Taiwan

In late April, I spent several days in Taiwan as part of a Council on Foreign Relations delegation. We met with a wide range of officials from the major political parties, including President Ma Ying-jeou, President-elect Tsai Ing-wen, President of the Legislative Yuan Su Jia-Chyuan, and Kuo Chang-huang, a first-term legislator. It is a period of political transition from eight years of Kuomintang (KMT) leadership under President Ma to a government led by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) with Tsai at the helm. And waiting in the wings is the brand new New Power Party (NPP), which was born out of the 2014 Sunflower Movement, and earned itself five seats in the most recent Legislative Yuan elections. Our meetings made three things clear to me. First, officials from each party have their own distinct set of priorities, but all share a finely-honed pragmatism. For Ma and the KMT, the priority is preserving and extending the legacy of cross-strait peace and stability that it believes derives from its success in enhancing ties with Beijing.  Even as it begins the process of winding down, the KMT is still committed to seeing through agreements with Beijing on issues such as trade in goods and services.  The road ahead will be tough given its losses in both the executive and legislative branches. The DPP and Tsai, in contrast, were all about domestic politics—pushing forward on grand-scale job training and affordable housing programs, and seeking to tap into the energy and capabilities of the island’s young people.  Reinvigorating Taiwan’s economic presence on the global stage is also front and center for the next administration, although, here too, the path forward is somewhat murky. The New Power Party was represented by a trio of young, dynamic, and edgy politicos, seeking to consolidate and expand their gains, while pushing for greater independence of action from Beijing. No one is calling for Taiwanese independence tomorrow. Second, China is succeeding in its aim of influencing politics in Taiwan during the transition, but not in the way it desires. Beijing began the year by reversing its eight-year tacit understanding to not establish diplomatic relations with countries that recognize Taiwan (thereby giving the island nation a semblance of sovereign international status) and resuming ties with Gambia. Next, it successfully pressured Kenya to deport as many as forty-five Taiwanese (the number is in dispute) to the mainland as part of a larger set of arrests of suspects in a telecom fraud ring. Despite Taiwan’s vehement protests (and a previous agreement between Taipei and Beijing to manage their own citizens in such cases), Beijing has not relented. Taiwan has sent a ten-member delegation to Beijing to try to negotiate their release. (Notably, Malaysia, which faced a similar demand from Beijing, repatriated the Taiwanese citizens back to Taiwan not to the mainland.) Beijing may think that it is firing a warning shot across the bow to Tsai by demonstrating just how much Beijing can take away if the president-elect doesn’t toe the line. Instead, however, Beijing’s actions are undermining its best partner in the Taiwanese government, President Ma, making it nearly impossible for him and his team to claim that under KMT rule Taiwan made real and sustainable progress in its relationship with the mainland. After all, if the presumed gains of the past eight years can be wiped out in the space of three months, it only reinforces the sense among many in Taiwan that Beijing cannot be trusted. Finally, after falling off the American radar screen over the past eight years, Taiwan is quickly edging its way back on. The next administration needs to keep its eye on the final objective—“that cross-Strait differences be resolved peacefully and according to the wishes of the people on both sides of the Strait.” This means we don’t help stir the pot on Taiwan and we don’t sell-out Taiwan for some ephemeral grand bargain with Beijing. Taiwan may be small but it is not a small matter. At stake is not only our relationship with Beijing but also American values and principles, which are exemplified by Taiwan’s vibrant and determined democracy.

Pei-Yu Wei is an intern for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, the country’s highest lawmaker, is set to debate an addition to the Criminal Code that would subject people who are found guilty of killing children under the age of twelve to a mandatory death sentence, or in exceptional cases, such as severe mental illness, to a life sentence without the possibility of parole. This proposal came on the heels of a horrific crime that rocked the island in late March, in which a four-year-old girl was decapitated in front of her mother by a thirty-three-year-old unemployed man, who authorities suspect was under the influence of drugs. The tragic incident was the third murder of a child to happen in Taiwan in five years. In both of the previous cases, the suspects were unemployed men who were able to avoid death penalty sentences. Taiwan retains and actively practices the death penalty. Though there was a four-year moratorium on executing death row prisoners beginning in 2006, in 2010 then-Minster of Justice Wang Ching-Feng was forced to step down due to public outcry because she explicitly supported the abolition of the death penalty and announced that she would not approve of any executions during her tenure. Public support for capital punishment has consistently remained around 80 percent, with the latest poll showing support at 84 percent and only 6 percent of those surveyed supporting abolition of the death penalty. While most politicians so far have bowed to the will of the majority, executing prisoners has become a contentious topic for Taiwan in the international arena, especially in dealings with parties that have strong stances on human rights and capital punishment. Taiwan’s use of executions has previously drawn criticism from not only non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International but also the European Union (EU) and individual EU members such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. In 2010, after Taiwan executed four death row inmates, the EU issued a strong condemnation, and individual member states, such as France and Italy, also issued statements reiterating their positions on capital punishment. In fact, tensions were so high between Taipei and Brussels that there were rumors that the EU, which at the time was considering a visa waiver proposal for holders of Taiwanese passports, would cancel the privilege. (The EU denied this.) Taiwan is not the only country whose implementation of the death penalty has drawn criticisms from the EU. Singapore is another country whose citizens overwhelmingly support the death penalty and which has also been criticized for executing its prisoners. For a country such as Taiwan, however, whose international space is already restricted, such criticism cannot be easily dismissed. Critiques of the death penalty from foreign governments and NGOs alike have garnered less than pleasant reactions from the Taiwanese public. Groups such as Amnesty International have borne the brunt of the public’s anger, but many also think the EU is interfering in the internal affairs of Taiwan. Even after the EU stated that it was not interfering with domestic matters and that the abolition of the capital punishment is just the body’s stance, articles such as, “The EU wants Taiwan to abolish the death penalty, but they have a higher crime rate,” are still often seen. Sensationalist though they may be, the articles do reflect a deeper societal trend in Taiwan. Comments online have ranged from, “The EU should really try to keep Great Britain first seeing as how it’s (the EU)  breaking apart at the seams,” and “Who cares? Taiwan isn’t a country anyways” to “You’re speaking for the prisoner? How can you live with yourself? Why don’t you go experience being a victim or a victim’s family member before you say anything?” It is quite clear that the EU and Taiwan are not going to reach a consensus on the death penalty anytime soon. In 2015, when Taiwan executed six prisoners, the EU once again issued a strong condemnation through the office of the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. In spite of the EU’s concern, there is a good chance that whether the proposal of the additional clause in the Criminal Code passes or not, Taipei will witness a new wave of executions in the near future.

Rachel Brown, Lincoln Davidson, Gabriella Meltzer, Gabriel Walker, and Pei-Yu Wei look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. China’s greatest pollution nightmare may be lurking underground. According to statistics released by the Chinese media on Monday, over 80 percent of water from 2,103 underground wells tested throughout the country is polluted to the point where it is no longer safe for drinking or bathing. According to Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public Health and Environmental Affairs, this crisis primarily impacts rural farms, factories, and homes that depend on water sources close to the surface, since most Chinese cities derive their water from deeper wells that are far safer. China’s Ministry of Water Resources reassured citizens, stating that “85 percent of the 1,817 of groundwater resources used for drinking water meet quality standards, while the 33 sources that supply drinking water to cities with a population larger than 500,000 all comply with water quality standards.” Despite these statements, it is clear from the evidence that water pollution is a major issue for Chinese public health—in recent years, there have been around 1,700 incidents of water contamination reported annually, affecting at least 140 million people.  Part of the problem is the lack of clarification of responsibilities between the Water Resources Ministry and the Ministry of Environmental Protection in carrying out a $5.2 billion National Groundwater Pollution Plan issued in 2011. 2. Entrepreneurial upstarts in the Philippines. The growth of small businesses has long been stymied by limited access to credit and the dominance of large conglomerates in the Philippines, but the government has recently attempted to foster greater opportunities for entrepreneurship. Grace Poe, a candidate in the current presidential election, said that if elected she would promote greater access to financing for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), including a government-sponsored method for guaranteeing credit. Currently 8 percent of loans from Philippines banks are supposed to be for SMEs, but this rule is often disregarded. Poe also advocated for the establishment of entrepreneurship assistance centers, and the current government has already embarked on plans to create a system of 1,600 of them spanning the nation to aid SMEs. Another consideration is how to reduce the high levels of red tape surrounding the establishment of a business. The Philippines ranked 103 out of 189 nations in the 2016 World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business” index. Currently SMEs compose 37 percent of the Philippines’ GDP and 62 percent of employment, a smaller fraction than in some other Southeast Asian nations. But there have been a number of notable successes, including  Aisa Mijeno, the creator of a saltwater-powered lamp, who shared the stage with President Barack Obama and Alibaba’s Jack Ma during the 2015 APEC CEO Summit in Manila. Entrepreneurs in the Philippines’ technology sector have also been gaining steam with the establishment of two startup incubators in 2012. 3. Kenya deports Taiwanese citizens to the Mainland. This week Kenya deported a group of Taiwanese citizens to China. The Taiwanese nationals were originally suspected of committing cybercrimes by the Kenyan authorities and were arrested in 2014 after police found a room full of high-tech computer equipment while responding to a fire in one of the slums in Nairobi. Some members of the group were later acquitted by Kenyan courts, but were immediately deported back to China after their acquittal. A video that has been circulating in the Taiwanese media since Tuesday showed fifteen prisoners trying to barricade themselves inside a prison cell to prevent themselves from being sent to China. Supposedly the Kenyan police used tear gas to force the prisoners out of the cell and onto a plane bound for Beijing, a claim that the Kenyan authorities denied. The Chinese government praised Kenya for recognizing the “One China” policy, and said that it would retry the Taiwanese prisoners for committing phone fraud against Chinese citizens. It has also said that it welcomes Taiwanese authorities to cooperate in the investigation. The timing of this deportation have led to speculations that Beijing is sending a warning to Taiwan’s president-elect Tsai Ing-Wen from the China-skeptical Democratic Progressive Party, who will be sworn in on May 20. Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it would try to negotiate the return of the prisoners with Beijing. 4. E-bike bans spread across China. Electric two-wheelers—bicycles with a small motor and battery attached—are ubiquitous in urban China, with more than 100 million sold in the country since the 1990s and 20 million sold each year. They have been praised as a way to fight pollution, as the bikes produce minimal emissions, and just last month a former Chinese government minister said the government should subsidize e-bikes. Yet Chinese cities have begun banning electric bicycles in recent weeks in an effort to reduce traffic congestion and prevent accidents. According to the government of Huizhou, which is paying owners 500 RMB per bike (about $77) ahead of a ban that will come into effect later this year, e-bikes are involved in 70 percent of accidents in the city. Beijing has banned e-bikes from ten high-traffic roads in the city center. And since March, Shenzhen has seized 17,975 unregistered e-bikes and freight tricycles. Critics of the bans point to the impact they have had on delivery services, which are big business in China’s cities: in 2015, the average citizen of Shenzhen sent and received a total of 129 packages. The bans also have an outsized impact on migrant workers, who make up the majority of the express delivery workforce and generally can’t afford to buy a car. 5. Indian tobacco firms spar with health ministry over cigarette packaging. On April 1, a new rule went into effect that requires graphic pictorial warnings to cover 85 percent of all cigarette packaging in India. Due to “confusion over the new requirements”—though the rule was first announced in 2014—a number of India’s largest tobacco companies halted their cigarette production, effectively going on strike. Producers of beedis, or traditional cigarettes, also stopped production because of an inability for small-scale manufacturers to print the labels on conical packs, leaving all of the industry’s 8 million workers, mainly women in rural areas, temporarily jobless. The Indian Food and Drug Administration has also taken a hardline stance on the new requirements, seizing imported tobacco products that do not meet the new labeling requirements. This week, one Gujarat-based cigarette manufacturer was the first to break rank and begin following the rule. But because other producers have gone to India’s Supreme Court to protest the legality of the new requirements, it is unclear when, if at all, other companies might follow suit. The battle is one of numbers, if nothing else: the stoppages cost the government as much as $10 million a day in tax revenue, but tobacco-related illnesses kill nearly a million in India per year. Bonus: “When you do what you want in life, humiliation usually follows.” A lecturer in Chinese medicine at Anshun Vocational and Technical College in Guizhou, China, was suspended this week after he told his students that their final grade was dependent on their ability to drink a shot of baijiu, a Chinese liquor made from sorghum that’s been said to taste like “liquid razor blades.” According to one student at the scene, the instructor told his students, “If you’re going to be doing sales, you have to be able to drink!” When contacted by reporters, the lecturer claimed that he hadn’t told students that drinking was their final exam, but had simply wanted to give them a send-off from his class.

