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In current times that emphasize active aging, older adults are often encouraged to participate in interest classes at community centers. Adopting an ethnographic research approach to understand the subjectivities of older mothers, this paper not only sees community centers as a space for older adults for taking interest classes, but also as an infrastructure that defines relationship values. This paper examines the motivations of older mothers in urban Taiwan who have established a routine at a community center. By emphasizing the public space, that is, the values indoctrinated at the community centers, this paper investigates how community center activities offer self-care practices for older women, and how these women embody motherhood by taking care of themselves. This paper expands the notion of motherhood by investigating the subjectivities of older mothers as well as the effects of the global aging discourse on them. This study of urban Taiwan sheds light on understanding the subjectivity of aging mothers in other East Asian cities. The data of this paper were collected through participant observations at community centers, in-depth interviews, and analysis of newspaper archives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The People's Republic of China (PRC), the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the Republic of Singapore represent different types of political regimes and provide a fascinating contrast concerning their performance with regard to the global conflict between liberal democracies and autocracies. This paper examines briefly their common historical backgrounds and provides a detailed analysis of common 'Asian' cultural features and popular support for democracy on the micro-level. It then systematically assesses their performance concerning liberal democracy and quality, governance scores, and socio-economic development. Finally, the reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic are documented showing again specific regime characteristics. We use most recent V-Dem, World Bank, United Nations Development Programme, World Values Surveys and similar data. The conclusions point to possible international consequences and the crucial position of Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do Taiwanese officials view democracy and culture and how do they plan to utilise these two soft power resources as part of advancing the island's international position? Based primarily on interviews conducted with state officials in Taiwan, this paper analyses Taiwan's soft power repositioning in the regional and global soft power competition and examines its advantages and disadvantages. It discusses the institutional and geopolitical constraints Taiwan faces when trying to implement its soft power policy and addresses the internal disagreements over utilising its cultural and democratic achievements. It concludes that despite the utility of soft power in pursuing its foreign policy agenda, Taiwan faces a few major institutional and conceptual obstacles, keeping Taiwanese diplomacy in a transitional period from old thinking about culture and diplomacy while hesitantly evaluating its soft power resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, East Asian regions have gradually grown into the biggest importers and producers of animal products in the world. Among them, Taiwan has become the world's biggest pork exporter since 1990 but the export market suddenly crashed owing to the outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease in 1997. Since then, biosecurity has been increasingly deemed necessary to manage animal lives. While food regime theory has been steadily employed by critical scholars to examine this rapid 'meatification' process in East Asia, it has suffered from 'inclusionary bias', paying less attention to the consequences of market failure. Informed by social studies of economisation and marketisation and work on multispecies, I contend that the studies of global agri-food production need to be more attentive to the issue of disarticulations: the 'dark sides' of network incorporation. With a specific focus on the Taiwanese pork sector after 1997, this paper argues that 'politics of domestication' emerged as markets broke down. I outline three characteristics which have shaped the politics of domestication: disentanglement, marginalisation, and co-becoming. While biosecurity seeks to manage life by separating hog bodies from other species, this paper points out that this enclosure strategy is always subject to threats from within. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I present a framework for GVC‐oriented industrial policy that merges the so‐called GVC perspective and the so‐called developmentalist perspective—the latter of which is a perspective that industrial policy is most often analysed through, but has been somewhat neglected by the GVC perspective. I argue that the GVC perspective too quickly dismisses the relevance of industrial policy in the East Asian development experience, particularly those in South Korea and Taiwan between roughly 1960 and 1990. By drawing on the industrialisation experiences of these two countries, my framework for industrial policy suggests that the GVC perspective's ideas for industrial policy would be strengthened by more clearly acknowledging the continued importance of three observations by the developmentalist perspective: (a) the need for governments in developing countries to bargain with foreign investors for the purpose of domestic industrialisation; (b) policy design should not only focus on increasing exports, but also focus on replacing some imports with domestic production; and (c) linking up to the value chains of transnational corporations based in high‐income countries can bring about some benefits, but ultimately, successful industrialisation necessitates a degree of competing with transnational corporations. State‐owned enterprises have historically played an important role in this respect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysing the agricultural sectors of Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore, this paper examines the capability‐building process that encourages productivity and innovation. It describes and explains the origins and subsequent evolution of three forms of agricultural production system, each generating different farming capabilities and distinct forms of competitive advantages. The paper argues that Taiwan's rice‐oriented agricultural production system stimulates both productivity and innovation, helping Taiwanese farmers raise their income level and living standards. The active deployment of state institutions and a malleable labour force, evidenced in the Malaysian palm oil industry, is effective in raising farming productivity but not the ability to innovate. Singapore's aquaculture‐oriented agricultural production system is somewhat useful in stimulating