Problems Over-Developing A Bicycle Paradise

Map of New Development in the Rift Valley

A couple pieces have caught my eye over at The View From Taiwan, and I thought I could weave cycling into the discussion.

Two articles in particular stand out. The first involves the rapidly expanding development of Taiwan's East Coast. And the other highlights recent criticism of a bill that would critically impinge on the rights of Taiwan's First Peoples.

Michael does such an excellent job with many of the details, so I will simply expand upon the ideas here to better demonstrate how these initiatives impact and will be impacted by cycling and bicycle tourism.

Much of the hoopla surrounding the recent Taiwan Cup and Taiwan's International Bike Festival involved showcasing Taiwan as a cyclist's paradise. Although we each have our own idea of what cycling paradise entails, the thrust of the Taiwan Tourism Bureau's presentation revolved around the amenities and activities specifically constructed to cater to the bicycle tourist. Many of the projects put on display were the result of a tourism building boom that had given the Ma administration plenty to crow about, and moreover, these projects have provided construction and development companies a fertile playground to capitalize on the deliberate transformation of Taiwan from a leader in technology and industry into a tourist Mecca.

Although I support expanding rider support all over Taiwan, the country's penchant for unchecked development, illegal construction, kickbacks , payoffs and creative zoning threatens to not only discourage visitors who are looking to enjoy Taiwan's rugged wildernesses, but it also threatens the collective rights of Taiwan's indigenous inhabitants, many of whom own the lands along the Rift Valley between Hualien and Taidong.

The Taipei Times reports:

Amis representative Konon Panay (古孟巴奈) said the central government did not define and grant Aboriginal lands, but it has been depriving Aborigines of their lands in the name of development.

Under the government of the Republic of China (ROC), the often correlative concepts of "development" and "eco-tourism" can be viewed as demonstrative of Taiwan's problematic postcoloniality.

When the Republic of China (ROC) arrived on Taiwan in 1945, the government instituted a program which located Taiwan's Hakka, Hoklo, Pingpu* and Aboriginal communities as "backward" in need of the modernity the ROC claimed to possess. The authoritarian government of the ROC used development programs in an attempt to "modernize" and transform the people of Taiwan into something subjectively better and "improved". Non-Taiwanese were located closest to the civilizing center and Aborigines at the furthest points.

In many ways the ROC scheme reflected pre-existing beliefs of Qing era transformationalism, or the belief that "savages" could be improved if they could learn to act like "humans", as well as the social darwinism that was popular with Sun Yat-sen and his cohorts. Taiwan's Aborigines were believed to be a degraded people who could be improved through the ROC civilizing program.

Many Aborigines were asked to move from traditional villages into "modern" concrete houses. Not only was the move away from traditional homes an attempt to modernize them, but the act can be viewed through the Confucianist lens as an act of taming; of transporting indigenous people through time to near the present and away from the "wilderness", which has been traditionally viewed by Han people as both savage and degraded. Even during the Qing colonial era, farmers along Taiwan's western plain were implored by official decree to "tame/open the wasteland" through farming. These believes reflect the deep connection between traditional Confucian views and official ROC ideology. Emma Teng's book Taiwan's Imagined Geography provides a great read on how these beliefs manifest themselves in official writing on Taiwan's indigenous peoples.

I think these beliefs can be seen from 2008, when Taiwan's current president and Chinese Nationalist standard bearer Ma Ying-jiu addressed a group of Aborigines.

Ma was quoted as saying:

"I see you as humans and as citizens of this city. I'm going to educate you well and do a good job of providing you with opportunities. That's the place from which the attitude of aborigines needs to be adjusted...now that you've come here, you need to play by the rules here..."

The pejorative distance between city and country, savage and non-savage, degraded and elevated are on full display with Ma clearly envisioning himself in the position of the civilizer.

The moves for development groups to go in and develop the indigenous lands along the Rift Valley while stripping or weakening the rights of indigenes to manage their own development creates a system of patronage, where the indigenous peoples must rely on the development groups and their political benefactors for economic support. Many of Taiwan's development schemes are not only owned by outside investors, but often many of the only jobs created are in service or entertainment where indigenous people are requited to perform quasi-traditional performances for the pleasure of tourists thus becoming the exotic object of desire on their own ancestral land while most of the profits go elsewhere. I recall "Aboriginal dancing" being one of the "highlights" promoted to visiting journalists for the Taiwan International Bike Festival.

The prospect of cycling tourism has become one of the driving forces behind much of this development; development that is neither sustainable, tenable, ethical or just.

