asia Pacific, and reconfirmed the history and current events I talked to people about from week 1 are correct. The tough part about this action is to find a time from my already busy schedule to attend the club meetings.

 

Week 3:

For my third action, I will try to get involve with UNPO (Unrepresented Nations And Peoples Organization). I know they currently do not have any volunteer or internships offers. But if I can write a letter for them to update the page about Taiwan’s status, that will give the public viewer a more current, ongoing issue. The difficult part of this action is to reach out and stay connect to the organization effectively.

 

Week 4:

The final week of my action plan is to write letters to US legislator branch and/or State Department to urge them to not ignore the overall events that escalating tension in East Asia in general (The heighten tension between S. Korea and PRC because of THAAD, South China sea issue, the growing gap between PRC and Taiwan’s military… etc.)  All these situations threaten or potential threaten the current stability in Asia Pacific. In the letters, I will especially stress the strategic importance of Taiwan to the U.S. and to persuade the US to approve more arm sale to Taiwan for the island to defend itself. The difficult part of this action is to pick which senators or congressmen to write who are traditionally side with Taiwan.

I searched for all the non-profit organization regarding Taiwan’s political status for this assignment. I have found one that could be qualify as a non-profit: Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO). UNPO is an international, nonviolent, and democratic membership organization, consists of people who are indigenous, minorities, unrecognized or occupied territories. Its goal is to protect and promote their human and culture rights, preserve environments, and find nonviolent solutions to conflicts that affect those people.

 

UNPO has established a sub branch call Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) to represent and voice Taiwan’s status since 2006. One interesting thing to point out about TFD is that although TFD is now a non-profit under UNPO, but back when TFD was found under Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affair (equivalent to US’s Department of State), it was an afflicted political entity.

 

I found a section that give the viewers a general introduction of the island of Taiwan, including its political structure, past histories under different ruling entity, and its current challenges. From the page, I found where UNPO stands at in terms of Taiwan political status. Base on the idea of UNPO, it is not surprised to see that UNPO think Taiwan should be recognized as an independent, should also be allow to fully participate in the United Nations. UNPO condemns all actions PRC take that threatens Taiwan’s political identity, and commends Taiwan’s democratization efforts for the Asia-Pacific region, and welcomes any peaceful resolution to resolve the issue.

 

From going through UNPO’s website, I realized that the action that UNPO takes has no enforcing authority, all it can really do is to voice out their opinion to the public. Which mean for my issue specifically, not to sound harsh, but has no real impact to the issue. In other words, since my issue is based on the conflicts of interest between the government of Taiwan and PRC, that means the issue is strictly political, therefore both government can simply ignore UNPO’s comments and opinions. Which effectively, renders UNPO’s action “useless”.

 

To get involve with UNPO, it will require me to be an intern or volunteer for UNPO. The challenges that exist is that UNPO is looking for intern who is major in international relations, political science, international law or development of political geography, none of the major overlaps with my aviation engineering major. Furthermore, as of right now, no internship nor volunteer position is being offer.

 

For the Ted talk video, I cannot find any video that has to do with non-profit regarding Taiwan’s political status.

It was a privilege to be able to hear a discussion forum with Council member Brown. Her discussion about political action on a small community scale was very interesting. When she mentioned that any community can guarantee have a meeting with a council member remind me of an assignment I had to do for U.S History back in high school. All students in U.S History class had to go to a town hall meeting to see how the democratic process work on a smaller scale. During town hall meeting, the towns by law mandated that a time need to be designated as “citizens speak” time for concerned citizens to speak in front of committee member an issue related to the committee. I am glad that the similar idea to be found beyond Massachusetts.

 

My biggest takeaway from Council member was the importance of public transportation to the development of a community. I already knew that Columbus is one of the U.S major cities to not have a public rapid transit, however, I did not fully realize how big of an economic opportunity could the public transits bring to the communities it passes through. Now to come to think of it, Taipei Metro is one of the perfect example of positive impact a public rapid transit could bring to the communities. One of the many benefits is increase economic growth in Taipei’s outskirt town due to rise of tourist. The Metro also mitigated Taipei congestion issue and offers a more environmentally friendly transportation option. In the future year, I will be supportive of Columbus building its own rapid transits. Furthermore, I am also happy to see more high speed railway build in the U.S. just like how the Chinese accomplished last decade.

For my issues on Taiwan political status, I am going to split it into two different section: educational, and political. For this writing, I am going to talk about the issues in the lens of politics.

The very nature of Taiwan status is about politics, so every political action three countries takes (Taiwan, USA and PRC) regarding this issue will have significant impact towards this issue, no matter how small the action is. For example, then president-elect Donald Trump accepted the phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen spurred great unpleasant from the PRC. The PRC reiterate any move that disrupt the peace on both side of Taiwan Strait, the Chinese will invade and reintegrated Taiwan back to Chinese’s governance. The Chinese further proves its capability of making such military action by sending its fighter jets circle the islands twice, and have its aircraft carrier breach the first island chain and sail through the Pacific Ocean, which located east of Taiwan.