productivity and innovation. Yet the city‐state's inherent lack of space and open international trade regime have circumscribed the potential of its aquaculture industry. It now relies on the regional ethnic Chinese business networks to expand the aquaculture industry's knowledge base and its industrial commons. The principles discussed in this paper provide policy lessons, or at least some initial guidance, for other developing economies aspiring to modernise their agricultural sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the rise of anti-Korean sentiment in contemporary Taiwan particularly at the turn of the 2010s. It moves beyond conceptualizing emotion as psychological status to conceive anti-Korean sentiment as a cultural text that debunks the complexity of emotion as an active agent of collective (un)consciousness. Specifically, the paper considers anti-Korean sentiment in Taiwan as an affective space where young Taiwanese demonstrate their active engagement in (re)locating Taiwan in the global imaginative map and their struggle for national identity in the midst of increasing geopolitical tensions in East Asia. Instead of seeing anti-Korean sentiment from an international relations perspective, this paper studies anti-Korean sentiment from a bottom-up perspective through in-depth interviews with young Taiwanese who are actively engaging with anti-Korean discussions and explore various ways that anti-Korean sentiment mediates and transforms imaginative relations between Taiwan and Korea and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by Japanese faith groups, organic food production has witnessed surprising growth in East Asian countries, such as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, over the past two decades. The rapid expansion of East Asian trans‐national organic food production networks is closely linked with religious practices and beliefs, such as ahimsa (non‐killing). The complexities of transnational organic production networks in East Asia cannot be adequately captured by the existing literature on "conventionalisation of organic agriculture," which repeatedly debates the extent to which capitalism intrudes on the social and biophysical dimensions of farming. I argue that this simplified and binary debate tends to treat the organic market as an unquestioned, stabilised, and universalised artefact. Less attention has been paid to questions such as, how do alternative food markets come into being, stabilise or get crushed? Inspired by the social studies of economisation and marketisation (SSEM) approach, this paper urges scholars to move beyond the conventionalisation debate and draws attention to the organic food market‐making practices. Taking inspiration from SSEM thinking, I propose that more emphasis needs to be placed on the performation struggles, which refers to the confrontations between different economic programmes and actors. By drawing attention to the organic market performation struggles in Japan and Taiwan, this paper argues that organic food market‐making is a global heterogeneous assemblage, in which all human and non‐human actants across multi‐scalar geographies, such as trans‐local religious/scientific knowledge, believers, and so on, can contribute to the making and remaking of markets. With reference to qualitative interviews with organic distributors and practitioners, this paper deepens the knowledge of the geographies of marketisation in a global‐relational context. The rapid expansion of East Asian transnational organic food production networks is closely linked with religious practices and beliefs, such as ahimsa (non‐killing). The complexities of transnational organic production networks in East Asia cannot be adequately captured by the existing literature on "conventionalisation of organic agriculture," which repeatedly debates the extent to which capitalism intrudes on the social and biophysical dimensions of farming. Inspired by the social studies of economisation and marketisation (SSEM) approach, this paper urges scholars to move beyond the conventionalisation debate and draws attention to the organic food market‐making practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies of East Asian welfare regimes focus on similarities between social security schemes. In contrast, this paper explores cross-national variations in public–private pension mixes in six welfare states: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Our research echoes the pension policy analysis of international organisations but takes a step forward with emphasis on the historical and institutional characteristics of the respective pension systems. The analysis identifies three institutional patterns. First, the statist pension system (Taiwan and China) primarily relies on public pensions to provide old-age security, with private pensions playing a rather minor role. Second, in the dualist pension system (Japan and Korea) both public and private pensions work in parallel to ensure retirement income, though a clear security gap exists between workers in the formal and informal economies. Finally, the individualist pension system (Hong Kong and Singapore) is characterised by genuine fully funded individual accounts, emphasising citizens' own responsibilities for ensuring old-age security. These three types of pension systems demonstrate distinct institutional characteristics and policy outcomes, illustrated by the juxtaposition of their institutional structures as well as by the comparison of key indicators collected from government reports and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development statistics. The paper concludes with a theoretical reflection of East Asian pension policies and a diagnosis of the distinct challenges confronted by each of the various pension patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The IT industry developed in the United States and was then transmitted to Japan and further to Taiwan, South Korea, and China. Adopting the 'Flying Geese development' model as its analytical framework, this paper examines the development of the IT industry and the changes in the exports and imports of the five economies. This paper estimated comparable time series data on the production, export, and import of IT goods and IT services separately for the five economies. It found that the US has already reached the reverse import stage for IT goods while East Asian economies are at the export stage. Furthermore, only the US exports IT services to the other four. It also provides an econometric analysis of the mechanism of international transmission of the IT industry. This paper also takes into account foreign direct investment, OEM, and mobility of IT specialists into the analysis and refers to the possibility of leapfrogging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: For some time the Olympics have enjoyed a relatively cosy, and quite unsurprising, relationship with Physical Education and its practitioners. Yet, as