One of the saddest incidents during my stay in Taiwan was the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Bai Bing Bing’s (local singer and TV variety show star) daughter-Bai Hsiao-yen.

One of the most macabre details of the highly publicized event was Bai’s public threats and and taunts directed at the kidnappers while her daughter was in their possession. As a father it was hard for me to rationalize why a parent would dare to be so provocative when dealing with hardened criminals. Unfortunately, they raped and killed her daughter and mentioned that Bai’s goading was a motivating factor for having it end this way. This case also enabled DPP former Presidential candidate Frank Hsieh to steal the spotlight from Bai as a self appointed negotiator for Chen Chin-hsing’s surrender. Hsieh later used it to gain attention to begin his political career.

Bai’s attitude and actions seemed like a real disconnect for a mother who’s child is in serious danger. I encountered Bai Bing Bing once at the air port and she strutted around like a peacock so that might give some insight into her detachment. Anyhow, now she is outraged over talk of abolishing the death penalty mentioned here.

In an interview with local media, popular singer and entertainer, Bai Bing-bing said she will commit suicide if the majority back the policy during a national referendum.

Bai, who is currently taking law courses at the National Open University, even said she is willing to take up the job of executing convicted offenders sentenced to death.

I am not advocating the removal of the death penalty but this is a sensitive issue. I don’t think Bai’s histrionics are the appropriate forum for dealing with the deep array of issues that this encompasses. I only hope the people of Taiwan’s voice is heard clearly on this important issue.

This is classic. Hey George did you see that big elephant in the room? What elephant? Hey Hank did you see that big elephant? Ok The R.O.C. Navy claims to the press here that they didn’t see a Chinese submarine off souther Taiwan. Why would a Chinese submarine be there? What could it possibly hope to find?

The R.O.C Navy denied yesterday a media report that the nation’s naval battleships detected a suspected Chinese submarine off southwestern Taiwan during a military exercise on Jan. 27.

Quoting unnamed sources, the United Evening News reported that the submarine belonging to China was spotted at an area 24 nautical miles or 45 kilometers off the Zuoying naval base in Kaohsiung City, last Wednesday morning.

According to the report, the submarine was first discovered by one of the navy’s anti-sub S-70C helicopters, but the submarine was allowed to leave later on.

On this topic I’ll have to defer to my Chinese friends common sense approach to discussing the obvious,”If you already know why do you need to ask?” Indeed…

I read this article and it produced a mixed reaction. On the surface you’d think,”oh well, I guess that’s it for Taiwanese electronic firms, put a fork in it.”

The report showed that monthly salaries offered by some Chinese enterprises to high-ranking employees are already 20 percent to 30 percent higher than those granted by leading Taiwanese enterprises to their employees.

Liu Teh-chuan, manager of China operations division of the 1111 Job Bank, said that major enterprises in Zhejiang, Shanghai and Beijing want to raid high-end talents in the optoelectronics field from Taiwan, they can offer annual pay of NT$3 million to NT$5 million, at least 25 percent to 30 percent higher than offered by their Taiwanese counterparts. Some can even offer stock warrants to attract field talents from Taiwan.

Liu noted that high-tech firms in both sides of the Taiwan Straits are expected to engage in a war for high-caliber talents in the first and second quarters of the year.

When in fact it really means that Taiwanese companies are going to be paying these people much more to keep them here. If salary conditions are equal very few Taiwanese are going to leave the comforts of home to go work in the mainland. Sure the mainland will help recruit away some people but should mostly benefit the Taiwanese with higher salaries to keep in Taiwan. Let’s check back in about 18 to 24 months and see-mark your calendars.

I was on another segment of American Public Media’s Marketplace with Scott Tong. Here is the link for this episode and to listen go here. Here is link from last one from back in Dec to listen go here.

Picking up where I left off from the last post below this one-here is a new article talking in more detail about Solar, LED and Electric Car markets and planned support for those industries.

I’m kind of excited about this. One of the reason the Taiwanese are so innovative is because they have been left to sink or swim on their own. The government here traditionally has offered little support other than the occasional tax incentive and in fact tends to follow the small and medium businesses lead when making policy. So a bit of the tail wagging the dog. While the role of small and medium businesses gets more and more challenging with conglomerates crowding the space, I know that they’ll always have a role because of their innovation and agility and ability to make decisions quickly. The conglomerates are very slow moving and take a long time trying to get things done by consensus, often missing the very markets they sought to enter and dominate.

I am very happy solar is one of the new technologies being promoted here since it’s potential for sustainable energy production. My hope is that they’ll come up with more environmentally friendly ways of producing the components for solar power. It’s a little disappointing and self-defeating when some environmentally friendly  product is produced when it does not utilize an environmentally friendly process itself.

