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Investigative

Is Taiwan’s Pork Industry Up to the U.S. Challenge?

Taiwan’s government has announced it will allow imports of American pork containing a banned veterinary drug. CommonWealth Magazine has taken an in-depth look at the domestic pork industry to see if it is up to the challenge and how the brand value of Taiwanese pork can be strengthened.

Investigative
Taiwan’s Higher Education Black Eye

Foreign Student Recruitment Scandal

Students in Sri Lanka signed up for a work/study program in Taiwan that promised to give them tech skills they could not acquire at home. But when one group of students arrived in Taiwan, they were immediately put to work in a food processing factory. Their ordeal was only just beginning.

Investigative
CommonWealth Magazine Investigation

Taiwanese Academics Undercutting the System

Taiwanese academics find themselves fatally attracted to conferences and journals offering easy and fast publication of such papers and less than rigorous peer reviews. In the second half of CommonWealth Magazine’s investigation on Taiwan’s mingling with predatory publishers, we take a look at how and why the phenomenon has taken hold.

Investigative
Predatory Journals

Commercial Academic Publishing Preying on Taiwan

A CommonWealth Magazine investigation has found that many Taiwanese academics are publishing articles in dubious “predatory journals” in relatively high numbers. What is going on and how is it affecting the country’s academic community?

Investigative
Taiwan’s First Big Data Air Pollution Analysis

Uncovering an Emissions Controversy

Pollution data suggests Taiwan’s air quality should be getting better. But a CommonWealth Magazine investigation has found that the data may be tainted, with companies using various tactics to hide high air pollution emissions readings. 

Investigative
Behind the Digital Newsroom

‘Taiwan: The Water-Starved Island’ Interactive Maps

When CommonWealth Magazine ran a series earlier this year on “Taiwan: The Water-starved Island,” then digital editor Jessica Liu had barely a month to put together a digital package for the project. Here’s the back story on how the maps were done.

Investigative
Paradise Papers Fallout

The Undiscovered Asian Offshore Tax Haven

CommonWealth Magazine has been scouring the Paradise Papers since their release in late 2017 and discovered that one of Taiwan’s wealthiest families has parked a large share of its assets in overseas tax havens. At the same time, Taiwan was recently ranked as one of the world’s most financially secretive countries. Is Taiwan really that deeply tied to the seamy world of money laundering and tax evasion?

Investigative
Manpower Employment Outlook Survey First Quarter of 2018

Taiwan Has the Best Employment Outlook?

In a new year when the global economy is expected to grow and employers are planning to hire more, how come laborers are not responding accordingly to this seemingly prosperous job market?

Investigative
Fish Depletion in the Taiwan Strait

A China-made Environmental Catastrophe

CommonWealth Magazine reporters went out on the Taiwan Strait to tell the story of the mullet trade. What they saw was the encroachment of Chinese fishing boats in Taiwanese waters and the environmental catastrophe those vessels are creating.

Investigative
Slow Fish

Where Does Our Fish Come From?

Taiwan is the fourth largest fish consumer in the world, however, Fisheries Statistic Yearbook shows that Taiwan’s coastal fisheries have only 160,000 metric tons of fish left now. Are Taiwan’s coastal fisheries and waters overfished?  Do we know where the fish we eat comes from?

Investigative
Battling the Spread of Illegal Factories

Taiwan’s Industrial Land Crisis

Thousands of Taiwanese factories are operating illegally on land zoned for agricultural use. In many cases, they want to become legal but have found few options for doing so, in part because of land speculation and mismanagement. Is there any hope to solve this problem?

Investigative
Confessions of Bicycle Parts Giant SRAM:

'We Had No Choice' but to Use Farmland

The factories clustered northwest of Taichung established Taiwan’s fame as a “bicycle kingdom.” But component maker SRAM, a pioneer in cutting-edge shifting systems, has had to resort to building factories on adjacent agricultural land.

Investigative
Panama Papers

Spurring Taiwan to Action on Taxes

Though there were no smoking guns related to Taiwan in the Panama Papers, the renewed attention on the global use of tax havens to avoid taxes could finally spur Taiwan's Legislature to action on long-stalled anti-tax avoidance amendments.

Investigative
Offshore Tax Havens

Taiwan's NT$300 Billion Drain

While Taiwan loses billions in tax revenue to overseas tax havens, the rest of the world is chasing down its rich tax dodgers. Why is Taiwan still taking a hands-off approach?

Investigative
Offshore Tax Havens

Where Taiwan's Billionaires Stash Their Cash

Are the offshore dealings of Taiwan's billionaires legal wealth management, or do they border on financial crime? Leaked information on companies, trusts and tax haven funds gives us a glimpse of the financial dealings of the super-rich.

Investigative
Taiwan's Offshore Island of Siao Liouciou

Underwater Cleanup Brigade

With coral reefs in peril, along with the fish they support, this little island's tourism industry operators have taken a very hands-on approach to the problem of underwater trash.

Investigative
Survey of Taiwan's Land Resources

'River of Life' Lost

Southern Taiwan's landscape has undergone a shocking transformation since being pummeled by Typhoon Morakot last August. What has happened to the land of Taiwan?

Investigative
Typhoon Morakot Disaster

The Warning from Buried Siaolin

CommonWealth Magazine investigates why Taiwan's national land policies have been stymied and why authorities have sat on the sidelines as the problem festers.

Investigative
Eyewitness Account

Hard Rains Fall

Typhoon Morakot pounds southern Taiwan, and a CommonWealth Magazine reporter, having visited just days before to investigate the area's drought, returns to find the once parched earth buried under churning waves.

Investigative
Taiwan's Climatic Extremes

Fatal Water

With the arrival of Typhoon Morakot, Taiwan suddenly swung from drought to flooding. How are the woes of water altering life in Taiwan, and what can Taiwan do about it?

Investigative
Dounan's Gutsy Experiment:

Little Landlord, Big Tenant-farmer

Dounan in Yunlin County has become Taiwan's biggest growing area for potatoes and carrots, with the two crops bringing in NT$200 million annually. No longer is an NT$1 million a year salary an unreachable dream for farmers.

Investigative
Agriculture:

Taiwan's Fractured Farmlands

High oil prices and food shortages are suddenly making globalization seem less than invincible. As local economies regain the initiative, can Taiwan's land and farm policies keep pace with the modern era?