academics continue their critiques of all matters Olympic, this seemingly symbiotic partnership is being placed under much closer scrutiny. The debates are typically orientated around several key concerns, namely, the vagaries of Olympic discourse, the implicit assumptions that align Olympic idealism with ‘good’ moral education, the relevance of Olympic values in young peoples' lives, the Olympic industry's politicizing/colonizing of educational domains, and the utility of Olympic ideals for affecting social, cultural, and (physical) educational change. One other discussion thread, which we add to in this paper, has been the (in)congruencies between Olympic idealism and non-Western cultural contexts and educational frameworks. Combined, the scholarly voices essentially encourage theorists and practitioners to approach the relationship between education and the Olympics with care. Context and curriculum overview: Cognizant of these contentions, this paper exhibits an Olympic education curriculum for first-year undergraduate students enrolled within a provincial Taiwanese University's Liberal Arts programme. We detail three tentative themes around which an Olympic education curriculum might be constructed: Peace, Multiculturalism, and Global sensibilities. These particular themes are concomitant with Olympic idealism, but also align with contemporary East Asian Liberal Arts frameworks. In our curriculum design, the emphasis is on developing an Olympic education that not only introduces students to broader global ideas (e.g. universality and cosmopolitan citizenry), but that respects and reflects national/localized specificities (e.g. Asian philosophical traditions and their legacies in educational institutions). Considerations: The paper stresses the need to further Olympic debates outside the traditional domains of sport and Physical Education, and continue the challenge to Western-orientated sport pedagogies. Our intention is to create a strong cross-cultural study Olympic-inspired Liberal Arts programme that may better link tertiary students in Taiwan with key sport institutions in East Asia, and also throughout the wider communities around the world. We envision aspects of our course material may hopefully serve as a useful reference for other teachers and provideablueprint for future curricula that might challenge Western-Olympic education orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Journal of Family Therapy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Soochow Journal of Political Science is the property of Soochow Journal of Political Science and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Shanghai Fish Market (1936), initiated by Republican China's Ministry of Industry, was briefly a linchpin for producers and distributors, facilitating state intervention in the supply chain of the treaty port city. The market's modernist design by Su, Yang & Lei Architects departed from the Beaux-Arts-inspired practices often associated with Nationalist China's self-presentation. Influenced by foreign precedents, it incorporated rationalized trading procedures into its spatial layout. This article examines the market's construction, which was guided by fishery expertise and aimed to harness natural resources for societal and national benefits. Technopolitical dynamics surrounding the reconfiguration of food provisioning logistics generated power struggles among stakeholders at the local and international levels. Despite the obstacles that constantly challenged the technocrats' ambition to revolutionize the fishery industry, the Shanghai Fish Market's historical and architectural significance lies in its efforts to integrate the built and natural environments into a national system of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically reviews the national innovation systems of the four little tigers in East Asia, namely Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea, in fostering R&D and technological research. A national innovation system is characterised by the interactions between the state, industries and universities in promoting innovation. This article attempts to explore such interactions in the four societies, paying particular attention to the role of higher education. Specifically, university–industry collaboration is the main body of analysis. Drawing from comparative perspectives, this article finally maps out the national innovation systems of East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main purpose of this paper is to determine the relative position (distances) of East Asian countries (including South East Asia) within their own geographical area and in relation to the rest of the world. For this purpose, Balassa's (1965) 'revealed comparative advantage' (RCA) in exports will be used to assess trade performance and economic growth. We use multidimensional scaling to ascertain our contentions. First, East Asian countries are forming a 'flying geese' formation whose leader is Japan followed by Korea and Taiwan and further behind China and the ASEAN countries. Second, this flying geese flock in terms of RCA ranks is paralleled with a similar flying geese formation in terms of economic development. Furthermore the mapping of 100 countries (and a close-up of 45 countries) tell us as to how all relevant countries are positioned in terms of 14 industrial sectors (here we also used factor analysis to classify these sectors). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precisely because public health crises are uncertain, complex and have multiple dimensions, deeper institutional state capacity is needed. This article develops an approach to thinking about state capacity by incorporating time as a key component of a refurbished idea of state capacity. This reorientation helps us understand the specific mechanisms, especially of learning – that were crucial for the success of East Asian cases in managing the COVID-19 epidemic. Previous exposure to a health crisis – a critical juncture – activates learning capacity via two distinct mechanisms, one a political route of that restores public trust and renews the social contract, and the second through a functional route leading to administrative capacity building necessitated by a complex and multiplex crisis that crosses a variety of boundaries. Learning that builds coordinating state capacity is therefore needed. This article applies these ideas to understanding the successful pathway cases of South Korea and Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous studies of do-not-resuscitate (DNR) or do-not-intubate (DNI) orders in stroke patients have primarily been conducted in North America or Europe. However, characteristics associated with DNR/DNI orders in stroke patients in Asia have not been reported. Methods: Based on the Taiwan Stroke Registry, this nationwide cross-sectional study enrolled hospitalized stroke patients from 64 hospitals between 2006 and 2020. We identified characteristics