Diplomacy
Taiwan cuts ties with Ivory Coast
March 3, 1983: Taiwan severs diplomatic ties with Ivory Coast. The 20-year relationship ended as the West African country switched recognition to China. The Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Cote D’Ivoire assumes non-diplomatic functions, such as promoting trade and investment.
Joint communique signed with Belize
March 2, 1994: Taiwan and Belize sign a joint communique, strengthening formal relations and economic cooperation. The Central American country has been a diplomatic ally since 1989. Over the years, Taiwan has sent agricultural and technical missions to Belize, as well as offered scholarships to Belizeans.
Taiwan included in UK’s visa-waiver program
March 3, 2009: The British Trade and Cultural Office in Taipei announces that Republic of China (ROC) passport holders will enjoy visa-free privileges for stays of less than six months. The UK is the 31st county to include Taiwanese in its visa-waiver program, followed by the EU in 2011 and the US in 2012.
Health
First AIDS patient dies; HIV research finds breakthrough
March 2, 1986: Taiwan’s first confirmed AIDS patient dies. Free medical treatment for HIV/AIDS patients begins in 1988. The government promulgated the AIDS Prevention and Control Act (後天免疫缺乏症候群防治條例) in 1990 as the legal basis for HIV/AIDS control policy. In 2007, an amendment made to the act stipulated that HIV-infected citizens cannot be denied access to education, medical services and housing.
March 3, 2008: Biochemists from Academia Sinica’s Genomics Research Center and California-based Scripps Research Institute announce their finding of a new compound, glycodendrons. The compound has been proven effective in stopping HIV-infection in animals at an early stage.
Obituary
Academia Sinica president passes away
March 4, 2000: Wu Ta-you (吳大猷), atomic and nuclear physicist and former president of Academia Sinica, dies in Taipei at the age of 95. Wu was credited for his contributions in physics and education, which earned him a sobriquet — Father of Chinese Physics (中國物理學之父). Wu authored more than 20 books, including a seven-part series on theoretical physics. He trained Lee Tsung-dao (李政道) and Yang Chen-ning (楊振寧), Chinese-born, US-educated physicists who together won the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1963, Wu helped to re-establish the Institute of Physics at Academia Sinica, where he was president from 1983 to 1994. He continued lecturing into his 90s.
Disaster
Scores killed in disasters
March 2, 2003: A four-carriage train derails on a bridge in Alishan. The accident kills 17 passengers while injuring more than 150 people. Investigations later ruled that human error was the probable cause of the crash.
March 4, 2010: A 6.4 magnitude earthquake hits southern Taiwan in the early morning, damaging houses, cutting power supplies and disrupting the nation’s transportation systems. The quake is centered 17km southeast of Jiasian Township in Kaohsiung County (now Greater Kaohsiung) at a depth of 5km. It causes no deaths but injures nearly a 100 people. The earthquake was followed by several aftershocks; the largest had a magnitude of 6.7 on the Richter scale.
March 6, 2011: A nightclub in Greater Taichung catches fire, causing nine deaths and 12 injuries. A dancer accidentally set fire to the ceiling with a torch during a performance, triggering the blaze at about 1:30am. Audiences initially thought that the fire was part of the show.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless