[Asia Round-up] Universities can boost China’s ‘soft power’

Universities can boost China’s soft power
[China, China Daily, 25-09-2013]

China’s leading educational institutions Peking University (Beida) and Tsinghua University have joined the Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)-created EdX online educational consortium by providing six courses online free of charge. China has now officially entered the movement known as the Massive Online Open Courses, or MOOC.

Even though the future of MOOC is still up for debate, China can improve its soft-power profile and reap many benefits through Beida and Tsinghua joining EdX. People will know be able to observe firsthand the best of what the Chinese educational system has to offer and make own personal judgments unfiltered by prejudiced pundits.

This move is believed to make the Chinese universities even stronger in competing with their EdX educational peers.

Joining this platform puts these universities on a lofty pedestal and gives them a platform to promote themselves, bringing much attention not only to these two institutions, but also of China’s rise – one star professor and one course at a time.

This is a great promotion tool for not only foreign students who might never have considered applying for admission to them, but for potential visiting scholars as well.

No matter what the future of MOOC, this will be a win-win for all stakeholders, and provide a significant boost to China’s soft power efforts.

What does it mean to be beautiful and Taiwanese?
[China, The China Post, 22-09-2013]

On September 15, New York state’s contestant in the Miss America 2014 pageant, Nina Davuluri, became the first woman of Indian descent to receive the Miss America title in the 92-year-old beauty pageant. She was subjected to much racism and hate predominantly from online social networks, accusing her of not being a true American. Not much was said about the racially diverse list that included two of Asian-American heritage, with first runner-up Miss California Crystal Lee and fourth runner-up Miss Minnesota Rebecca Yeh.

Even with the US’s densely diverse racial background, the controversial issue of whether or not minorities conform to traditional “white” conceptions of beauty seems to still be prevalent.Reeling the issue back to Taiwan, where the ethnic makeup of the nation is predominantly Han, the same problems may very well emerge in the near future.

Racial discrimination in Taiwan against people from Southeast Asia is not uncommon. Currently there are 230,000 foreign laborers in the nation, mostly Indonesian and Vietnamese, according to the Foreign Workers News Agency.

Taiwan has recently begun to accommodate many new immigrants, mostly from Southeast Asia, who have settled here and raised families. According to statistics from the Ministry of Education, 2012’s academic year saw a 5.3-percent increase in new immigrant students enrolled in elementary schools, totaling some 203,000 students, of which 97,758 are girls.Children of new immigrants make up 9.2 per cent of the entire nation’s elementary school student population.

The question of whether or not they be discriminated against and face accusations of not being “Taiwanese” enough will become a very real problem. Taiwan’s maturing society will be put to the test of not just tolerance but acceptance.

The Taiwanese people need to open themselves up to challenging their own values, conceptions and definitions as traditional boundaries have already begun to blur.

Who will ensure food safety?
[Malaysia, Sin Chew Daily,25-09-2013]

The recent practice of some errant poultry traders dying their farm chickens with yellow dye to pass them off as “kampung chickens” was exposed by the Sin Chew Daily, shocking consumers once again and have drawn people’s concern to food safety.

It is not the first time to discover tainted food in Malaysia as food safety issues have often caused panic in the society in the past. Food safety has become an international problem as many food products are produced in and sold to other countries around the world.

However, with so many tainted food products in the market, it is quite impossible for innocent consumers to guard against all tainted food.

Tainted food cases in Malaysia are obviously much lesser compared to China and Taiwan. This could be either due to stringent regulations and supervision and heavy penalties or due to extremely loose food safety regulations and supervision, which would mean not being able to detect tainted food even if it had flooded the market.

In the past, authorities would usually conduct sample testing and issue off-shelf order only after the health department of foreign countries had detected safety problems of certain food products. Does such a practice indicate a big loophole in the country’s food inspection and supervision work?

The government needs to strengthen regulations and supervision on food products. Even if they are not able to have perfect control, they must at least minimise the existence possibility of tainted food in the market to protect people’s health.

Protect the goose that lays Thailand’s golden egg
[Thailand, The Nation, 19-09-2013]

Tourism is among Thailand’s highest-earning sectors with 22.3 million inbound tourists and $31.55 billion revenue last year. But tourist safety has become a big concern. Lack of security and safety measures have been blamed for numerous tragic deaths of foreign tourists. Recent cases of theft, violence and deaths in road and boat accidents could have been avoided through the enforcement of existing laws. Tourist safety is now on the national agenda. Regulations and safety precautions are there to be enforced in order to prevent problems from happening.