associated with DNR/DNI orders using a two-level random effects model. Results: Among the 114,825 patients, 5531 (4.82%) had DNR/DNI orders. Patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) had the highest likelihood of having DNR/DNI orders (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.76, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.61–1.93), followed by patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), and patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) had the lowest likelihood (aOR 0.53, 95% CI 0.43–0.66). From 2006 to 2020, DNR/DNI orders increased in all three types of stroke. In patients with AIS, women were significantly more likely to have DNR/DNI orders (aOR 1.23, 95% CI 1.15–1.32), while patients who received intravenous alteplase had a lower likelihood (aOR 0.74, 95% CI 0.65–0.84). Patients with AIS who were cared for by religious hospitals (aOR 0.55, 95% CI 0.35–0.87) and patients with SAH who were cared for by medical centers (aOR 0.40, 95% CI 0.17–0.96) were significantly less likely to have DNR/DNI orders. Conclusions: In Taiwan, DNR/DNI orders increased in stroke patients between 2006 and 2020. Hospital characteristics were found to play a significant role in the use of DNR/DNI orders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to develop an integrated policy index system using a Surface Measure of Overall Performance ( SMOP) approach to comprehensively evaluate and compare the policy input and social output of the retirement payment system in urban and rural China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. With this, a tool may be developed to help insightfully examine the old-age income policies and appropriately, and perhaps theoretically in the future, categorize the types of retirement provisions or social security policies as a whole in the East and West. The results indicate that, particularly in urban China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, a low level of de-familization and medium and high levels of gender equality are the common features of these five pensions in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. Furthermore, it is found that the retirement provisions in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan can well be divided into two groups based on the level of pension right protection and illustrate different characteristics between them accordingly. In addition, policy implications and suggestions for further reforms of these retirement payment schemes are elaborated in the light of the findings of this policy index system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the role of development management on global competitiveness in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Development management has emerged in response to improvement in public service delivery, public institution building, and human resource development in the service of the internationally accepted development goals, as the stated by the United Nations Division for Public Administration and Development Management. However, most papers employing this approach seem to stay in the theoretical discussions, and rarely apply empirical evidence to specific projects, programs, or areas. Employing the competitiveness index developed by World Economic Forum (WEF) and the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), this research connects the toolkit approach to competitiveness in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. This research finds that all of these countries have adopted a series of toolkit strategies to promote their global competitiveness. These toolkits can maintain consistent growth. In terms of theory and practice, this research employs cases-comparison strategies to reveal the theoretical components of development management, and thus advance the knowledge in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade bilateral relations between Japan and Taiwan have been strained over the issue of tuna fishery management. In 2005, when Taiwan was still under the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration, Japan proposed punitive measures against Taiwan's tuna industries in an international fisheries management body for the Atlantic Ocean. The DPP government took a pragmatic approach, solving the tuna crisis without harming Japan-Taiwan relations, as evidenced by the fact that during the tuna disputes visa-free privilege was granted to Taiwan nationals and the Japanese government openly stated that Taiwan has been a main security objective for Japan and the US. In this paper the Japan-led tuna sanction in 2005 is used as a case study to gauge overall bilateral relations thus far in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The island of Taiwan has successfully managed 60 years of fast-paced economic growth. Taiwan is a demonstrably resilient player in the global economy, while also maintaining high levels of income equality. However, there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding whether the factors that have enabled and sustained the Taiwanese development project thus far will be an adequate means of managing the contemporary challenges facing the island. Taiwan may be becoming increasingly vulnerable to global economic conditions, and the island's future seems also to be increasingly tied to developments in the Chinese mainland. This paper examines the prospects for a continuing Taiwanese growth paradigm from both a cultural and an economic perspective and finds reason for optimism. This optimism is contingent on the strength of international export markets and prudent management of cross-Strait relations with the Chinese mainland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Old-age income security has become one of the most important social policy issues in two East Asian emerging welfare states, South Korea and Taiwan, as they transform at a remarkable pace into societies with a representation of older people approaching that of western countries. During the last two decades, the two countries have developed different forms of social protection for older people. South Korea has expanded social insurance pensions with means-tested benefits, whereas Taiwan has introduced flat-rate old-age allowance programmes that exclude the rich rather than target the poor. much has been written about these programmes, but their actual performance in reducing old-age poverty has not been thoroughly examined. This paper analyses the anti-poverty effect of these programmes, firstly by describing recent developments in the two countries, and secondly by examining headcount poverty rates and the size and incidence of the 'poverty gap' using nationally-representative micro-household datasets. We argue that while the programmes have increasingly reduced old-age income security, the different policy choices have resulted in distinctive welfare outcomes in the two countries. In the final section of the article, we discuss the