Diplomacy
Taiwan severs ties with France, Columbia
1964: Taiwan recalls its envoy from France on Feb. 10 after the European nation severs ties and switches diplomatic recognition to Beijing. French-speaking former colonies — Central African Republic, The French Congo (covering what is today parts of the Republic of the Congo, Gabon and the Central African Republic) and (the Republic of) Senegal — follow France’s example and establish ties with Beijing over the next two years. France establishes the French Institute in Taipei (now called the French Office in Taipei) in 1980. The institute assumes non-diplomatic functions, such as promoting trade interests and cultural exchanges.
1980: Taiwan terminates diplomatic ties with Colombia on Feb. 10 after the South American country switches diplomatic recognition to China.
Economy
Taiwan stock market inaugurates
1962: The Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp (TWSE, 台灣證券交易所) begins operations on Feb. 9 with shares of 18 firms listed by the end of the year. Ten years before establishing the stock market, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government under martial law implements the land-to-the-tiller program, which encourages landholders to sell their land in exchange for bonds and shares of state-owned enterprises. However, no formal stock or bond market existed at the time. To facilitate such trading, the government founded the Securities and Exchange Commission (證券管理委員會) a year before TWSE.
2004: On Feb. 12, TWSE’s turnover surges to NT$203.1 billion in a single-day session, marking one of its best-ever performances. As of the end of last year, the TWSE has 809 listed companies with a combined market capitalization of NT$24.5 trillion.
Politics
Chen changes names, Ma indicted
2007: In an effort to de-Sinicize state-owned enterprises, then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) implements a name-changing policy: Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中國石油) becomes CPC Corp Taiwan (台灣中油) and China Shipbuilding Corp (中國造船) to Taiwan International Shipbuilding Corp (台灣國際造船) on Feb. 9. Chunghwa Post Co (中華郵政) is changed to Taiwan Post Co (台灣郵政) on Feb. 12. After Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) won the presidential election the following year, his administration changes Taiwan Post back to its former title, reflecting a return to a China-centered policy.
2007: Ma is indicted on Feb. 13 for misusing public funds. Shortly after the indictment, Ma resigns as chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). He’s later found not guilty.
Obituary
Acclaimed publisher dies
2000: Liu Shao-tang (劉紹唐), publisher of the Chinese-language monthly Biographical Literature (傳記文學), dies of lung cancer on Feb. 10 at the age of 80. Liu founded the magazine in 1962 with the aim to preserve Republican-era historical materials and promote biographical literature. The magazine, which continues to print, contains autobiographies, chronologies, memoirs, diaries and manuscripts of writers and commentary on history books — all well received by historians and average readers alike.
Weather
Temperature dips
1958: Ground-level temperatures hit a record low for the past century: 2.6 degrees Celsius in Taipei on Feb. 13 — significantly lower than Taipei’s lowest temperature last month: 10.3 degrees Celsius.
Sports
Golfer Yani Tseng ranked number one
2011: An extremely fruitful year for golfer Yani Tseng (曾雅妮), who takes over the No. 1 ranking in Women’s World Golf Rankings on Feb. 13, wins the LPGA Championship and becomes the youngest player to win four LPGA majors.
However, Tseng’s ranking fell out of the top 10 last year. She competed in more than 40 tournaments without one victory. Things started looking up with her most recent win in January at the 2014 Taiwan LPGA Tour Taifong Ladies Open.
Taiwan sends athletes to winter Olympics
2002: The 19th Winter Olympics unfolds in Salt Lake City, Utah in the US (Feb. 8-24). Taiwan sends six athletes to compete in two sports: bobsleigh and luge. The team wins no metal in the end.
For this year’s Games in Sochi, Russia, which runs until Feb. 23, Taiwan has sent three athletes for three sports: luge, short track speed skating and speed skating.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist