Diplomacy
Diplomatic ties severed; non-political ties grow
1960: Taiwan establishes diplomatic relations with the Republic of Cameroon on Feb. 23. Diplomatic ties remained steady until 1971, when the central African country switched its recognition to China. Currently Cameroon maintains no representation of any kind in Taiwan.
1975: Taiwan and South Africa sign a trade agreement on Feb. 26. Two-way trade grew rapidly in the early 1970s due to strong South African exports of maize. The two countries established formal ties in 1949, but diplomatic relations ended in 1998 when South Africa recognized China. Trade relations continue through the Liaison Office of South Africa in Taiwan. The Ministry of Economic Affairs ranked South Africa the 30th total trade partner in 2013.
1990: Taiwan and El Salvador sign a joint communique for closer bilateral cooperation on Feb. 26. The communique calls for increased economic exchanges in agriculture, industry, culture and sports. The Central American country has been one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies since 1961.
Politics
228 becomes national holiday
1997: The Legislative Yuan passes an amendment on Feb. 23 designating Feb. 28, also known as Peace Memorial Day (和平紀念日) or 228 (二二八), a national holiday.
An amendment was made to Article 4 of the Act for Handling and Compensation for the 228 Incident (二二八事件賠償及處理條例), which was enacted in 1995, to compensate victims and their surviving relatives. The 228 Incident refers to the anti-government uprising that began on Feb. 27, 1947, which was violently suppressed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government. The estimated number of deaths varies from 10,000 to 30,000. The incident also led to the suppression of political dissidents, known as the White Terror (白色恐怖), during the period of martial law from 1949 to 1987.
Taiwan’s first no-confidence motion fails
1999: Eighty-two legislators of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party and the New Party propose a no-confidence vote against Premier Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) on Feb. 25 to protest his endorsement of a cut to the stock transaction tax. The motion marks Taiwan’s first no-confidence vote. On March 2 the same year, the motion failed with 142 lawmakers out of 225 voting against it.
Obituary
Advocate of vernacular Chinese dies
1962: Hu Shih (胡適), essayist, philosopher and diplomat, dies on Feb. 24 in Taipei at the age of 72. His advocacy for the use of written vernacular Chinese rather than scholarly classical Chinese in literature earned him the title Father of the Chinese Literary Renaissance (中國文藝復興之父). During the May Fourth Movement (五四運動), Hu was one of the leaders to argue for vernacular Chinese as a written medium for both scholarship and general communication, which paved the way for the era of mass literacy.
Hu fled to Taiwan after the Chinese Communists won the civil war in 1949, and became president of Academia Sinica, a position he held from 1958 until he passed away. His tombstone was set up in a park named after him near the research institute.
King of Formosan pop passes away
2010: Singer Hung Yi-feng (洪一峰), known as the “king of Formosan song” (寶島歌王), dies of cancer on Feb. 24 at the age of 82. Hung was a singer and prolific song writer. His popular titles such as Memories of an Old Love (舊情綿綿), Formosa Mambo (寶島曼波) and The One I’m Missing (思慕的人) remain KTV standards. In his music, Hung incorporated features of Japanese enka, a form of sentimental ballad music, which reflects Taiwan’s colonial history.
Aviation
Far Eastern aircraft crashes
1969: Far Eastern Air Transport (遠東航空) Flight 104, a short-haul flight using a Handley Page Dart Herald passenger aircraft, crashes in what is today Greater Tainan during an emergency landing 10 minutes after taking off from the then-Kaohsiung City, killing all 36 people on board. Mechanical failure is believed to be the cause.
Culture
‘Life of Pi’ tops Oscars with four wins
2013: Ang Lee’s (李安) Life of Pi wins 4 Oscars, claiming awards for musical score, cinematography, visual effects and best director.
Animals
World’s oldest Asian elephant dies
2003: Lin Wang (林旺), the world’s oldest Asian elephant in captivity, dies of cardiopulmonary failure on Feb. 26 at the Taipei City Zoo at the age of 86. The ROC military acquired Lin Wang from Japanese prisoners of war in Myanmar during World War II. He was honored for carrying military supplies during the war. In the early 1950s, Lin Wang was retired to the Taipei Zoo, becoming a main attraction.
Most heroes are remembered for the battles they fought. Taiwan’s Black Bat Squadron is remembered for flying into Chinese airspace 838 times between 1953 and 1967, and for the 148 men whose sacrifice bought the intelligence that kept Taiwan secure. Two-thirds of the squadron died carrying out missions most people wouldn’t learn about for another 40 years. The squadron lost 15 aircraft and 148 crew members over those 14 years, making it the deadliest unit in Taiwan’s military history by casualty rate. They flew at night, often at low altitudes, straight into some of the most heavily defended airspace in Asia.
Many people in Taiwan first learned about universal basic income (UBI) — the idea that the government should provide regular, no-strings-attached payments to each citizen — in 2019. While seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 US presidential election, Andrew Yang, a politician of Taiwanese descent, said that, if elected, he’d institute a UBI of US$1,000 per month to “get the economic boot off of people’s throats, allowing them to lift their heads up, breathe, and get excited for the future.” His campaign petered out, but the concept of UBI hasn’t gone away. Throughout the industrialized world, there are fears that
Taiwan’s democracy is at risk. Be very alarmed. This is not a drill. The current constitutional crisis progressed slowly, then suddenly. Political tensions, partisan hostility and emotions are all running high right when cool heads and calm negotiation are most needed. Oxford defines brinkmanship as: “The art or practice of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limits of safety before stopping, especially in politics.” It says the term comes from a quote from a 1956 Cold War interview with then-American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, when he said: ‘The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is
Like much in the world today, theater has experienced major disruptions over the six years since COVID-19. The pandemic, the war in Ukraine and social media have created a new normal of geopolitical and information uncertainty, and the performing arts are not immune to these effects. “Ten years ago people wanted to come to the theater to engage with important issues, but now the Internet allows them to engage with those issues powerfully and immediately,” said Faith Tan, programming director of the Esplanade in Singapore, speaking last week in Japan. “One reaction to unpredictability has been a renewed emphasis on
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