long-term implications of the recent policy reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores social stratification and social inequality in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan by comprehensively analyzing the effects of occupation on one's class status. In this paper, the author examines the effects that a person's occupational conditions, such as occupation (interpreted narrowly), employment status, type of employment contract (standard or non-standard), and company size, have on his/her individual income and class consciousness, and how these effects vary within East Asian societies on the basis of each society's unique labor market structure and local institutions. The analysis of the 2005 Social Stratification and Social Mobility (SSM) survey data led to the following findings. On the whole, the effects of occupational conditions on income and class consciousness are similar within all these societies. However, the relative impacts of these conditions differ considerably. While occupation (narrowly interpreted) has predominant effects in Taiwan, the effects of company size and type of employment contract are also considerable in Japan, and partly so in Korea. It is also notable that in the case of Japanese males, company size and type of employment contract have significant effects on class consciousness, even after the effects of individual income are controlled. These effects can be attributed to some factors that are unique to the Japanese management system, such as career-long employment and the wage seniority system that are usually offered to the standard male employees of large companies. From these findings, we can conclude that we should focus on local institutional factors as well as global factors for a better understanding of present-day social stratification and social inequality in East Asian societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the mandated reporting of key performance indicators by public agencies to public accountability authorities in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The author suggests that the existence of these indicators in public agencies' annual reports and budget papers does not necessarily lead to their effective use for decision making. The actual utilization of these indicators for making decisions should be described as careful and cautious. They are still affective because they give symbolic benefits to the government.

This study investigates the relationship between environmental performance and financial performance in both linear and quadratic functions in an emerging East Asian market. Accounting-based and market-based measures are utilized to capture two different aspects of financial performance. We extend the existing literature by considering a multidimensional aggregate construct of environmental performance and finding empirical evidence of a U-shaped relationship between environmental performance and financial performance. Accordingly, an increase in environmental performance deteriorates financial performance in the beginning, but after its threshold has been reached, the effect reverses and environmental performance ultimately serves profitability and market value. Our findings would be of interest to firms, investors, and policymakers by emphasizing the role of environmental performance in the improvement of financial performance in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study used a water volume-based sampling method in combination with an active fog collector (modified Caltech design) to collect fog water samples during three intensive operation periods at two mountainous study sites in Taiwan. The new setup employed a sample-volume controlled system that dosed the fog water into 10 ml aliquots, which were then collected with a commercial laboratory auto-sampler. We collected fog water samples about 10 times more frequently (median sampling period 3 minutes and 45 seconds) than with traditional sampling schemes. Notably, up to over 200 samples were collected within a single fog event lasting 13 hours. The results showed that the intra-event variabilities of pH (up to over 2 units), conductivity (range almost 1000 µS cm-1), and ion concentrations ere generally higher than the inter-event variability. The variabilities exhibited particularly fast changes during phases of fog onset and dissolution; in contrast, the centers of the passing clouds at our mountain research sites were rather homogeneous. Overall, our new method showed a marked improvement in sampling speed over traditional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the heart of corporate governance reforms in East Asia is board re-composition legislation aiming to alleviate the prevalent agency conflicts. The principal–principal agency conflicts associated with controlling shareholders are prevalent in China, Korea and Taiwan while the managerial entrenchment along the declining role of (main) bank is a concern in Japan. Countries such as Korea have actively initiated reform in contrast to Japan, which has adopted a conservative approach. Taiwan and China take a more moderate approach that lies between active reform and conservatism. While the reforms have shifted the governance system from the traditional relationship-based insider model towards the outsider model, empirical research evaluating the effectiveness of the reforms has been indecisive. The remaining challenges the region faces, regardless of the approach to board re-composition reforms, are ensuring effective implementation of these reforms to enable the independence of the board so that it may execute its monitoring function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2019, the government of Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage, the first to do so in Asia. Yet, despite its celebration as a sign of liberal progress, legalization appears at odds with the results of referendums that show a majority of Taiwan citizens oppose LGBTQ acceptance, following a steady decline in tolerance for LGBTQ people in Taiwan. To explain this, this article adopts a Goffmanian micro-sociological approach to interrogate LGBTQ experiences of stigma and discrimination in their networks. Using narrative and go-along interviews with LGBTQ people in Kaohsiung, Taiwan in 2019, this article shows (1) latent forms of discrimination in families and at workplaces, (2) the intensification of discriminatory scrutiny within these spaces in the wake of legalization, (3) mental health consequences, and (4) social enclaves that offer some reprieve from discriminatory pressures. This article identifies a need for greater resource allocation to create safe spaces for members of the LGBTQ community and anti-discrimination policies to combat the capillary forms of discrimination that have arisen after same-sex marriage legalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Provide a comprehensive overview of the solidarity in health and long-term care