Ashlyn Anderson, Rachel Brown, Lincoln Davidson, Gabriella Meltzer, Gabriel Walker, and Pei-Yu Wei look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Anger, grief, and questions linger over debris of collapsed overpass in Kolkata. The collapse of the a major overpass under construction in Kolkata, India, has left officials and citizens scrambling for answers. Located in a densely populated market area, more than one hundred people were crushed by falling debris, and at least twenty-five deaths have been confirmed. The National Disaster Response Force and the Indian Army responded to rescue those trapped beneath the rubble, and the Kolkata police appointed a special investigation team to determine the cause of the collapse. One official of IVRCL, the company charged with building the Vivekananda Road overpass, called it “a god’s act,” while another denied that the collapse was a result of poor construction quality. Three officials of the company have been arrested. West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was quick to promise that those responsible for the collapse would be held accountable, but some have turned her statement around and questioned Banerjee’s responsibility. Pressure had been mounting to complete the project after it missed the first five deadlines. Others have viewed the overpass collapse as emblematic of the challenges India faces to meet its grand infrastructure needs. 2. TEPCO activates underground “ice wall” to contain Fukushima waste. On Thursday, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) fired up a massive underground cooling system designed to prevent radioactive groundwater from leaking from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific. Nearly 800,000 tons of radioactive water has already been captured and stored on-site. The “ice wall,” which was first proposed in 2013 and cost the government around $300 million, will operate something like a giant ice rink: refrigerant will be pumped through approximately 1,550 pipes sunk more than a mile into the ground around the plant, freezing the soil and theoretically preventing any further groundwater from entering the contaminated basement of the plant. Whether the method, which has been used before on much smaller scales, will be effective remains to be seen. The “wall” will take several months to form, and officials project that if successful, it will allow the plant basements to be dried by 2020. Chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority Shunichi Tanaka cautioned against high expectations, stating that “It would be best to think that natural phenomena don’t work the way you would expect.” 3. Mongolians protest loss of mineral wealth. More than two thousand people demonstrated in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, this week in opposition to what they see as overly concessionary mineral rights deals the government has struck with foreign mining conglomerates. They also criticized connections between lawmakers and firms that have a stake in the country’s mines. Their concerns have deeper roots than shady deals by politicians, however: as recently as 2011, Mongolia’s economy was growing at 17 percent annually as investors rushed to dig into some of the world’s largest untapped mines. But as global demand for commodities dropped, the economy stagnated, a challenge natural resource–driven boomtowns around the world have faced as commodity prices have declined. Mongolia’s unemployment rate is now at 8.3 percent, and with no end to the commodity glut in sight, the situation looks grim. 4. Vietnam teeters on the brink of TB resurgence. Despite its stunning success thus far in curing its tuberculosis (TB) epidemic, Vietnam’s healthcare system is currently in a fragile position to tackle the airborne disease due to a lack of funding and changing demographics. Between 1990 and 2014, prevalence of the disease dropped from 600 to 200 out of 100,000 residents, placing the country on a strong trajectory to reach its goal of twenty cases per 100,000. This success is largely due to Vietnam’s socialist policies, by which the government has invested vast resources into primary care and doctors in local clinics, who strictly follow WHO’s DOTS guidelines through close monitoring of patient compliance to treatment regimens. However, the Vietnamese government currently faces a 72 percent funding gap, as $19 million out of its current $26 million budget is derived from foreign donors such as USAID and the Global Fund. As incomes rise in metropolitan areas, greater numbers of Vietnamese citizens are turning to private physicians for care, many of whom are less compliant with traditionally successful, yet harsh treatment procedures. These fiscal and social strains on Vietnam’s healthcare system make it far more difficult to treat hard-to-reach patients who carry highly virulent and lethal MDR (multiple drug-resistant) or XDR (extensively drug-resistant) TB, such as drug addicts and individuals from non-Vietnamese-speaking indigenous populations who are not bound by any quarantine laws. 5. Foxconn finalizes Sharp takeover. The Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn purchased a 66 percent stake in the Japanese electronics firm for approximately $3.5 billion this week, completing a turbulent acquisition. The takeover was seen as a strategic play for Foxconn, best known for producing iPhones, to move into providing screens for the phones as well. Though nearly one-quarter of iPhone screens already come from Sharp, the deal could prove risky. A previous Foxconn acquisition of the screen maker Chimei Innolux has not been as successful as initially hoped and Sharp’s profits have flagged in recent years. The final price paid by Foxconn was almost $2.5 billion less than what had been proposed in earlier negotiations before Sharp disclosed additional financial liabilities that threatened to derail the acquisition. It is rumored that Foxconn will quickly shake up Sharp’s leadership, including selecting a majority of board positions and potentially a new CEO. Bonus: Murder of four-year-old sparks capital punishment debate in Taiwan. A four-year-old girl was murdered on the streets of Taipei this Monday morning, while she and her mother were about to pick up her younger siblings from a subway station. The suspect is a thirty-three-year-old man surnamed Wang who was brought down by bystanders and is currently in custody. It is reported that he has had a history of mental illness. Wang said that he was under the influence of narcotics, though an examination at the hospital found otherwise. Debates over the death penalty, which Taiwan still practices, reignited in the aftermath of the tragedy, the third random killing of a child in five years on the usually safe island that enjoys a very low crime rate.  At the latest polling, 84 percent of the respondents supports the retention of capital punishment, and only 8 percent wish to see it abolished, a result in line with the past trend of majority popular support for the death penalty. The Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s highest lawmaking institution, is debating an addition to the Criminal Code that would automatically sentence people who are found guilty of killing children under the age of twelve to the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Rachel Brown, Lincoln Davidson, Ariella Rotenberg, Ayumi Teraoka, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Indonesians protest ride-hailing apps. Traffic in notoriously congested Jakarta came to a near standstill this week when approximately ten thousand taxi drivers protested popular ride-hailing apps like Grab, Go-Jek, and Uber, which have driven down taxi fares in the city. Some of the protesters turned violent and attacked other taxis not participating in the protests, leading to the arrest of eighty-three individuals. Many of the protesting drivers work for the Blue Bird taxi company, which has approximately 32,500 cars, making its fleet larger than those of Grab and Uber combined. In response, President Joko Widodo advocated a “fair” resolution between traditional and app-based transportation companies. Two days after the protests, the transportation minister announced that to maintain operations in Indonesia, app-based services will have to register their vehicles and work with traditional transportation firms. While the Indonesian government contemplated banning such apps last December, it ultimately decided against it. 2. Uber sues Ola, India-based ride app competitor. Uber filed a lawsuit earlier this week against Bangalore’s ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd., which owns Ola, another popular ride-sharing app. Uber has accused Ola of creating tens of thousands of fake accounts and using them to falsely place orders to Uber, which Uber insists disrupts its business. Ola has denied the allegations and claims that it is a publicity stunt for Uber to deflect press about their shrinking market share in India. Uber and Ola have been battling for market share for a long time, and this is only the latest flare-up in tensions. The fight parallels that between Uber and its rival in the United States, Lyft. Similar to Lyft, which competes with Uber over lower prices, drivers, and market share, Ola has given Uber a run for its money in India. 