Ever since Jimmy Carter announced to terminated the official diplomatic tide with Taiwan, many congressional members (usually the Republicans) has been trying to help protect Taiwan in many ways. Most notably are multiple congress members writes a joint letter to the president urging him to approve the military sales towards Taiwan to strengthen Taiwan’s defense against its rising neighbor. Such movement continues to this day. Other than urging military sales, both US and Taiwan has many exchanges in many aspects, from transportation, commence to technology exchanges between retired officials on the visits to both countries. Each visit both nations reiterate that Taiwan is one of the U.S top trade partner and important democratic ally in the Asia Pacific, and both nations should promote more interaction on all aspects. In summary, there are many measures taken by small groups of people advocating for Taiwan’s security indirectly within the U.S.

Currently, the most direct way of impacting this issue is to write letters to Senator, Congressmen or Congresswomen who are already known to be supporting Taiwan to urge them to approve more military sales or have more official interaction between the two nations (for example: allow Taiwan to be in the military exercise hosted by the U.S, or have U.S speaks out to support Taiwan to join certain international organization, like ICAO or WHO). And/or write letter to other members of the Congress to tried to persuade them to sympathize and potentially speaking out in support of Taiwan. That way there will be more member in support of Taiwan in a congress.

Couple of challenges exists when taking this course of action. First challenge is to be able to identified which congress members has been traditionally looking out for Taiwan. This requires a very in-depth research on each individual congress member, even though a congress member is advocating for Taiwan, it might not be a big issue that the individual very interested in, so it is a large effort to be able to recognize which member of congress should I focus on first. Second, and perhaps the most difficult challenges of all is once I wrote the letters and send it to Congress members, and they decide to neglect my request. I predicted that because to them, this issue might simply be the most important thing on their minds. Especially right now when the new government holds the office, and major change in domestic policy that occupies a lot people’s time right now.

 

I have chosen three issues for my semester-long issue project. The first step of this project was to connect those three issue to the meaning of sustainability, either through the Three Pillars of Sustainability or the Good Citizens Model. The issues I researched were in East Asia; I am interested in all three of them, but I have chosen one that I can explore more in-depth.

 

Taiwan’s Political Status

The first topic I am going to talk about is Taiwan’s current political status. I identify Taiwan as my home, so it is no surprise that my view point on the island is that it is a legitimate country—despite the overwhelming majority of officials around the world thinking otherwise. I also find it tragic that the majority of ordinary people in the world are not aware of the controversial status Taiwan faces. Therefore, I feel that it is my obligation as a citizen to educate the public regarding this issues, and to help support Taiwan’s status in anyway I can.

Personally Responsible Citizen:Taiwan is one of the countries that mandate military service for males between the ages of 18 and 35 for at least a year. That means at some point in time, most likely after I finish school in OSU, I will be going back to fulfill my civic duty as a solider in the military. I feel proud to be able to serve my country, especially since the tension between Taiwan and China is at a new high point, and the threat of invasion from China is more real now than ever.

Participatory Citizen: I can fulfill this category by attending organizations formed by Taiwanese or Taiwanese American students at OSU. This demonstrates that I am staying up to date on the issues happening in Taiwan, even though I am half way around the world. By doing this I can make sure I have the information on the topic correct, the media often doesn’t even broadcast news regarding Taiwan unless something important or big happened.

 

Justice Oriented Citizen: This category calls for citizens to be the watchdogs of society, to protect citizens’ rights, and to address injustices. Instead of assessing the domestic policy of Taiwan, I focus more on the U. S.’s policy towards the island. I found that the gap in terms of military strength between China and Taiwan is growing larger. The Chinese now out-number and out-technologize Taiwan in terms of weaponry. This indicates that Taiwan will have a harder time defending the island if war is to erupt. Even though they are the island’s most important democratic ally, the U.S. has not sold any defensive weapons to Taiwan for it to defend itself with in recent years. This is concerning to me. I think I can fulfill this category by, perhaps, writing to people in Congress who are known for speaking out for Taiwan.  I could point my concerns out, and maybe then Congress will pass more weapon sales acts for Taiwan.

 

Conservation of Chinese White Dolphins

The Chinese White Dolphin is a sub-species of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin. The population in the Eastern Taiwan Strait has been marked “Critically Endangered” by the IUCN Red List due to Taiwan expanding its petrochemical industry. This leads to the argument as to whether or not Taiwan should expand industry further, or protect the species.

Economics: Taiwan does not produce oil, and so its petroleum products completely rely on importing oil and manufacturing products using its petrochemical factories. More often than not, those products are exported to other countries. This makes up much of Taiwan’s GDP. Building new factory plants on the West Coast of Taiwan makes the island’s economy more competitive.

 

Environment: The plan for building those factories is to build an artificial island off the coast of Western Taiwan, and then construct factories on top of those artificial islands. This means that the habitat of the Chinese White Dolphins will diminish and the population will further dwindle. Moreover, the toxic substances from the factories can cause even further lasting damage to the dolphins.

 

Society: This conservation movement has no significant effect on Taiwanese society. The public in Taiwan does not express any special concern or interest in the wellbeing of the dolphins. Or, at least, not as much as the people in Hong Kong do.