For these reasons I would recommend cyclists ask for cycling development in Taiwan with a lighter touch to best enjoy Taiwan. I hope those people who arrive in Taiwan on a government paid junket or for cycling tourism can covey the belief that often less is more and we care about more than simply bike trails or hot springs. We care about the entire cycling environment including how the land was acquired and how much local involvement goes into planning cycling infrastructure. For now many of the decisions on bicycle infrastructure and development are made by politicians, developers and their corporate backers.

* Pingpu existed under the Japanese, but were incorporated into Hakka and Hoklo groups under the ROC by 1953.

ADDED:

Food For Thought: Two thoughtful articles about tourism from Ryan at Savage Minds. Article 1 and Article 2

Travel Writers Needed To Put Taiwan Cycling Propaganda To Print

--- [ PRESS Trip Announcement ]---

Taiwan Tourism Bureau is organizing the Cycling & Lifestyle press tour


The U.S. office of Taiwan Tourism Bureau (TTB) invites professional travel writers on assignment based in the U.S. to join their Nov. Cycling and Lifestyle Press Tour. The writer will be traveling in Taiwan for about 12 days (tentatively from Nov. 1 to Nov. 12, 2011). Please review the requirements before applying for a position on this trip.

--- Taiwan Cycling & Lifestyle PRESS TRIP FOR U.S. WRITERS ON ASSIGNMENT only--

The press tour will focus on introducing the coastal cycling/biking routes in Taiwan and offering participating press a personal experiences of Taiwanese healthy lifestyle - including hot spring/spa experience, Taiwan tea plantation visit, and Chinese herbal cooking and food tasting.

All participating writers will be attending the opening of annual road cycling tournament "Taiwan Cup" on Nov. 6th in Hua-Lien and have an opportunities to meet/interview with international cycling teams from the China, the U.S., Spain, France, Romania, Colombia, Norway, Australia, Netherland, Ukraine, Japan and Taiwan.

The adventurous tour will include one-day visit of the well-known Taiwan brand bicycle manufacture factory (Giant or Merida). Participating writers will be able to see the behind the scene detail of bicycle production process.

Taiwan cycling/biking & lifestyle tours are considered adventures at a level above, and the lodges we stay at are exquisite. Guests eat at superb restaurants in each trip area. Our daily activity is majestic and scenic. Our tours are catered to both beginners and intermediate adventurers.

REQUIREMENTS: To qualify to join Taiwan Cycling/biking & Lifestyle Press Tour on one of its world-class adventures, you must be a professional travel writer with a signed letter of assignment.

WHAT'S INCLUDED: TTB will cover writers' domestic and international round trip tickets, land costs, lodging and food for a qualified travel writer on assignment.

CONTACT: Travel writers meeting the requirement should contact Joyce Lu, joyce@intertrend.com
Joshua Samuel Brown
Author, Vignettes of Taiwan, Co-Author, Lonely Planet Taiwan 7, Belize 3, Singapore City Guide 8, Greater Mekong 2, Singapore Encounter 2, Central America on a Shoestring 7, Taiwan 8, Belize 4

Follow me online @ "Snarky Tofu" ~ http://josambro.blogspot.com/
USA Mobile ~ # 413 772 9468

_______________________

Big Brother Inc. Taiwan's Tourism Bureau... Working For You?

Cycling in Taiwan is just one of the many portals Taiwan's government is using to promote recreational cycling and bicycle tourism in Taiwan. Although this site was posted a few years ago (2008), it is still relevant and many riders may still find some of the information valuable.

The contents of the site detail five short bike routes and it provides information on transportation, rentals, tourist sites, local fare and route descriptions--things casual riders might appreciate.

This may not be ideal for many of Taiwan's recreational riders who have pushed local cycling culture and expectations far beyond the leisurely routes the Tourism Bureau has listed, but for occasional day trippers and families who decide to simply go for a ride without investing in the cycling lifestyle, this could be very helpful.

On the other side of the coin this site raises some difficult questions regarding the links between the role of government, the interests of private enterprise, and the best interests of the citizen consumer.

Aside from the expected information regarding transportation and tourism services provided by the government, this government run site also uses this space to promote selected businesses. A visitor is directed to links and information for a few select private businesses, hotels and bicycle resources.

" Full House

Located at the Dehua Village Wharf, this 10-room resort hotel commands an unobstructed view of Sun Moon Lake.

The log-cabin style hotel is decorated with oil paintings by the owner. High-ceilinged hallways, soft light, soothing music, and finely crafted wood furniture complete the feeling of simple elegance at this scenic retreat."

In the interest of fairness and transparency, the question should be asked how these businesses, amid many others, were able to be chosen for government promotion and what, if any type of benefits or services, were exchanged quid pro quo.