sectors. • The overall direction of reforms is developing toward universal coverage. • Reforms might be possible without overall consensus on solidarity. • The pay-as-you-go financial arrangements will require strong intergenerational solidarity. • The capacity of informal caregiving of family could be considered. Different from the development of health sector, there are significant variations in the underpinnings and formation timings of solidarity-based long-term care (LTC) systems. This paper compares the historical developmental trajectories and identifies factors of the transitions of the actual practices of solidarity - the scope of community, the scope of interdependence, and the costs of joint action - in the health and LTC sectors in four East Asian countries: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. Comparative policy analysis. Healthcare tends to be considered a universal value such that its boundary should include all residents, while LTC is closer to an entitlement of citizens. The differing solidarity reflects path dependency as well as historical legacies and policy diffusion between the health and LTC sectors. In both health and LTC sectors, the costs involved in collective service provision are not distributed evenly between generations. Centralized governance is a prevailing feature of health and LTC sectors in East Asia, allowing solidarity-based institutional arrangements to be established without an overall sense of solidarity. The relationship between solidarity and health and LTC systems is complex and dynamic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The May and June precipitation (known as early summer precipitation; ESP) is an important water resource for South China and Taiwan (SCTW). This study explores the similarities and differences between the Community Earth System Model Version 2‐Large Ensemble (CESM2‐LE) and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) multi‐model ensemble in simulating the characteristics of ESP over SCTW in the present day, and in projecting the related changes at the end of 21st century. For the present‐day simulation, our results showed that CESM2‐LE and CMIP6 outperformed each other for different examined features. CESM2‐LE was slightly better than CMIP6 in capturing the magnitude of ESP over SCTW, while CMIP6 was more capable of representing the interdecadal shifts in the occurrence timing of the ESP maximum. Both the CESM2‐LE and CMIP6 projections indicated that ESP will be enhanced and the phase of maximum ESP will be delayed, from peaking around mid‐June in the present to late June in the future. These changes can be attributed to an enhanced short‐wave trough over southwest China and a late intensification of the southwesterly wind ahead of the short‐wave trough, which help transport more moisture from the north of the South China Sea to SCTW, particularly in mid‐to‐late June. In addition, relative to CMIP6, CESM2‐LE showed less uncertainty in the projected increase in ESP and phase delay. This finding highlights that model diversity may play a more important role than internal variability in attributing the uncertainty of projected changes in ESP over SCTW. Key Points: Early summer rainfall over South China and Taiwan is projected to be enhanced, with a delayed peak occurred in late June in the futureInternal variability is less important than model diversity in changing the sign (increase or decrease) of projected early summer rainfallRoles of atmospheric circulation modulations on the projected changes in early summer rainfall are identified [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: East Asia has high suicide rates but low prevalence of mental disorders. We examined the associations between prior lifetime mental disorders (mood disorders, anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, and impulse control disorders) and subsequent suicidal behaviors (suicidal ideation and attempts in the general population and suicide plans, planned attempts, and unplanned attempts in suicidal ideators) in Taiwan. Methods: This survey applied the World Mental Health Survey Composite International Diagnostic Interview to a population representative sample of noninstitutionalized adults between 2003 and 2005. Odds ratios (ORs) obtained using discrete-time survival analysis were used to estimate population attributable fractions (PAFs) of suicidal behaviors due to lifetime mental disorders. Results: Lifetime mental illness was a significant risk factor for subsequent suicidal behaviors (except unplanned attempts among ideators) despite the relatively low prevalence of mental disorders in people with suicidality (16.1%–35.0%). Each diagnosis increased the odds of suicidal ideation. In terms of acting on suicidal ideation, mood disorders were most strongly associated with having plans (OR = 10.0; 95% confidence interval, CI 4.3–21.1), whereas substance use disorders most strongly with either planned (OR = 27.3; 95% CI 6.3–118.5) or unplanned attempts (OR = 14.5; 95% CI 1.7–121.5). PAFs of all mental disorders on suicidality lay between 20 and 30% (except 11% of unplanned attempts among ideators). Mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders had higher PAFs than impulse control disorders. Conclusions: In addition to mood disorders, considering anxiety and substance use disorders is essential in devising population-based suicide prevention strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, little is known about the past evolutionary trajectories of rare and endangered orchids native to mainland China, Japan, and Korea (the CJK region). In this study, we focus on two endangered orchids, Cypripedium japonicum (present in the three countries) and C. formosanum (endemic to Taiwan), to understand the divergence/speciation models that would have been operating in this group, including genetic diversity, geographic structure, and colonization pathways across the region. Using a combination of five cpDNA regions, we reconstructed phylogenetic trees and investigated the genetic diversity/structure of 20 populations. Ecological niche modeling was used to gain insight into the paleodistribution and dispersal corridors at the Last Glacial Maximum and to survey climatic niche differences. Populations from mainland China + Korea, Japan, and Taiwan formed three distinct monophyletic lineages and were placed into separate genetic clusters, agreeing with geographic barriers and species boundaries. Populations of C. japonicum in mainland China harbored the highest diversity, suggesting the presence of multiple glacial refugia. The Korean populations would have originated from either western/central or eastern China, probably using a dispersal corridor across the East China Sea shelf. The divergence of C. formosanum is proposed under an allopatric speciation model, also highly influenced by a climate niche shift. In the context of previous studies, a deep divergence in cpDNA sequences between Chinese + Korean