3. Self-nominated independents try for National Assembly seats in Vietnam. In an exciting first, around one hundred potential independent candidates, more than ever before, have registered to run in the May legislative elections in Vietnam. The country, which is governed by the Communist Party of Vietnam, has allowed independents to run since 2002, but until now only seven, who have typically been Party members or individuals with government connections, have ever won seats. To some, the diversity of this year’s independents—including activists like Mai Khoi, a singer-songwriter with a progressive bent, and Nguyen Cong Vuong, a stand-up comedian—represent an increasingly open and pluralistic political process. Some government organs and state media, however, have overtly criticized independent candidates as “troublesome citizens.” Critics of the electoral system argue that it is designed to be controlled by the Party. The real test of Vietnam’s political process and democratic spirit is yet to come, as registered candidates still need further approval to run in May. 4. Abe meets with Nobel laureates for economic advice. For two weeks in a row, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz for economic advice, both of whom are outspoken supporters of aggressive stimulus measures. As expected, they both advised Abe against a further tax increase that the country’s cabinet is scheduled to enact in April 2017. The planned hike for the consumption tax, from 8 to 10 percent, is a result of an agreement made among three political parties in 2012, including Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), then an opposition party led by Sadakazu Tanigaki. Abe’s close economic advisors are also opposed to the planned tax increase, as it only undermines Abe’s economic stimulus policies to encourage household spending. The Japanese economy still suffers from weak consumption, but Abe has stated in the Diet that the postponement of the consumption tax hike is a political decision. While he often emphasizes his willingness to implement the hike as a responsible party leader of the LDP, the decision to meet with Krugman and Stiglitz at this time suggests, by some reports, that Abe is determined to put off increasing the consumption tax. 5. Party assets contentious issue in race for KMT chair. Candidates for chairperson of Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT), the political party of outgoing president Ma Ying-jeou, all support increasing transparency of the party’s assets, but have disagreed on how the assets should be handled. The KMT is one of the wealthiest political parties in the world, with assets rumored to be worth more than $3 billion (although the party itself claims to only have $500 million), many acquired when the KMT confiscated the assets of Japanese nationals in Taiwan following Japan’s defeat in World War II. Since the Republic of China democratized in the 1990s and other parties were allowed to operate, critics of the KMT have repeatedly called on the party to return its assets to the state, but the KMT has been slow to act. The dispute was stirred up this week over rumors that the party is looking to sell the Grand Hotel in Yuanshan—a landmark of Taipei, the nation’s capital—to an American businessman. While it’s not clear the hotel is even owned in the party, the rumors seem to be substantiated by the fact that KMT assets are viewed as too toxic for any domestic investors to touch. Bonus: Facebook founder tries to add Chinese friends. On a visit to China this week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with Alibaba founder Jack Ma and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) censorship and propaganda chief Liu Yunshan. According to state media, while meeting with Liu Zuckerberg “spoke highly of the progress China has made in internet field, saying he would work with Chinese peers to create a better world in cyberspace.” The social network founder followed that up by posting on Facebook about his jog through smoggy Beijing; critics were quick to point out that despite “speaking highly” of China’s approach to the Internet, he was quick to use a VPN to skirt Chinese censors and post on Facebook. In response, those same censors rushed to Zuckerberg’s defense after Chinese netizens began teasing him. Why is Zuckerberg so eager to genuflect to the Chinese government, while throwing temper tantrums over restrictions on Facebook’s business imposed by other governments? Perhaps because China’s 660 million Internet users are an appealing market. Let’s hope Zuckerberg doesn’t stoop so low that they don’t want him once Facebook’s let back in to the country.

Rachel Brown, Lincoln Davidson, Ariella Rotenberg, Gabriel Walker, and Pei-Yu Wei look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Developer of collapsed building arrested in Taiwan. After launching an investigation to determine the reasons behind the collapse of a seventeen-story building during a 6.4-magnitude earthquake in the city of Tainan last Saturday, Taiwanese authorities have arrested developer Lin Ming-Hui. The earthquake struck around 4 a.m. local time at the start of the Chinese New Year holiday, compounding the tragedy for some. One-hundred victims have been reported killed in the earthquake thus far, and reportedly nineteen people are still missing eight days after rescue efforts began. All but two of the victims were from the Weiguan Jinlong apartment complex. As it was one of the few buildings to suffer serious damage in the earthquake, questions arose about the complex’s structural soundness. Probes have revealed multiple illegal activities that may have contributed to the building’s collapse, including the fact that there were 50 percent fewer steel stirrups to reinforce concrete beams than required in the design blueprint. Prosecutors took Lin and two other men, identified as architects who designed the complex, into custody on Tuesday, and are seeking to charge the three men with professional negligent homicide. The three are yet to be officially charged, though they are being held incommunicado. Tainan’s Public Works Bureau is currently inspecting remaining buildings linked to Lin. 2. India says “no” to free Internet. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) this week prohibited Internet service providers from offering select content to users for free, a ruling seen as a slap in the face to Facebook. For the last several months, the company has been pushing Free Basics, which offers free access to its social network and basic online services like news, health, and career information. Through Free Basics, Facebook, rather than consumers, would pay for the cost to transmit that data over wireless networks. Facebook has argued that offering basic online services for free will help bring more people online, improving the lives of millions; critics contend that Facebook is creating an uneven playing field by only letting certain services into Free Basics. However, there’s no evidence that “zero-rating,” as the practice is called, actually has the effect of giving some services an unfair advantage. 3. Indonesian court convicts seven men for Islamic State ties. This week, an Indonesian court convicted and sentenced seven men who were training, recruiting, and distributing propaganda for the Islamic State (IS). This is the first time that Indonesia has sent anyone to jail for ties with IS. The country has been on high alert since an attack in Jakarta last month that claimed eight lives, for which IS claimed responsibility. Four of the men were sentenced to three or four years in prison for violating Indonesia’s anti-terrorism laws  by participating in training camps for IS fighters. The court sentenced two others to similar-length terms for acting as recruiters for the terrorist organization. The seventh man convicted will serve a five-year term for cofounding an IS website that promoted the group’s ideology and that the Indonesian government shut down in 2014. In the past two months, antiterrorism police in Indonesia have arrested nearly fifty people who are suspected of having ties with those who planned and carried out the attack in Jakarta in January. 4. Ex-leaders put pressure on Thai junta. Former Thai prime ministers and siblings Yingluck and Thaksin Shinawatra recently returned to the public view in a move that has stirred concerns among ruling Thai military leaders. In rare media interviews this week, Yingluck expressed hope that support would remain strong for Puea Thai, her family’s political party. When elections will next be held is uncertain, as a member of the Thai junta recently expressed frustration when asked if the government still planned to conduct elections in 2017. Yingluck is prohibited from taking part in politics for the next five years, but is still popular in northeast Thailand. Meanwhile, Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin, sent out books and calendars commemorating his time in office and conveyed a message for the Lunar New Year to supporters in Thailand encouraging them to mobilize. He lives abroad to avoid a two-year jail sentence on corruption charges. In mid-January a corruption trial began regarding a rice subsidy scheme during Yingluck’s administration. She could face up to ten years in prison and thus her recent efforts to raise her public profile may be an attempt to defend her image and ensure a fair trial. While the scheme proved popular with Thailand’s large agricultural population, the subsidy ultimately cost the Thai government billions of dollars and led to Yingluck’s removal in 2014. Ironically, the current junta instituted a somewhat similar scheme in January to support rubber-tree farmers in southern Thailand. 