US President Joe Biden “gaffed” again last week saying, very firmly, that the US is committed to defending Taiwan.
This resulted in a round of tut-tutting among the commentariat as officials “walked back” the president’s remarks. The commentariat, always smarter and more informed than any president, was amused at Biden’s “gaffe.”
As if Biden hadn’t been in some elected office in Washington since the late Cretaceous period and wasn’t well-tutored on US Taiwan policy.
Indeed, as insightful local commentator Courtney Donovan Smith pointed out, he was at a joint news conference with the Japanese prime minister who is a well-known
One of the most delightful developments of the last decade has been the emergence of a whole continent of English-language commentary on Taiwan, rising from the sea like the island itself, along with major changes in the commentary ecosystem.
In the early 2000s, there wasn’t a whole lot out there, outside the mainstream media pieces and occasional long-form thinkpieces in magazines, and what was there was largely male. There were few female writers aside from a number of very good reporters.
<strong>PLURALITY OF VOICES</strong>
Today, by contrast, we have a wealth of skilled and informed female journalists, commentators and writers including
Courtney Donovan Smith isn’t the kind of person you’d expect to have dirt under his fingernails.
Yet between 2011 and 2018, Smith who’s both a businessman and a political commentator nurtured and enjoyed a rooftop garden that covered more than 200 square meters.
Well known in Taichung circles as co-publisher of Compass, a bilingual city guide, and a frequent contributor to ICRT’s news programs, Smith started the garden soon after he moved in to a two-floor apartment in the city’s Situn District (西屯).
“I got a few plants and put a table and some chairs on one of the two