For almost each route the Taiwan Tourism Bureau advertises for a Giant retailer. Are there any other bicycle shops or rental facilities in the area? How might I get a business listed by the Taiwan Tourism Bureau? How are these routes being planned and selected for promotion? If I owned a business in the area would they promote me?

I have detailed my understanding of the problem HERE.

The need for clarity is a significant point of concern as the chairman of Giant, King Liu, is also a special advisor to President Ma Ying-jiu regarding bicycle infrastructure projects. Although it is not uncommon for governments and private enterprise to cooperate, this relationship begs for the government to embrace greater transparency in its planning and coordination of cycling routes as King Liu's primary responsibility is to the shareholders of Giant Manufacturing Co. Ltd. and not necessarily to the interests of the private citizen.

If we look at other major bicycle projects like Seattle's Burke Gilman Trail, which is maintained by the Seattle Dept. of Parks and Recreation, or in Oregon, the Portland Bureau of Transportation bike trail system, the scope remains squarely on public services and citizen safety rather than providing advertising space for private enterprise.

Although the government might mean well, there are serious ethnical considerations that must be addressed when government and enterprise decide to ride tandem.

Cycling and Taiwan's Tourism Trade Imbalance

Taiwan Insights has a cheery little set of Ma administration talking points regarding Taiwan's expanding role as a tourism center in Asia. And again, the bicycle appears as one of Taiwan's major draws.

Despite the sunny spin this article puts on expanding Taiwan's tourism and the role cycling plays in the government's scheme, there some dark clouds just on the horizon.

At a time when many industries in Taiwan have been hit hard by the worldwide economic slump, Taiwan’s tourism industry has continued to experience double-digit growth and is projected to do even better in the coming year. In 2009, there were 4.4 million foreign tourists visiting Taiwan, a 14.3 percent growth over the number in 2008, ranking No.1 in the Asia-Pacific region.

Currently, Chinese tourists are the largest group of visitors to Taiwan. The steady increase in tourism from China has meant that over 2.01 million Chinese visitors have come to Taiwan, bringing in foreign exchange earnings of close to US$2.10 billion. This is welcome income as Taiwan’s industrial and agriculture sectors decline. In fact, one of the six new industries the government is promoting is tourism since the industry has become an important part of the service sector, accounting for 73 percent of Taiwan’s GDP.

If that figure is correct we can mark 2010 as the year Taiwan gave up its position as an economic center in Asia and became a Chinese periphery... a playground for China's wealthy.

When I first arrived in Taiwan over a decade ago, Taiwan's industrial sector was going strong as the economy shifted from machine tools to information technology. I remember earlier in the 2000's there was heated debate over the matriculation of 12" wafer technology to the Chinese.

The former president Chen Shui-bian touted Taiwan as a "Green Silicon Island".

Those days are over. Taiwan has decided to allow China to be the technology hub of Asia and with ECFA the agricultural sector is nervous.

But at least we have the bicycle... right?

Also, as an island and in keeping with the popularity of a greener way of traveling, Taiwan is promoting “Let’s Bike Taiwan” as another way to experience Taiwan’s magnificent scenery and interact with local people. At a recent “Let’s Bike Taiwan” event, 500 cyclists from Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, throughout Europe and the United States, cycled five routes around Taiwan. Besides being a popular leisure activity, Taiwan is also home to many bicycle manufacturers, including Giant Bicycles, the largest quality bicycle manufacturer in the world.

Another article states:

Top two Taiwanese bicycle makers – Giant Manufacturing and Merida Industry – have reportedly been boosting output at their factories across the Taiwan Straits.

According to a report in the Taiwan Economic News, this is in order to ‘cash in on the recovering demand for high-end bicycles worldwide.’

Giant has recently spent US$36 million building its ninth bicycle factory in China, in Kunshan City. This is scheduled to be operational in the third quarter of 2011 and should produce around 1 million to 1.5 million bicycles two years later.

One focus of the Kunshan plant will be electric bicycle manufacturing. Although, the new Kunshan site will also produce bicycle frames and carbon fibre.

A production line for high-end bikes should become operational the second quarter of 2011, with annual output of around 200,000 units in the next three years.

Giant currently produces around 100,000 units of higher-end bikes in Taiwan each year.

Meanwhile, since August 2010, Merida has invested NT$250 million (US$8 million) in expanding its production capacity. At its factories in Taiwan and China, Merida has procured new processing and production equipment and has made improvements to existing production lines.

The latest expansion from Merida is scheduled to be completed in April 2011.