5. Slowing Chinese oil production boosts market and saps SOEs. China’s top three petroleum-producing state-owned enterprises (SOEs), Sinopec, PetroChina, and CNOOC, have reported a significant drop in crude oil production over the past year. If the trend continues, China’s overall oil output could fall by up to 200,000 barrels a day through 2016. The decline in production should be a boon for the global oil market, which has been struggling with a persistent surplus and a broadly damaging low price since mid-2014. However, the production slowdown will be harder for the SOEs to handle: because they have a political imperative to maintain stability and avoid layoffs, the companies are limited by how much they can slash unprofitable production. The Chinese government even set a $40-a-barrel price floor for oil last month in order to shield the companies from massive losses. The financial challenges facing China’s oil producers brings to light the difficult path ahead for reforming the country’s SOEs, which have been a recurrent sticking point for the country’s broader economic reform plan. Bonus: Indian police try a spicy solution to crowd control. In India, a country with the world’s largest protests and hottest chili peppers, police have found a creative way to bring the two together. In a new approach to controlling protesters, cops in Haryana are now equipped to use marble- and chili-loaded slingshots to disperse unruly crowds. The method is seen as a safer alternative to using rubber bullets, which were linked to at least two deaths in past protests. Police typically also use methods like batons and tear gas, and have implemented pepper-spraying drones in recent years. Some critics worry that the slingshots could cause serious injuries to civilian protesters, and may not be a safer alternative to conventional approaches.

Rachel Brown, Lincoln Davidson, Ariella Rotenberg, Ayumi Teraoka, Gabriel Walker, and James West look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Terrorists kill twenty-one in attack on Pakistani university. On Wednesday, gunmen stormed Bacha Khan University in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Charsadda district, killing twenty-one people and injuring dozens more. Four attackers were killed in an hours-long gun battle with security guards, local police, and the army in the attempt to secure the campus. A Pakistani Taliban (TTP) faction led by Umar Mansoor—the alleged mastermind of the December 2014 attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar that killed more than 140 people—claimed responsibility for the attack. However, an official spokesman for TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah later issued a statement denying any TTP involvement. Umar Mansoor on Friday released a video again claiming the attack and vowing more attacks on schools in the future. The attack threatens to again heighten tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan—just as the two countries are attempting to restart peace talks with the Afghan Taliban—as Pakistani security officials shared evidence with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and U.S. commander John Campbell on Friday that the attack was planned and directed from Afghanistan. 2. Myanmar frees some political prisoners and arrests others. On Friday, a spokesman for the Myanmar government announced that a total of 102 prisoners, including more than fifty serving for political offenses, would be released from jail. Before this week, more than five hundred political prisoners were serving time in Burmese prisons, including many dissidents sentenced during the country’s junta rule and over sixty students jailed and awaiting trial for a peaceful demonstration last March. Earlier this week, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with President Thein Sein and urged him to free all remaining political prisoners before the new National League for Democracy government forms this year. But although the release is a positive step forward for the burgeoning democracy, not everything was well and good for outspoken citizens of Myanmar this week: on Friday an activist was jailed for posting a picture online that mocked the military, and a few days before a former Saffron Revolution leader, who has been re-arrested multiple times since his release in 2012, was detained on alleged immigration charges. 3. Singapore arrests twenty-seven “radicalized” laborers. Twenty-six Bangladeshi construction workers were deported from Singapore following their arrest for supporting violent Islamist ideology and preparing to conduct attacks at home. One worker remained under arrest in Singapore, as he had attempted to flee the country upon hearing of the detention of others in the group. The workers were arrested under Singapore’s Internal Security Act. According to Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs, certain members had studied pamphlets on assassination methods and held weekly meetings at which extremist-affiliated materials were circulated. Following the arrests, Singaporean officials posted messages on Facebook emphasizing the need not to let the recent incident harm religious and racial relations. The Bangladeshi High Commissioner to Singapore identified the arrested men as affiliated with the Ansarullah Bangla Team, an Islamic extremist group banned in Bangladesh, but the men have not been linked to foreign organizations. Twelve of the workers were subsequently released in Bangladesh as no evidence was found against them. 4. United States considers tighter sanctions on North Korea. The United States is considering tighter sanctions on North Korea due to a pattern of threatening behavior, highlighted by their most recent nuclear test on January 6. Tighter sanctions on the part of the United States could, however, upset Beijing, who the United States believes has not been tough enough on North Korea. For years, Washington has urged Beijing to use economic influence on North Korea to halt its nuclear program; China has been reluctant to do so in fear of making North Korea more aggressive, or of collapsing the country’s government. A high-ranking U.S. diplomat, speaking about the potential new sanctions, said “everything is on the table,” including an agreement with South Korea to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, missile system in South Korea to better defend against a North Korean threat. The United States is also considering secondary sanctions—similar to those recently used on Iran—that would target third-party countries doing business with North Korea. China sees actions such as Thaad and secondary sanctions on the part of the United States as threatening China’s national security and economic stability, respectively. China does condemn North Korean nuclear tests, but also places most of the blame on the United States, not Pyongyang, for North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities. 5. DPP wins in a landslide. Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) dominated at the polls last week, with party chair Tsai Ing-wen winning the presidency with 56.1 percent of the vote and the DPP securing 68 of the 113 seats in the Legislative Yuan. The current ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), captured only thirty-five seats, putting it in the minority for the first time in the history of the Republic of China (Taiwan’s official name). The high margin of the DPP’s victory in the at-large representative vote—44.1 percent to the KMT’s 26.9 percent—can be seen as both a rebuke to the last several years of KMT President Ma Ying-jeou’s administration and a mandate for Tsai as she comes into office. International responses to the election have been positive, noting the continuing consolidation of Taiwan’s democratic institutions and the progress the island has made—except across the Taiwan Strait, where Chinese officials reminded the world that what happens in Taiwan is part of China’s “internal affairs.” Bonus: French fries get a face-lift in Japan. McDonald’s Japan announced on Monday that it will release a new menu item next week, the “McChoco Potato”—french fries covered with both “coco” and white chocolate.  “The combination creates a wonderful salty and sweet harmonious taste,” says the press release. McDonald’s Japan, which operates the second-most restaurant locations of the chain outside of the United States, has suffered from a record net loss of 29.28 billion yen (around $245 million) from January to September 2015. Can the new invention help save the company?