 

 

Exporting of Food from Fukushima

Last year was the 5^th anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Just last year, food grown within the prefectures of the disaster area is starting to be exported to countries around the world. The topic of whether to allow imports of food from Fukushima has been a hotly debated topic in Taiwan. Currently, Taiwan and China are the only two countries left that impose a complete ban on all types of foods from the Fukushima prefectures.

 

Society: The public’s concerns about the safety of the imported food is legitimate. Although only food that passes safety inspection will be allowed for sale in Taiwan, there are concerns about radiation poisoning. People fear it will have a negative health impact on the general population, especially if the poisoning occurred on a mass scale.

 

Economics: In economics, trading is promoted to fuel growth for both parties. This is no different in the case between Japan and Taiwan. The idea of allowing imports would allow the public to have food from a variety of origins, which, in the long run, would benefit both countries’ economies due to increased trade.

 

Environment: There is no direct impact on the environment if the food is imported to Taiwan. The concerns about radiation pollution is mainly centered on food poisoning.

 

Final Choice

All of the issues I have discussed truly interest me, this is because Taiwan plays a role in all of them. That having been said, I have decided that I will choose to discuss the political status of Taiwan. I decided to focus my attention on that issue because I already have a lot of firsthand knowledge coming in about this issue. Also, this is the only issue that I can think of a concrete action plan for. I feel that I can make a positive impact on the situation. I have two objectives that I would like to fulfill: first, to spread awareness about the political status of Taiwan, and secondly to convince the public and officials that Taiwan is an independent nation.

For the Columbus to Do List Part One, I chose the ice cream and dessert category. I chose that category because I love eating desserts. Every time I go out for meal, I always make sure I have enough room in my stomach to fill it with dessert. So naturally, it was hard to turn down eating dessert for school assignment. Because of this reason, I was excited to explore around Columbus and to see what the local dessert shops had to offer.

The first place I went was Graeter’s Ice Cream in Worthington. I went all the way up to Worthington because I was trying to get my watch fixed, and as I walking away from the watch shop, I ran into one of the Graeter’s ice cream shops. So I made a pit-stop at Graeter’s. I ordered a scoop of black cherry, but then they said an additional scoop costed only 50 cents more, so I get an additional scoops of black cherry (I should have choose a different flavor though). The ice cream was very good. This was not the first time that I had been to a Graeter’s, the first time I went to Graeter’s was visiting The Ohio State University for the first time back in high school. But it was my first time going to that one store. Their price is fairly reasonable, and I would definitely stop by at Graeter’s if I have a chance. Below is a picture of my ice cream in a cup on the checkout counter.

The second place I went was Pistachia Vera in German Village. I took a bus to German Village over fall break. I like the store’s contemporary theme for interior design, and they also have wide variety of dessert. I had four of my favorite types of dessert- macarons (buckeye, pistachio, toasted coconut, and coco nib) with an iced green tea. The macarons were delicious. I would definitely recommend my friends to go check it out if they are in German Village, and I would most certainly revisit that place if I go to German Village again. Below is a photo of macarons and tea I got from the store.

The third place I visited was Kittie Cake’s in German Village. Kittie Cake is located literally two blocks down from Pistachia Vera, so it was convenient to be able to complete two out of five of this list easily. The way the shop operated was very interesting to me. Kittie Cake’s doesn’t have a menu, the pastries they make are different every day. The time I arrived at the shop there were only one type of dessert left: Kittie O, which is basically a larger version of Oreo cookie. I had one Kittie O, which was not bad, but honestly I was a little disappointed in variety of dessert they offer. Below is a pictures of the Kittie O.

The fourth place I went was Jeni’s in Short North. I heard Jeni’s reputation before (including its price) thanks to OSU for advertising for them. I had a darkest chocolate with wild berry lavender in a cup, they also give a small piece of waffle with the ice cream. The ice cream was very good. I guess I pay for the quality of the ice cream. I would recommend my friends to try it, but I doubt I would go back again in a near future. Below is a picture of my ice cream (I forgot to take the pictures before I had a couple scoop of wild berry).

The last place I visited for the to do list was 39 Below Frozen Yogurt shop in downtown. The shop is a self-service frozen yogurt shop and price by weight. Since right now is autumn season, the shop offers of Apple pie and Pumpkin flavor frozen yogurt. I had samples of the special flavor and went for the Apple pie. For the topping I put crushed Reese’s, crushed Oreo, and coconut. It was very good; I love the sweet taste of Apple Pie frozen yogurt! I would definitely be revisiting this place if I’m around that area of downtown. Below is a picture of the store

Through completing this list, I discovered that Columbus offers a wide-range of desserts. Some I recommend others pay a visit to. My favorite store would be the Graeter’s ice cream store. This assignment in its nature was fun because I got to do some field trips to eat dessert in the city. As I was walking in German village, that lost feeling of comfort of walking in the city had returned to me (Been living in a suburb for past 6 years), so I would definitely love to revisit that area again. For people doing this list next year, I can say I had fun doing this homework!