Taiwan 101

Taiwan 101
Author: Matthew B. Christensen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2024-01-09
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1538187817

"An indispensable guide for readers traveling to Taiwan for vacation, work, or school. It’s chock-full of information that will help people successfully navigate the country." -Library Journal Taiwan has always been an attractive place to study and work. In fact, long before Mainland China became an option for Westerners, Taiwan was the place to study Chinese and work in a Mandarin Chinese speaking environment. As the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.) gained economic and political strength in the world, Westerners naturally gravitated toward this new market. Language programs and jobs for Westerners flourished. In the past decade there has been a renewed interest in Taiwan. This is undoubtedly due to a dramatic increase in cost of living in the P.R.C., increasing government regulation and scrutiny of foreigners, the increased political tension between China and the West, and generally the increasing difficulty doing business and studying in China in a free and fair way. In recent years Taiwan has once again emerged as an attractive place to study, work, and live. Taiwan offers a free, open, and safe environment that is welcoming to outsiders. While the cost of living in Taiwan’s big cities is about the same as the big cities in Mainland China, it is much easier for a foreigner to navigate than in China. This book provides a practical, up-to-date, hands-on guide to navigating life in Taiwan. It is not a travel guidebook, but rather provides detailed information for the foreign resident in Taiwan, whether they be studying or working. It provides a wealth of information covering everything from renting apartments, taking care of your daily needs, what and where to eat, to Taiwanese work ethic and business culture, how to make the most of your study of Chinese, how to get around, and so on. The book is illustrated with relevant photos that contextualize the text, and enhance reader’s understanding of the information.

Taiwan's Defense Reform

Taiwan's Defense Reform
Author: Martin Edmonds
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2012-07-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0415652162

The stand-off across the Straits of Taiwan continues to be one of the most dangerous confrontations in Asia. The technical superiority of the Taiwanese forces has been a major factor in maintaining balance, but as mainland China's armed forces modernize, Taiwan's advantages are being eroded. In response, Taiwan has recently undertaken a major reform of its armed forces. Bringing together a wide range of experts including people who are involved in defence policy making in Taiwan, this book presents a comprehensive analysis of these reforms, and assesses their likely effectiveness. Chapters are devoted to issues including the Chinese threat, the domestic context of reform, the role of the United States and specific defence issues, making the book an invaluable guide to the changes undertaken and underway within Taiwan’s strategic environment. With a foreword by Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, Taiwan's Defense Reformwill be of interest to policy makers and academics working in this vital strategic area.

Political Booms: Local Money And Power In Taiwan, East China, Thailand, And The Philippines

Political Booms: Local Money And Power In Taiwan, East China, Thailand, And The Philippines
Author: Lynn T White
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 748
Release: 2009-06-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9814469319

Why have Taiwan, rich parts of China, and Thailand boomed famously, while the Philippines has long remained stagnant both economically and politically? Do booms abet democracy? Does the rise of middle “classes” promise future liberalization? Why has Philippine democracy brought no boom and barely served the Filipino people?This book, unlike most previous studies, shows that both the roots and results of growth are largely political rather than economic. Specifically, it pays attention to local, not just national, power networks that caused or prevented growth in the four places under consideration. Violence has been common in these polities, along with money. Elections have contributed to socio-political problems that are also obvious in Leninist or junta regimes, because elections are surprisingly easy to buy with corrupt money from government contracts. Liberals should pay more serious theoretical attention to the effects of money on justice, and Western political science should focus more clearly on the ways non-state local power affects elections. By considering the effects on fair justice of local money and power (largely from small- and medium-sized firms that emerge after agrarian reforms), this book asks democrats to face squarely the extent to which electoral procedures fail to help ordinary citizens. Students and scholars of Asia will all need this book — as will students of the West whose methods have become parochial.

Normalization of U.S.-China Relations

Normalization of U.S.-China Relations
Author: William C. Kirby
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2020-03-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1684174201

"Relations between China and the United States have been of central importance to both countries over the past half-century, as well as to all states affected by that relationship—Taiwan and the Soviet Union foremost among them. Only recently, however, has the opening of archives made it possible to research this history dispassionately. The eight chapters in this volume offer the first multinational, multi-archival review of the history of Chinese–American conflict and cooperation in the 1970s. On the Chinese side, normalization of relations was instrumental to Beijing’s effort to enhance its security vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and was seen as a tactical necessity to promote Chinese military and economic interests. The United States was equally motivated by national security concerns. In the wake of Vietnam, policymakers saw normalization as a means of forestalling Soviet power. As the essays in this volume show, normalization was far from a foregone conclusion."

Asian Popular Culture

Asian Popular Culture
Author: Anthony Y.H. Fung
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2013-05-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134089953

This book examines different aspects of Asian popular culture, including films, TV, music, comedy, folklore, cultural icons, the Internet and theme parks. It raises important questions such as – What are the implications of popularity of Asian popular culture for globalization? Do regional forces impede the globalizing of cultures? Or does the Asian popular culture flow act as a catalyst or conveying channel for cultural globalization? Does the globalization of culture pose a threat to local culture? It addresses two seemingly contradictory and yet parallel processes in the circulation of Asian popular culture: the interconnectedness between Asian popular culture and western culture in an era of cultural globalization that turns subjects such as Pokémon, Hip Hop or Cosmopolitan into truly global phenomena, and the local derivatives and versions of global culture that are necessarily disconnected from their origins in order to cater for the local market. It thereby presents a collective argument that, whilst local social formations, and patterns of consumption and participation in Asia are still very much dependent on global cultural developments and the phenomena of modernity, yet such dependence is often concretized, reshaped and distorted by the local media to cater for the local market.