LED’s are an exciting field. Here in Taiwan all of the traffic lights have been converted to LED using ones. China has similar plans:

The greatest growth drivers are government policies and legislation that favor energy saving. A few countries have already outlawed incandescent light bulbs, which lose some 70 percent of their energy to heat, and others plan to phase them out over the coming years. China, for instance, has instituted the “Ten Cities, Ten Thousand Lights” plan, a program to revamp six million traditional streetlights with LED lights by 2011.

Electric Vehicles are obviously another great concept that is becoming a reality with major players like Warren Buffet getting involved via his investment in BYD. The Taiwanese are already making soem maor strides in that direction as well:

E-One Moli Energy, which belongs to the Taiwan Cement group, supplies the lithium-ion battery for the Mini E electric vehicle by German carmaker BMW. Taichung-based Fukuta Electronics & Machinery Company produces the motor for the high-performance electric sports car, Tesla Roadster, made by industry newcomer, Tesla Motors. And even the company that helped the Californian electric vehicle maker design the system for the US$125,000 Roadster — AC Propulsion — is 80-percent funded by Taiwanese investors.

This post is in response to a news article reported here on 6 new industries that are expected to generate upwards of 400,00 jobs in Taiwan.

Officials of the Council of Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said the six emerging industrial sectors, which include the green energy, tourism, biotechnology and electric vehicle sectors have been listed for priority development for 2010, as part of efforts to rev up employment.

I think it is a great idea although I’m not sure of how many jobs it will really produce. The key of course is how serious the government is for it’s actual success. I think it’s very plausible with the high tech and light industrial background that Taiwan has. My only hope is that this isn’t some trail balloon the government is putting up to try to gauge the private sectors interest thereby determining what if any resources will be channeled into this scheme to make it work.

The tourism part is a no brainer here. One of Taiwan’s greatest assets is it’s unique geographic profile. It sits in the northern sub-tropical zone and it’s high Central Mountain range along the narrow island make it possible to go from alpine mountain environments to the coast in under 90 miles. There are all kinds of trails excellent for hiking and cycling where people can really experience what the Portuguese called Ihla Formosa-the Beautiful Island.

The others-Green Tech, Bio Tech and Electric vehicles all require much heavier capital intensive investments. These are where the government can really assist in making this dream come true by providing incentives for the private sector and educational system to re-toll or build factors and add related educational programs accordingly. Time will tell.

I’ve heard it said before that if you live long enough you’ll get to see and hear all kinds of wild things. Today it was delivered to me via The Peking Duck here. It gave a link to a Forbes article here by Shaun Rein.

Despite having a wonderful 5,000-year history, China is in many ways like a teenage boy. It has just gotten its seat at the adults’ table and is trying to learn how to deal with other nations as not just a fellow G20 member but as a superpower.

Mr. Rein a frequent China apologist/cheerleader outdid himself on the reality disconnect time/space continuum today when he tried to claim how well China was doing on the open society score but slips up with the occasional gaff due to their adolescent male temperament. In fact I think Rein feels he served China well by stating that. I wonder if I can get a job at Forbes writing that kind of pulp fiction?

Unless you live in a cave somewhere or simply have no contact to the internet or mass-media you’ve probably heard umpteen dozen times on the Google/China showdown, etc. Obviously the drama is heightened by the actors being  the largest country in the world’s gov’t and ruling party and one of the largest and richest corporations in the world. What is of most interest to me is how the China expatriate bloggers so readily jumped to defend China against Google saying how Google’s poorly run China operation was an embarrassment to them and they seized the opportunity to pull out by making it a politicized human rights issue. Many of the tech bloggers and bloggers else where all seized the moment to take Google’s part, the darling of the tech world who has pledged, “Don’t be evi”‘ as their motto. Well in the theme of Kurasawa’s Roshomon the truth falls somewhere between both of those sides.

What I like here is that both sides have to think more about the big picture and issues-the Chinese side on how it is and will be perceived by the rest of the world. It needs to overcome it’s sensitivity towards criticism and learn from it. China has made strides in some areas and needs to learn the part of superpower a little more thoroughly if she chooses to play it out. Also Google which has done many impressive things in a very counter-intuitive against the business administration text book kind of way can also be a little sanctimonious. Let’s face it-they’re motto is worthy of a religious sect. Is it conceivable that any corporation that is motivated by profit can  maintain clean hands throughout their corporate life? Ironically, that motto sounds much like the Chinese in their history of idealism and Confucian values aspired to but never actually realized.