Merida just reported its sales revenue of NT$1.285 billion for November 2010, up 26.27% year on year. This boosted total revenue for the 11 months of 2010 to NT$11.074 billion, up 8.94% year on year.

Taiwan Insights continues with:

Taiwan’s tourism will receive an additional boost when the government increases the daily quota of Chinese tourists to 4,000 per day, with independent Chinese tourists allowed to visit Taiwan by the end of June 2011. Since the lifting of the ban on Chinese tourism in July 2008, the average daily number of visitors from China has steadily increased. In 2009, visitors from China averaged 1,661 per day, but, by the first half of 2010, it jumped to 3,440 per day.

I am sure this is just a figment of my paranoia, but when Taiwan has nothing anyone really wants, the trade imbalance can have far reaching economic and political consequences. Is this part of a greater political plan to integrate Taiwan into China?

What if China gets angry and turns off the tap?

They stand nothing to lose and Taiwan loses everything.

UPDATE:

I have been made aware that China is, in fact, using its economy as a political cudgel. This should be no surprise, but what IS surprising is how deep, far reaching, and orchestrated this effort is.

The CCP/Chinese state is creating an artificial demand for Taiwanese goods and tourism to gain greater leverage over Taiwan's local economies and over local politics. This has gotten to the point where Chinese delegations will purchase goods and even provide services to promote annexation policies.

Taiwan's Unofficial KMT Mouthpiece Touts Cycling

The current issue of CommonWealth Magazine (天下) locates "The Six Lures Hooking Foreign Visitors". The introduction to the article identifies Taiwan's difficulties in competing with Europe and Japan for tourism dollars and then seeks to contrive emotive experiences for potential visitors.

Most of the article focuses on the mythologized "round island trip" and a character called "Frog", who has leveraged a sizable capital investemnt in bicycle tourism.

The whole article is really worth a read as it gives us a glimpse inside the dissonance between the actual cultural life in Taiwan and how that cultural life is imagined, constructed and promoted by a powerful minority of ideologues who seek to engage locals and visitors alike in the realm of wishful make-believe.

CommonWealth Magazine is a publication that founded in 1981, during a brief period of liberalization in the era of martial law, in the indirect aftermath of the Chung-li incident. CommonWealth has traditionally been aligned with the beliefs of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and, in earlier days, the Government Information Office, to promote a sinocentric outlook for Taiwan.

Taiwan's people seem more smitten with Europe's streetscapes and Japan's culture than their country's own beauty. But CommonWealth Magazine has identified six major lures that overseas visitors have come to appreciate.

It is in the context and juxtaposition of CommonWealth's traditional political alignment/ideology, and its current lamentation for promoting Taiwan to foreigners that I find this story very interesting.

For the entire period of KMT initiated martial law, beginning in 1949, until the end of Lee Teng-hui's first term as president following the death of Chiang Ching-kuo, Taiwan's late dictator, Taiwan's separate cultural and ethnic identity had been degraded within the framework of the ROC into an undesirable "local" flavor that was to be gradually replaced with the modernist state high "Chinese culture" invented and promoted by the KMT in China.

Chinese nationalist critics, like CommonWealth, have claimed for decades that Taiwanese had "no history" or culture. They have contended that Taiwanese were culturally "traditional Chinese" (as opposed to those modernist Chinese in the KMT who had jettisoned their "backward" traditions and thus making them fit for leadership), and that the concept of a separate Taiwanese identity and culture is merely the result of contemporary political careerists.

I would argue against this position as Taiwanese have not only followed a different socio-historical trajectory than other people around the world, including Chinese, they have also lived within a separate Taiwanese socio-political structure that delineated how the people on Taiwan would interact with their respective governments and with each other, across the lines of ethnicity, class and, later, political affiliation. Qing era Taiwanese were definitely aware, from as early as the 17th Century, that their experience was an exception within the Qing Empire. This is reinforced by the myriad of special laws and decrees issued specifically to manage Taiwan's unique ethnic and cultural landscapes.

I find sad irony that such a staunchly conservative publication, such as CommonWealth, would now seek to promote Taiwanese culture after being so aligned with the Chinese nationalist establishment that spent, and still spends, so much effort in fruitlessly trying to transform and align Taiwanese culture with the idealized "Chinese high culture" invented and distilled for the Republic of China in the 1930's.

In June 2007, after Yang and three friends circumnavigated Taiwan by bicycle, he decided to leave the online game company he was working for and devote himself to running his biking haven, the Frog Café. He was so enthralled by the spirit of adventure and feelings of attachment for his native land he experienced during his tour of Taiwan that he wanted to encourage young people to share the adventure.