and Japanese populations of C. japonicum may be taken as an example of the speciation events of the CJK flora since the late Neogene that have led to its current species richness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrant political participation is a central challenge to many Western democracies. This article, by building on the case of marriage migrants' political participation in Taiwan, offers food for thought on East Asia, a region of the world that has been neglected in most academic debates on this theme. Applying "flat ontology" and drawing from a mixed methodology, involving content analysis of press releases published on political party websites and in-depth interviews with marriage migrants, this article offers a timely account of how migrant political integration and participation is a complex process. It depends not only on broader political opportunities, social, legal, cultural factors shaping political integration processes and individual political values, but also on the specificity of migrants' identities and subjectivities, including gender, perception of security, a migrant's family background, their parental status, life stage, and their perception of self in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been much debate over the micro-level relationship between employment situations and fertility in Europe and Northern America. However, related research in East Asia is scant, although countries in this region have some of the lowest fertility rates in the world. Moreover, most studies analyse the employment--fertility relationship from a static perspective and only for women, which underemphasises life course dynamics and gender heterogeneity of employment careers and their fertility implications. Drawing on retrospective data from the 2017 Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS), this study explores women's and men's career trajectories between ages 18 and 40 in Taiwan using sequence cluster analyses. It also examines how career variations associate with different timing and quantum of birth. Empirical results show that economically inactive women experience faster motherhood transitions and have more children by age 40 than women with stable full-time careers. For men, having an unstable career associates with slower fatherhood transitions and a lower number of children. For both genders, self-employed people are the earliest in parenthood transitions and have the highest number of children by midlife. Our findings demonstrate sharp gender contrasts in employment careers and their diversified fertility implications in low-fertility Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genus Pseudophanias Raffray, 1890 is discovered in Japan and Taiwan Island for the first time, with three new species: P. yaimensis Inoue, Nomura & Yin, sp. nov., P. nakanoi Inoue, Nomura & Yin, sp. nov., and P. excavatus Inoue, Nomura & Yin, sp. nov. It is the fifth tmesiphorine genus known from Japan and the first from Taiwan. The genus Chandleriella Hlaváč, 2000 is placed as a junior synonym of Pseudophanias, resulting in the following new combinations: P. termitophilus (Bryant, 1915), comb. nov., and P. yunnanicus (Yin, 2019), comb. nov. A list of world species, and a key to East and South Asian representatives of Pseudophanias is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to investigate the efficacy of the Vietnamese government's policy to use international labour migration, specifically domestic workers, as a tool for the economic development of women. Several context-specific factors, including social and cultural, were found to limit the size and duration of the development impact of such a policy. The article concludes that international labour migration cannot be a substitute for government policies and programmes supporting skill development and industrial investments in the poorer provinces of Vietnam, which are home to many of the labour migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background and Aims The genus Asarum sect. Heterotropa (Aristolochiaceae) probably experienced rapid diversification into 62 species centred on the Japanese Archipelago and Taiwan, providing an ideal model for studying island adaptive radiation. However, resolving the phylogeny of this plant group using Sanger sequencing-based approaches has been challenging. To uncover the radiation history of Heterotropa , we employed a phylogenomic approach using double-digested RAD-seq (ddRAD-seq) to yield a sufficient number of phylogenetic signals and compared its utility with that of the Sanger sequencing-based approach. Methods We first compared the performance of phylogenetic analysis based on the plastid matK and trnL–F regions and nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (nrITS), and phylogenomic analysis based on ddRAD-seq using a reduced set of the plant materials (83 plant accessions consisting of 50 species, one subspecies and six varieties). We also conducted more thorough phylogenomic analyses including the reconstruction of biogeographic history using comprehensive samples of 135 plant accessions consisting of 54 species, one subspecies, nine varieties of Heterotropa and six outgroup species. Key Results Phylogenomic analyses of Heterotropa based on ddRAD-seq were superior to Sanger sequencing-based approaches and resulted in a fully resolved phylogenetic tree with strong support for 72.0–84.8 % (depending on the tree reconstruction methods) of the branches. We clarified the history of Heterotropa radiation and found that A. forbesii , the only deciduous Heterotropa species native to mainland China, is sister to the evergreen species (core Heterotropa) mostly distributed across the Japanese Archipelago and Taiwan. Conclusions The core Heterotropa group was divided into nine subclades, each of which had a narrow geographic distribution. Moreover, most estimated dispersal events (22 out of 24) were between adjacent areas, indicating that the range expansion has been geographically restricted throughout the radiation history. The findings enhance our understanding of the remarkable diversification of plant lineages in the Japanese Archipelago and Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to test key social capital indicators in a disaster context by considering the bonding and bridging types of social capital. Using the East Asian Social Survey, this study chooses three behavioural/cognitive elements of social capital—social trust, voluntary association membership, and personal networks—and divides them into bonding and bridging social capital, in‐group and out‐group trust, homogeneous and heterogeneous membership, and strong and weak ties to test their effects on self‐evaluated community resilience to natural hazards. The results showed that social trust and personal networks had strong positive effects, but the effect of voluntary association membership was positive in societies with high rates of membership (Japan and South Korea) and