Asians on Demand

Asians on Demand
Author: Feng-Mei Heberer
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2023-08-29
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 145296954X

Does media representation advance racial justice? While the past decade has witnessed a push for increased diversity in visual media, Asians on Demand grapples with the pressing question of whether representation is enough to advance racial justice. Surveying a contemporary, cutting-edge archive of video works from the Asian diaspora in North America, Europe, and East Asia, this book uncovers the ways that diasporic artists challenge the narrow—and damaging—conceptions of Asian identity pervading mainstream media. Through an engagement with grassroots activist documentaries, experimental video diaries by undocumented and migrant workers, and works by high-profile media artists such as Hito Steyerl and Ming Wong, Feng-Mei Heberer showcases contemporary video productions that trouble the mainstream culture industry’s insistence on portraying ethnic Asians as congenial to dominant neoliberal values. Undermining the demands placed on Asian subjects to exemplify institutional diversity and individual exceptionalism, this book provides a critical and nuanced set of alternatives to the easily digestible forms generated by online streaming culture and multicultural lip service more broadly. Employing feminist, racial, and queer critiques of the contemporary media landscape, Asians on Demand highlights how the dynamics of Asian representation play out differently in Germany, the United States, Taiwan, and Spain. Rather than accepting the notion that inclusion requires an uncomplicated set of appearances, the works explored in this volume spotlight a staunch resistance to formulating racial identity as an instantly accessible consumer product.

Marketing Management in Asia.

Marketing Management in Asia.
Author: Stanley Paliwoda
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2013-01-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1136303812

Asia is no longer simply the continent to which the world turns for outsourcing and off shoring of production, leaving retailing to Western countries. Asia now contains many of the world’s largest markets plus many emergent markets as well. North America is fast ceding ground to China as the world’s largest economic power. Europe has been able to make productivity gains from trade, fiscal and monetary harmonization to remain globally competitive while Africa, whose nations practice free trade, is largely ignored both in terms of forgiving debt and providing further credit. Each chapter of this volume details the characteristics of an individual market in Asia and demonstrates the challenges that marketers are likely to face in these environments. Covering not just production or consumption but trade as it is practiced now, this book outlines the new norms, conventions and service performance levels that these markets demand.

Administrative Litigation Systems in Greater China and Europe

Administrative Litigation Systems in Greater China and Europe
Author: Yuwen Li
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2016-03-23
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1317185382

Administrative litigation systems are a rapidly developing legal field in many countries. This book provides a comparative study of the administrative litigation systems in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao, as well as a number of selected European countries that covers both states with an advanced rule of law and new democracies. Despite the different historical backgrounds and the broader context which has cultivated each individual system, this collective work illustrates the common characteristics of the rapid development of administrative litigation systems since the 1990s as a consequence of the advancement of the rule of law at a global level. All of the contributors have addressed a wide array of key issues in their particular jurisdiction, including court jurisdiction, the scope of judicial review, grounds of litigation claims and mediation in judicial process. Whilst pointing out the shortcomings and challenges which are faced by each jurisdiction, the book offers both ideas and inspiration on how the systems can learn from, and influence each other. This book is essential reading for those studying Chinese law, administrative litigation and comparative law, as well as judges and lawyers specialising in administrative litigation, and administrative courts.

Global Rankings and the Geopolitics of Higher Education

Global Rankings and the Geopolitics of Higher Education
Author: Ellen Hazelkorn
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2016-11-18
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1317574079

Global rankings and the Geopolitics of Higher Education is an examination of the impact and influence that university rankings have had on higher education, policy and public opinion in recent years. Bringing together some of the most informed authorities on this very complex issue, this edited collection of specially commissioned chapters examines the changes affecting higher education and the implications for society and the economy. Split into four interrelated sections, this book covers: The development of rankings in higher education, how they have impacted upon both the production of knowledge and its geography, and their influence in shaping policymaking. Overviews of the significance of rankings for higher education systems in Europe, Asia, Africa, Russia, South America, India and North America. An analysis of rankings in relation to key concerns that pervade contemporary higher education. Examination of the role rankings are likely to play in the future directions for higher education. This is a significant scholarly work that analyses in depth an important development in higher education systems, and which is likely to have an important influence upon how we understand the higher education policy-making process – past, present and future. It provides new analysis and conceptual understanding for researchers, and firm evidence for policy makers to use when addressing the value of rankings in measuring the quality of their institutions. Besides bringing together a powerful cast of academics, this book incorporates contributions from heads of important international higher education organisations – from both those involved in making and also in administering key decisions. This timely, reflective and accessible book forms crucial reading for those studying the subject of rankings, as well as the broader implications and unintended consequences of rankings on national higher education policies. Extending beyond academic researchers and students, this book will also be of significant interest to policymakers, higher education leaders and key stakeholders.