Yang invested NT$200,000 in 15 bicycles kept at his Bali outlet that are available for people to rent or borrow. Those who submit a simple "Frog Round-Taiwan Bicycling Sponsorship Plan" online, pay a NT$500 maintenance fee and contribute NT$500 to a fund for sustainably promoting biking around the island can use the bikes in Yang's shop for an unlimited number of days.

"Surprisingly, the first person to submit an application was a woman from Hong Kong. She said she wanted to use the bicycle to get to know Taiwan's beautiful natural scenery," Yang says.

After that, many other ethnic Chinese, from Chinese exchange students to Malaysian office workers, took advantage of Yang's plan to tour Taiwan's mountains and coastline.

What really caught my eye was the repeated focus in the CommonWealth article on, "Ethnic Chinese".

This is a very loaded term and a contrivance that comes directly from the core of Sunism and its ambiguous friction between concepts of race, ethnicity and the nation.

Chinese nationalism seeks to construct a global net of "Overseas Chinese", who are forever bound to "the nation" by blood. Scholars like Dru Gladney and David Wu have done a marvelous job in unraveling the political construct we know as "Ethnic Chinese". This term is actually more an artifact from the old Sunist lexicon than representative of a non-political imagined community.

Contemporary Chinese nationalists have tried to come to grips with the post WWII world, in which the old Western colonial enterprises withdrew, Tibetan, Sichuanese, Uyghur, Yao and other nationalisms failed, the Japanese Empire withdrew... and yet the people remained were bound by their shared experiences and not by an imagined darwinian blood linkage. The Chinese nationalists coined the term "Greater Chinese" to lay some form of ownership over most of East Asia.

This CommonWealth article is rife with evocations of this imagined "Chinese culture".

Among other attraction they hope to promote Taiwan's "Rural Villages" because:

These destinations all showcase pastoral landscapes that are so poignant, they evoke deep emotions in many ethnic Chinese. Community-building efforts have generated a vitality similar to that of the spring planting season, when the soil is broken up and new seedlings germinate, yielding unique green sightseeing opportunities.

...further stating:

In recent years, Taiwan's leisure farms have even developed strong name recognition in Singapore and Malaysia, drawing many ethnic Chinese families from the two countries.

More than 140,000 foreign nationals have already visited Taiwan's recreational farms this year, according to statistics from the Taiwan Leisure Farming Development Association, signs that a 20-year campaign to build tourism around local agriculture is having some success. The initiative first positioned farms as tourist orchards, and then they slowly evolved into integrated recreational areas complete with restaurants, accommodation and DIY farming experiences.

In another passage CommonWealth attempts to highlight Taiwan's cultural particularism while failing to fully backtrack from the logical impossibility it asserts... that... somehow Taiwan is "more authentically Chinese than China".

In recent years, the country's dynamic and enterprising cultural creativity has generated many commercial festivals attractive to the ethnic Chinese community that bear little resemblance to traditional holiday celebrations.

The following quote emphasizes the Chinese nationalist view of their right to cultural hegemony in the face of cultural particularity.

"What we are selling is Taiwan's outstanding lifestyle, attitude and aesthetics. We examine our vision of life and hope to successfully communicate an interpretation of ‘life' with everybody, or at least with all ethnic Chinese,"

One of the most revealingly incongruous quotes from the CommonWealth article comes in the form of this little gem:

Preserving the Spirit of the Country Scholar

Because most guesthouses are situated in the countryside, they allow foreign tourists to experience the life of the traditional Chinese countryside scholar, as preserved in Taiwan. Pei Chin, the owner of the Riomont Penthouse in Yilan County, lived in California for 25 years before returning to Taiwan and was stunned to find traditional agrarian scenes everywhere.

"The forgotten practice in Chinese culture of pursuing learning while tilling the soil was somehow preserved really well in Yilan County," Chin says, and this was one of his inspirations for opening his own guesthouse.

The lesson from this article and others like it, that seek to promote cycling and leisure activities in Taiwan, is that much of what is being touted and sold is a figment of the imagination born in the minds of political actors intent on authenticating and framing Taiwanese cultures and experiences to fit a narrow trope and appeal to their own fantasies and the fantasies held by others. They simultaneously acknowledge Taiwan's separate, non-Chinese identity through the exoticizing lens of tourism, while trying to maintain congruity with their monocultural Chinese nationalist ideology. The apple cart upturned.

Also:

• Taiwanese cyclist recipient of Sports Award.
• EPA suggests hog farmers build bike paths instead (Last Paragraph).
• Some Round Island Pictures from Traveling Taiwanese.
• Ma Administration Faces Dilemma... When is "Taiwan" NOT a dirty word. Not when hawking products.