Citizenship is traditionally viewed as a legal status to be possessed. Cultivating Membership in Taiwan and Beyond: Relational Citizenship proposes the concept of relational citizenship to articulate the value-laden, interactive nature of belongingness. Hsin-I Cheng examines the role of relationality which produces and is a product of localized emotions. Cheng attends to particular histories and global trajectories embedded within uneven power relations. By focusing on Taiwan, a non-Western society with a tradition to adeptly attune to local experiences and those from various global influences, relational citizenship highlights the measures used to define and encourage interactions with newcomers. This book shows the multilayered communicative processes in which relations are gradually created, challenged, merged, disrupted, repaired, and solidified. Cheng further argues that this concept is not bound to nation-state geographic boundaries as relationality bleeds through national borders. Relational citizenship has the potential to move beyond the East vs. West epistemology to examine peoples’ lived realities wherein the sense of belonging is discursively accomplished, viscerally experienced, and publicly performed.

The desire of the people of Taiwan and Hong Kong to exercise democratic self-rule, fully embody their local identities, and become global citizens challenges the big-power politics between China and the United States. Occupying a critical stance on the margins, the local perspectives and international relations of these two cosmopolitan and postcolonial societies challenge both narratives centered on China and those focused on the U.S.–China power struggle. Taking a culture-centered approach to the communicative process of “glocalized resistance” in an era of rising nationalisms, the chapters in this volume address topics ranging from the rhetoric of political leaders and the language games of mass protesters on social media to resistant street performance. These chapters showcase the geocultural identity-in-the-making of the Taiwanese and Hong Kong people and offer insights into societies under imminent threat by an aggressive neighbor.

This book situates Taiwan’s indigenous knowledge in comparative contexts across other indigenous knowledge formations. The content is divided into four distinct but interrelated sections to highlight the importance and diversity of indigenous knowledge in Taiwan and beyond. It begins with an exploration of the recent development and construction of an indigenous knowledge and educational system in Taiwan, as well as issues concerning research ethics and indigenous knowledge. This is followed by a section that illustrates diverse forms of indigenous knowledge, and in turn, a theoretical dialogue between indigenous studies and settler colonial studies. Lastly, the Paiwan indigenous author Dadelavan Ibau’s trans-indigenous journey to Tibet rounds out the coverage. This book is useful to readers in indigenous, settler colonial, and decolonial studies around the world, not just because it offers substantive content on indigenous knowledge in Taiwan, but also because it offers conceptual tools for studying indigenous knowledge from comparative and relational perspectives. It also greatly benefits anyone interested in Taiwan studies, offering an ethical approach to indigeneity in a classic settler colony.

Taiwan, centrally located between Tokyo and Hong Kong, has 22 international hospitals and clinics that specialize in everything from comprehensive health checkups to advanced orthopedic and heart surgeries. This guide contains in-depth profiles of these facilities, as well as selected health travel agents, nearby recovery and guest accommodations, and area travel information.

This volume arises from a major conference on issues of importance to the future of Taiwan and the region. With contributions by scholars from Taiwan and the West, the book is divided into sections on: political reform and development on Taiwan, Taiwan's changing political economy, social and environmental issues on Taiwan, Taiwan external relations and the future of Taiwan-PRC relations. Among the many issues addressed within this framework are the evolution of democracy, local politics, Taiwan and the international division of labour, the labour movement, environmentalism, international commercial links and the role of the United States in Taiwan-PRC relations.

Natural fibers production, processing and export are vital to the economies of many developing countries and the livelihoods of millions of small scale farmers and low wage workers. Almost all natural fibers are produced by agriculture, and the major part is harvested in the developing world. It is convenient to classify natural fiber in two ways; morphologically, according to the part of plant from which they are obtained and practically according to the uses to which they are put, which in turn depend on their properties. From the view point of the uses vegetable fibers may be classified into following groups; textile fibers, cordage fibers, brush and mat fibers, stuffing and upholstery materials, paper making materials etc. Fibers from the view point of the part are classified as hair fibers, leaf fibers, woody fibers, bast fibers, etc. The use of fibers for paper making differs completely from their use in textiles, in that in papermaking it is ultimate fiber cells which are used; thus in papermaking process consists in breaking down the strands of fiber into the ultimate fibers. Jute, the most important textile fiber apart from cotton, is obtained from two species of corchorus(white jute) and C.olitoriusL. (tossa jute). Farmers around the world produce a wide variety of natural fibres, planting crops and rearing animals. Plant fibres may be from the plant fruit (e.g. cotton), stems (e.g. flax and jute) or leaf (e.g.sisal). Natural fibres are generally considered more environment friendly than synthetics in their production and disposal. However, there is great variation depending on the fibre and the growing conditions. Many chemicals are used to contain pests and weeds. Chemicals are also used in the processing and dyeing which can lead to water contamination. Processing of some natural fibers can lead to high levels of water pollutants, but they consist mostly of biodegradable compounds, in contrast to the persistent chemicals, including heavy metals, released in the effluent from synthetic fiber processing. Farming and production of natural fibres also plays a significant role in eradicating poverty as an important source of farming income and contribution to food security in developing countries. Demand for natural fiber composites are largely driven by increasing environmental awareness. Due to low cost, low density, acceptable specific properties, ease of separation, enhanced energy recovery, CO2 neutrality, biodegradability and recyclable properties, natural fiber use in composites is gaining as demand grows for component materials that are durable, reliable, light weight, with mechanical properties better than those of traditional materials. Total global natural fiber composite market expected to grow at 11% CAGR. Some of the fundamentals of the book are the occurrence and nature of vegetable fibres, conditions necessary for growing flax, mulberry family (moraceae), lime family (titliaceae), experiments on mechanized production of jute, mallow family (malvaceae), kenaf production in various other countries, the use of unretted kenaf ribbons for sack manufacture, pea family (leguminosae), sterculia family (sterculiaceae), agave family (agavaceae), structure of the sisal industry, narcissus family (amaryllidaceae), lily family (liliaceae), pineapple family (bromeliaceae), fibres from other species of musa and a related genus, brush making fibres, etc. The book contains process and other parameters for the manufacturing of fibers arrive from natural sources. Due to eco friendly nature there is very good domestic and export potentiality for natural fiber. This is very useful book for new generation entrepreneurs, consultant institutional libraries, and existing units.

This book explains the dynamics behind the economic transformation from the colonial era to the post-independence period in Indonesia and Vietnam. It analyses the different Vietnamese and Indonesian government approaches to the economic legacies of colonialism remaining in these countries after independence. It also demonstrates that despite critical differences between the two nation-states, the Vietnamese and Indonesian leaderships were pursuing similar long-term goals: to create a truly independent national economy. The book discusses the way in which the Indonesian government established complete economic control, resembling the socialist transformation of North Vietnam in the 1950s, and the various means by which the government of South Vietnam concentrated economic power in its own hands during the late 1950s and early 1960s. It also explores how the Indonesian government was determined remove the economic legacy of Dutch colonialism by placing the entire economy under strong state control and ownership in accordance with the spirit of Guided Democracy and Guided Economy in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. This book is a point of reference for students, researchers and academics interested in a comparative analysis of the economic systems implemented by the colonial and fascist powers in Indonesia and Vietnam.