In essence, when two giants huff and puff and put their hands up above their heads like bulls horns it is both humorous and a little un-nerving. Time will tell how the drama plays out. One thing is certain, Chinese people’s appetite for information will only get stronger. The more they get of it the more they’ll make better informed decisions about the course of their nation and it’s part in the rest of the world. Google is now clearer on the true cost of doing business in China. They will still offer the best served meals out of any corporate cafeteria paid for by clicks. Do you ever wonder who the people that actually click on those links are? I mean I’ve only done it once or twice…

On several of my early business trips to southern China I would always notice that the Chinese gas stations all had these brightly colored plastic pendants festooned above their stations. No doubt to catch the eye of the passing motorists and make them think about stopping for gas. I get that. These triangular pieces of flapping plastic started to have a different meaning for me. After numerous trips I would get this feeling that those colored strips were fading into gray.Let me emphasize,this was a feeling, an impression not something literal that my eye saw. It was almost kind of dreamy even,albeit a little ominous (cue up the Bernard Hermann soundtrack).

So I decided to discuss it with George. George was a friend from Taiwan that had been living in mainland China for almost 10 years by that point. When I mentioned this to him he smiled at me. Then he said, “That is communism.” Well more accurately totalitarianism or oppression.

Instantly I knew he was right. I had met a lot of people in China. All different kinds and most of them were just:people. No special feelings one way or the other. Some were really nice. Yes I had been the participant with some political/official types but those were all pretty mild and I got the sense that they didn’t really have religion as much as a chip in the crazy poker game life dealt them into. The thing that came into focus the minute George spoke those words were the under-current of heavy handed control that was very prevalent and real like electrical power but also like electrical power virtually invisible other than what it powered and moved before your visual plane. This was kind of a novel sensation-not one that I loved of course but it definitely made it to my mental file cabinet of significant subliminal impressions.

There was one time I was in Seoul, Korea prior to their hosting of the Summer Olympics in fact. I was there on my visa run since at that point South Korea and Taiwan still had diplomatic relations. When I got to the airport I queued up for a taxi. Now Korea had an interesting system with there taxis. I believe there were 3 kinds-one you haggled the price with and 2 different metered systems. I waited in the haggling line since I knew the going rate for my trip. A cabbie asked me where I was going, we discussed price and he said no. No biggie I backed away and looked for next cab when some guy in a leather coat coldly asked me, :what’s the problem sir?”  I was like what the… and then I realized, hmm bet he’s a plain clothes cop. Very dour ultra-serious and not letting it go. I told him it was nothing just wanted another cab. He asked me again, ready for this-”What’s the problem sir?” OK, now I was beginning to feel uneasy. I had been to Korea before always just to renew my Taiwan visa,don’t speak the language, don’t mind the food but not really sure what to so in this scenario. Feeling even more certain he was a cop, I politely told him what had just happened. He said he’s take care of it. I said thanks but that’s not necessary I’ll just catch the next one. He replied icily, I’ll take care of it sir.” OK so comforting to know the big issue of my life in that tiny moment was being managed for me by this leather clad member of Seoul Airport’s finest. After rattling of a few lines of terse Korean between the  cop and the cabbie Mr. Plain Clothes informed me I can now get in the car. Oh boy, I didn’t want to waste my time having already decided this cab is not for me but I wanted to offend this stern faced cop even less. I still offered a mild objection saying another cab would be OK but thanks. He replied,”GET IN SIR.” So now I say,”OK” and I quickly get in. The cabbie took me outside the airport main gate and then asked me to get out and get another cab. Great! Now I get to do this again but at least I don’t have hatchet face breathing down my neck on my choice of hacks.

The return trip to the airport was quite a different experience altogether. I rode in on an airport bus. I was one of a few foreigners on the bus with mostly locals filling the seats. We came to a check point at which time M16 armed soldiers got on the bus and made a beeline for the few foreigners riding it. They wanted to check our passports,did that and quickly got off the bus.

What were we discussing originally? Oh yeah colored flags…

OK,while I was never a big Taipei 101 fan (mostly because I think it is an ugly building) and still have never been there I liked the idea of living in a place with the world’s tallest building, just like when I was a kid in Brooklyn with the then still extant and very visible WTC towers were visible from my bedroom window. I’ve been to the WTC and not long before they were brought down on that sad and ominous day. However,now I’m living in a “has been” tallest building place again. The new bragging rights and biggest erection (architecturally speaking of course) go to that lovely bubble city with the zombie real estate market-Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

This shall prove interesting since the economy of Dubai is in shambles and the  frenetic growth that was taking place there has all but come to a standstill. Never the less-Dubai has the biggest one. Now all the ooh’s and ahh’s will be directed their way. That is until the next young buck with a bulging sky scraper comes along to sweep us off our feet…