Ayumi Teraoka is research associate for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Taiwan’s presidential and Legislative Yuan elections on Saturday were closely monitored in Japan, where deep historical, cultural, and social ties with Taiwan remain. Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) released its official statement congratulating Tsai Ing-wen on her victory and assuring her that the Abe government would work toward “further deepening cooperation” with Taiwan. Japan’s strategic opportunities with Taiwan lie in further economic cooperation, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga’s statement of support this Monday for Taiwan’s entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a step in a welcome direction for Tokyo-Taipei relations in 2016 and beyond. Interest in deepening Japan-Taiwan ties is mutual. During the run-up to her victory, Tsai visited Japan despite anticipated protest from Beijing to strengthen economic ties and in particular to seek Tokyo’s support for her nation’s participation in the TPP. During this October visit, she met with members of a bipartisan Japan-Taiwan Diet caucus and with the leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Rumor has it she even met with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had cultivated ties with Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) when he visited Taiwan in 2011 and 2012 while his party was out of power. Abe’s brother, Nobuo Kishi, also leads another pro-Taiwan group in the Diet, and Tsai visited the Yamaguchi districts of both, a gesture designed to highlight her personal ties to the Abe family. Despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, polls indicate that Japan continues to be the most favored country in Taiwan, and in 2011, 67 percent of the Japanese people also said they feel close to Taiwan. On the economic front, Japan is Taiwan’s second largest trading partner while Taiwan is Japan’s fifth largest. Despite its relatively small population (twenty-three million), the number of Taiwanese visitors to Japan each year is the third largest, following South Korea and China. These grassroots ties were amply reflected in the Taiwanese response to the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Donations reached a total of 2.92 billion yen ($31.3 million), making Taiwan the second largest donor of relief funds in the world after the United States. Japan and Taiwan have not been spared from the difficult historical issues and territorial disputes that trouble Tokyo’s relations with Beijing and Seoul, however. Taipei also claims the islands in the East China Sea that Beijing and Tokyo have clashed over—the islands Taiwanese refer to as the Diaoyutai—and there is lingering resentment in Taiwan over Imperial Japan’s wartime treatment of Taiwanese women who were forced to work in military brothels. Nonetheless, Taipei and Tokyo have found common strategic interests that outweigh some of these residual wounds of the past. In April 2013, under President Ma Ying-jeou’s East China Sea Peace Initiative, Japan and Taiwan finally concluded a long sought-after fisheries agreement that allowed Taiwanese fishermen to operate in a part of what Japan regards as its Economic Exclusive Zone and established a dispute resolution framework for the fishermen. Frustration remains among Japanese fishermen over the fishing practices of Taiwanese trawlers, but this agreement has set a positive precedent for managing the difficult territorial disputes in the East China Sea. Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou (R) greets former Japan prime minister Shinzo Abe at the presidential office in Taipei October 31, 2010 (REUTERS/Sun Chung-ta). Traditionally, the LDP leadership’s ties with Taipei have largely been forged through the Kuomintang (the Nationalist Party). Abe’s ability to work with Ma on the East China Sea early on in his tenure was in large part due to these longstanding party ties. In contrast, the DPP has had little contact with Japan’s conservatives. Moreover, the DPP’s dreams of declaring independence from China in the mid-2000s as represented in former President Chen Shui-bian’s call for a referendum for Taiwan’s participation in the United Nations, rattled many in Tokyo as tensions between Taiwan and Beijing escalated. Yet today, Tsai and Abe are attempting to forge a new political partnership as regional concern over Chinese behavior mounts. Tokyo’s recent tensions with Beijing have yet again prompted some Diet members to advocate for a deeper relationship with their southern, democratic neighbor by establishing a Japanese version of the Taiwan Relations Act. Scholars also call for elevating Japan’s relations with Taiwan to reflect the changing nature of cross-strait relations represented in the first-ever summit between the heads of China and Taiwan last November. Japan cannot simply sit back and “expect” the issues surrounding Taiwan to be “resolved peacefully by direct dialogue between the concerned parties,” as outlined in the MOFA statement. Rather, the Abe cabinet, as part of its “proactive contribution to peace,” should see what it can do to best ensure such an outcome. Japan’s direct support for Taiwan’s security, as implied in the concept of Japan’s Taiwan Relations Act, however, may do little more than imperil Tokyo’s relations with Beijing while creating unnecessary tensions between Taipei and Beijing. Instead, Japan should pursue its strategic interests through further economic cooperation with Taiwan. An obvious first step would be to support Taiwan’s participation in the TPP, as Tsai advocated during her time in Japan. Suga’s statement on Monday was a much-welcomed step in this regard, and Japan must work with the United States and other parties of the TPP to garner support and assistance for Taiwan’s participation. The TPP is a high-standard free trade initiative that should be open to all member economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC), which includes “Chinese Taipei.” Ensuring an economically vibrant Taiwan and supporting regional economic integration would not only strengthen ties with Taiwan, but also demonstrate Japan’s willingness to work with those in the Asia-Pacific region who have a demonstrated commitment to peaceful dispute resolution.