negative in a society with a low rate of membership (Taiwan). Furthermore, while bonding social capital generally showed a stronger effect than bridging social capital in East Asia, a society with more frequent and intense disasters (Japan) showed a strong effect of heterogenous membership on self‐evaluated community resilience. This study connects two aspects of social capital studies—the elements and the types of social capital—and the findings imply that the relationship between social capital and community resilience may have some mediator variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the effectiveness of policy creating science parks is evaluated with respect to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Science parks created to support innovation and regional growth often target productivity gains through agglomeration economies. However, spatial proximity of firms may also stimulate selection, less competitive firms being forced to exit, a cluster of high-productivity, surviving firms being observed at the regional level. Empirical studies also show that high- or low-productivity firms or both may spatially sort into a region. Using estimates of firm-level total factor productivity, the science park sorting and selection behavior of Taiwanese and South Korean SMEs is analyzed. The results indicate heterogeneity in location choice of SMEs arising from the economic environment of science parks. Overall, the empirical evidence suggests that science parks can generate real productivity improvements if the incentives are reinforced through national-level policies; otherwise, such incentives may end up protecting inefficient firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new species of semi-terrestrial sesarmid crab of the genus Geosesarma De Man, 1892, is described from central Taiwan. Geosesarma mirum sp. nov. is distinct in possessing a strong transverse crest on the inner surface of the male chela and a diagnostic male first gonopod which is relatively long and stout, with the distal chitinous part broad and spatuliform. Like most Geosesarma species, G. mirum sp. nov. has large eggs and direct development, contrasting with the only other species known from Taiwan, G. hednon Ng, Liu and Schubart, 2004, which has small eggs and planktotrophic larvae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To estimate proportions of married couples aged 30 to 59 years who face simultaneous demands from elderly parents and children in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, and the effects on couples’ life and marital satisfaction. Method: Using data from the 2006 East Asian Social Survey, proportions of sandwiched couples were estimated using three definitions: co-residence, co-residence or nearby residence, and co-residence or frequent provision of financial/physical assistance. Logistic regression models were used to assess the effects on life and marital satisfaction. Results: Three-generational co-residence is more common in Taiwan and Japan (24.3% and 21.4%), whereas co-residence or provision for both generations is higher in Taiwan and Korea (53.7% and 44.5%). The strain of being sandwiched is associated with lower life and marital satisfaction only among women. Discussion: Intergenerational transfers of care play a major role in elderly support in East Asia but take a toll on the well-being of married women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bujan, N.; Cox, R.; Lin, L.-C.; Ducrocq, C., and Hwung, H.-H., 2018. Semiautomatic digital clast sizing of a cobble beach, Nantian, Taiwan. Surface sediment data is scarce for beaches that are made of material close to the cobble size range, partly because of the difficulty of direct sampling for sediment size analysis. An object-detection tool for semiautomatic analysis of clast geometry, originally developed for riverbeds, was applied to the coarse-clastic beach of Nantian, Taiwan. Comparison of the software with digital point counts for the common size percentiles D5, D16, D30, D50, D70, D84, and D95 indicated an average coefficient of determination of 0.990 over 10 test pictures. The surface sediment was digitally sampled at three cross-shore locations along the beach: near the shoreline, on the steep part of the beach face, and on the beach crest. Clast-size distributions, including clast area and elongation ratio, were computed from the geometry of 1000 clasts for each location and the cross-shore variance was captured. The combination of sediment characteristics with topographic measurements showed significant relations between bidimensional size and elongation of the sediments and morphology of the beach. The method can only access the clast geometry that is visible on pictures and cannot describe the full tridimensional shape. Despite this limitation, semiautomatic digital sizing is well suited to coarse-clastic beaches and has the potential to increase the understanding of coastal sedimentology over a wide range of sediment sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bipolar disorder (BD) affects a significant proportion of Taiwanese individuals (Weissman et al., 1996; Yang, Yeh, & Hwu, 2012). Psychotropic medications are typically the mainstay of treatment for BD, and there is an abundance of international research on biological etiology and medication options. However, there is comparatively little research on psychosocial aspects of BD, including how it is understood and managed within families. As culture provides the context in which psychiatric disease is managed, there is a need to identify distinct Chinese psychosocial perspectives that might shed light on intervention options. This research explored how Taiwanese patients and family members comprehend and cope with BD. A sample of 42 participants, including 20 Taiwanese patients diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder-I (BD-I) for at least 4 years, and 22 family members, participated in separate interviews on explanatory models of illness. Qualitative thematic analysis focused on features that were distinct from those in current Western research literature. Five themes were identified that represented Taiwanese conceptualizations of BD, notions of etiology, views regarding treatment, and the difficulties in managing the disorder. Participants used Chinese language terms and descriptions of BD that reflected greater concerns about irritability, anger, and family conflict than about other symptoms, and participants also emphasized characterological trait descriptions of the condition. Their responses reflected their acceptance of lifelong family responsibility for caretaking, clashing beliefs regarding biomedical versus traditional Chinese medical and spiritual models of etiology and cure, profound concerns about the effects of psychiatric medication on the liver and kidney systems, and a focus on stress rather than genetic or biological models of etiology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]