Numerous countries will hold elections in 2016. Here are ten to watch. 

Rachel Brown, Lincoln Davidson, Sungtae “Jacky” Park, Ayumi Teraoka, and Gabriel Walker look at the top stories in Asia this week. 1. Raging flames in Indonesia. Intense forest fires have been burning for the past few months on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, blanketing vast areas of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and southern Thailand with smoke. Annual but illegal slash-and-burn agricultural practices that spiraled out of control caused the blazes, now amounting to more than 1,000 fire clusters on the islands. Until this Wednesday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo refused international assistance with battling the flames, but this week six countries offered aid in the form of firefighting aircraft. The fires will result in immense financial, climate, and health costs throughout the region: In 1997, another severe blaze cost the Indonesian government more than $20 billion; carbon emissions from the fires may surpass those from the entire United Kingdom this year; and 110,000 per year may die from respiratory and other illnesses caused by the fires. 2. Pacific trade deal reached. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a wide-ranging trade agreement between twelve nations that comprise nearly 40 percent of the global economy, was completed this week. The deal will eliminate 18,000 tariffs for American export firms and provide similar benefits to other nations. The most notable achievements of the deal include provisions to address agricultural trade barriers, to require all parties to adhere to basic standards of the International Labour Organization, and to address the illegal wildlife trade. The final negotiations also involved an intense debate over legal protections for manufacturers of biologic drugs. Whether the deal will be passed by Congress remains in question, and recently presidential candidate Hillary Clinton came out against the agreement. The deal will also face political opposition in a number of other nations including Canada and Japan, where agricultural provisions may cause controversy, and Malaysia, where the required reforms to the state-owned enterprise sector may provoke resistance. 3. Chaos in the KMT. Taiwan’s ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), announced Thursday that it would be holding an impromptu party congress to remove Hung Hsiu-chu as the party’s presidential candidate and nominate party chairman Eric Chu instead. Discontent with Hung has grown as her numbers in the polls have slipped; things came to a head this week after Hung said that the constitution of the Republic of China—the de facto government of Taiwan—calls for unification with mainland China (which the majority of Taiwan’s citizens oppose). In response, KMT members expressed concerns that Hung’s presence on the ballot would hurt their chances in legislative elections, which will be held at the same time as the presidential election in January 2016. Hung has said that she will continue to seek the presidency even if it causes her “death on the battlefield,” and some of her supporters have rallied to her call, protesting outside KMT headquarters. The internecine fight does not bode well for the KMT, which is up against second-time Democratic Progressive Party candidate Tsai Ing-wen. 4. Abe reshuffles cabinet and adds demography minister. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has reshuffled his cabinet for the third time since reassuming office in December 2012. This time, Abe retained nine and added ten new ministers, including Katsunobu Kato, who was previously the deputy chief cabinet secretary. Kato was appointed to a newly created ministerial post in charge of demography that Abe hopes will create “a society in which all one hundred million people can play an active role.” By creating this ministerial position, Abe seeks to prevent Japan’s current population of one hundred and twenty-seven million from sliding below one hundred million over the next half-century.  Recent polls showed that the new cabinet maintains a forty to forty-five percent approval rating, slightly higher than the forty percent approval that the second cabinet reshuffle last September garnered. 5. Tu Youyou wins Nobel. This Monday, eighty-four-year-old Tu Youyou became the first Chinese citizen to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences for her discovery of artemisinin, a major antimalarial drug that has saved millions of lives. Besides her distinction as the first winner in the sciences, an honor that China has sought for years, Tu is unusual in other ways. Her prize-winning research, for example, took place under a secret military project established by Mao Zedong in 1967, and drew upon an ancient Chinese medical text written over 1,500 years ago. Tu also lacks the three characteristics—a doctorate, foreign experience, and a position in the Chinese Academy of Sciences—with which many accomplished Chinese scientists distinguish themselves, so is in many ways an outlier of China’s scientific and technological system. Tu stated that she was “a little bit surprised, but not very surprised” at receiving the prize. Bonus: Indigenous South Americans consider adopting Korean alphabet. The Aymara people of Bolivia, Peru, and Chile, are considering the use of the Korean alphabet, Hangeul (or Hangul), as their primary writing system. Korean researchers have already created a system for transcribing the Aymaran language into Hangeul, and the Aymaran and Korean languages reportedly share similarities in terms of word order and grammar. If the Aymaras adopt Hangeul, they would be the second to use the writing system after a town in Indonesia adopted the script in 2009 to preserve its spoken language, Cia-Cia. Hangeul was created in 1443 CE by the Korean royal court under the instruction and supervision of King Sejong, who wanted to create a simple script to spread literacy among ordinary Koreans who, unlike the upper classes, did not have the time or resources to learn complex Chinese characters.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, William Piekos, Ariella Rotenberg, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Taiwanese plane crashes into river, resulting in at least thirty-five deaths. TransAsia GE235 lost engine power shortly after takeoff from Taipei’s Songshan Airport on Wednesday. The twin-propeller plane was carrying fifty-eight passenger and crew; eight are still unaccounted for. Preliminary reports suggest that the pilots shut down the wrong engine after the other stalled; the pilots, both of whom were killed, have been widely praised for avoiding buildings in Taipei’s urban center. Harrowing imagery from a car dashcam shows the plane losing altitude and clipping a bridge before crashing into the Keelung River. The accident is the second in seven months for TransAsia Airways. 2. Japanese Diet adopts anti-terrorism bill. On Thursday Japan’s Lower House passed a resolution denouncing terrorism as well as encouraging the Japanese government to step up humanitarian aid to countries in the Middle East and Africa; the Upper House passed the bill on Friday. The bill was prepared by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and coalition partner Komeito; concerns voiced by opposition parties resulted in a modified resolution with toned-down language. The resolution follows the recent beheading of two Japanese hostages by ISIS: Haruna Yukawa on January 24 and Kenji Goto on January 30. On January 20, ISIS had asked Japan for a $200 million ransom—the same amount Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had offered in non-military assistance for countries working to counter the ISIS threat—which Japan refused to pay. The resolution comes at a time of domestic debate in Japan over the international role of its military; Prime Minister Abe is seeking a change in the pacifist constitution that would widen the legal options for Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. 3. Indonesian President embarks on his first bilateral visit abroad. Joko "Jokowi" Widodo arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday to hold meetings with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on issues of maritime boundaries and the treatment of Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia, along with economic and security issues. His visit coincided with the release of a controversial vacuum cleaner ad in Malaysia telling its audiences to “fire your Indonesian maid now.” The treatment of Indonesian domestic helpers has been a frequent area of contention between the two countries; the vacuum ad has stirred tension just in time for Jokowi’s official visit to deepen bilateral ties. He will also travel to Brunei and the Philippines to complete his five-day introductory visit to ASEAN member countries. 4. China cuts reserve rate to promote growth. For the first time in over two years, China’s central bank cut reserve requirements. The move dials back the amount of cash banks must hold from lending, freeing up more money for banks to lend and hopefully stimulating the Chinese economy. The Chinese economy is facing a number of pressures, both internal—such as high local government debt and a slowdown in real estate investment—and external—including falling global commodity prices and easing measures in other countries. According to an official survey, China’s manufacturing sector shrank in January of this year, the first time it has done so since September 2012. In 2014, China missed its targeted growth rate (7.5 percent), posting 7.4 percent for the year, the lowest in over two decades. 5. South Korean soldier gets the death penalty for killing fellow troops. A military court has sentenced to death a twenty-three-year old sergeant, surnamed Lim, for killing five unarmed colleagues in South Korea barracks, including a superior officer. He was also found guilty of defecting from his unit with weapons. No executions have been carried out in South Korea since 1997, so the ruling is more likely to result in life in prison without parole. The soldier’s defense lawyer said that he would appeal the case to a higher military court, arguing that his client was the victim of bullying and suffered from paranoia. The incident was the worst killing spree since 2005, when a soldier killed eight people and injured two. In South Korea, all males are conscripted for two years of military duty, and incidents of bullying, suicide, and mental health problems are not infrequent. Bonus: Argentina’s president mocks Chinese accent. During a visit to Beijing centering on much needed bilateral economic and infrastructure agreements, Argentine President Christina Fernández de Kirchner caused a furor by mimicking a Chinese accent on Twitter, swapping L’s for R’s in the Spanish words “petróleo and arroz” (petroleum and rice). President Kirchner followed up with a half-apology, even sending a final tweet from Beijing with “goodbye” in Chinese.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Zhou Yongkang arrested. Former head of China’s domestic security Zhou Yongkang was expelled from the Communist Party and arrested earlier today on charges including accepting bribes, helping family members and associates access government assets, disclosing state secrets, and leaking official secrets, Chinese state news service Xinhua announced. The decision was made by the Communist Party Politburo, comprised of the twenty-five most powerful officials in China, meaning that it is very likely that Zhou will be convicted. Zhou held a seat on the Politburo Standing Committee, the country’s top decision-making body, until Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power in November 2012. The party has been formally investigating Zhou for corruption since July as part of Xi’s promise to tackle high-level corruption in China. A New York Times investigation earlier this year documented that several of Zhou’s relatives held assets worth about 1 billion yuan, or $160 million. Zhou has not been seen in public for more than a year. 2. Opposition party wins big in Taiwan local elections. Taiwan held elections for nine categories of elected office last Saturday. With a total of 11,130 seats up for grabs, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) trounced the incumbent Kuomintang (KMT), in what has since been deemed “black Saturday” for the KMT. The Taipei mayoral vacancy, one of the island’s most coveted political seats, went to Mr. Ko Wen-je, an independent who’s political views generally align with the DPP, which advocates an independent Taiwan. Premier Jiang Yi-huah resigned after the heavy losses, and President Ma Ying-jeou stepped down as chairman of the KMT party. Taiwan’s new Premier, Mao Chi-kuo, has since unveiled his new cabinet, reappointing most members to their previous roles. The impact of Taiwan’s local elections, and its utility as a barometer for the remaining Ma years, suggest that Beijing would benefit from learning to work with the DPP. 3. Sony hacked; North Korea suspected. Sony Pictures suffered a major cyberattack late November that rendered many of its computer unusable and resulted in leaked information, including employees’ personal information and full-length movies. Some experts believe that North Korea is responsible in part because it has tried to stop Sony from releasing “The Interview,” a film about two American journalists who are recruited by the CIA to assassinate North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un. An unnamed U.S. national security official said that North Korea is the primary suspect, though Pyongyang has denied any involvement, and other experts believe that the attack does not fit North Korea’s usual pattern of cyberattack. The film, starring James Franco and Seth Rogen, will still be released on schedule, even though Pyongyang has called it “an act of war.” 4. Hong Kong democracy protestors weigh options. With public support for street protests flagging and government forces encroaching on the remaining camps, protests leaders are divided over how to proceed with their pro-democracy demonstrations. Violent clashes occurred in Mong Kok last week during and after a police takeover of the area, and over the weekend protestors attempted to blockade the city’s legislative offices in Admiralty, resulting in dozen of arrests. With seemingly little hope of government concession, the three leaders of Occupy Central, a more tempered faction of the protest movement, surrendered themselves to police; they were soon released with no charges. Student protestors, however, are as yet undecided on how to proceed—some have suggested that it is time to retreat from the streets, while others are still hopeful that they can convince the Hong Kong government to negotiate. Joshua Wong, the leader of Scholarism, one of two main student protest groups, along several other students, began a hunger strike on Monday, swearing to continue until he is granted an audience with Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong’s chief executive. 5. Indian “superbugs” lead to increased infant mortality. Indian infants born with antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections are on the rise; more than 58,000 cases were reported last year. Nearly one-third of all newborn deaths occur in India (800,000 every year), and these “superbugs” will lead to more higher mortality rates. Pediatricians in India report that such cases were nearly non-existent five years ago. The superbugs’ genetic code have since been found in cases around the world, including France, Japan, Oman, and the United States. Bonus: China gets punitive on puns. China’s policies seem begging for puns in the United States, but China’s media regulators have banned puns and “irregular wordplay” from television and advertising. The regulator’s website claims the puns could lead to “cultural and linguistic chaos,” by misleading young audiences in a way that is contradictory to traditional Chinese culture. Ease of communication via the Internet has led to a proliferation of perversions of traditional four-character idioms. No word yet on what the pun-ishments for offenders might be.