Diplomacy
Ties broken with Dahomey, established with Tonga
April 8, 1965: Taiwan severs diplomatic links with the Republic of Dahomey (present-day People’s Republic of Benin), as the African country recognizes Beijing, ending a three-year relationship with Taiwan. However, ties were resumed in April 1966 when Dahomey became the first country to switch recognition from China to Taiwan. Nonetheless, Dahomey restored ties with China in 1972.
April 10, 1972: Taiwan announces the establishment of diplomatic ties with the Kingdom of Tonga. Relations broke off in 1998 as the south Pacific country switched recognition to China. Tonga currently doesn’t maintain any representation in Taiwan.
Taiwan, US agree to establish fund
April 9, 1965: Taiwan and the US conclude an accord to establish a Sino-American Fund for Economic and Social Development (中美經濟社會發展基金). The fund aims to support Taiwan’s development after the termination of US economic aid on June 30 of the same year. American financial aid to Taiwan began in 1949. According to Executive Yuan statistics, Taiwan received US$1.48 billion from the US during that time, greatly improving the nation’s agricultural and industrial growth.
Taiwan Relations Act signed
April 10, 1979: The Taiwan Relations Act (台灣關係法) is signed by US President Jimmy Carter, guiding the conduct of unofficial US relations with Taiwan following the break in diplomatic ties between the two countries. Under the act, the American Institute in Taiwan becomes the de facto embassy. The act potentially requires the US to provide Taiwan with defensive weapons and to intervene militarily if China attacks or invades Taiwan.
In recent developments, the US House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday to authorize the sale of four decommissioned Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigates to Taiwan.
Society
Vice president claims victory in civil suit
April 10, 2002: The Taipei District Court rules in favor of then-Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), who sued The Journalist (新新聞) magazine over a story that claimed she spread a rumor the then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was having an affair with one of his female staffers. The magazine alleged that Lu spread the rumor to unseat Chen.
The court orders the magazine’s editor in chief Yang Chao (楊照) to clarify that Lu didn’t call him to spread the rumor. The magazine appealed the case twice. In October 2004, the Taiwan High Court ruled that the magazine must apologize to Lu. According to an Apple Daily report, however, Lu herself ended up paying for the half-page apology in a local Chinese-language daily in September 2009.
Court rules on compensation for wrongful conviction
April 10, 2013: The Supreme Court rules on the amount of compensation for the wrongful conviction of Su Chien-ho (蘇建和), Liu Bing-lang (劉秉郎) and Chuang Lin-hsun (莊林勳) — also known as the Hsichih Trio — to be NT$15.84 million. The trio were arrested in 1991 on murder charges. They were convicted of murder and sentenced to death, but were also found not guilty in several retrials. The Taiwan High Court closed the case in 2012, in accordance with the Fair and Speedy Criminal Trials Act (刑事妥速審判法), which was passed by the legislature in 2010 and disallows judges and courts to retry cases indefinitely.
Obituary
Freedom fighter commits suicide
April 7, 1989: Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕), editor-in-chief of dissident magazine Freedom Era Weekly (自由時代週刊), self-immolates in his Taipei office as armed police attempt to break in and arrest him on charges of sedition. Deng had published a draft “Taiwan Republic Constitution” in the magazine’s December 1988 issue.
Deng became an iconic figure in defending freedom of expression, and is believed to have pushed for an amendment made to Article 100 of the Criminal Code in 1992. In the revised code, penalties for non-violent acts outlined in the anti-sedition provisions were removed.
Sports
Female tug-of-war team takes Asian championship
April 9, 2010: Taiwan’s female tug-of war team wins the Asian Indoor Championship for the fourth year in a row. The team, composed of students from Taipei Jingmei Girls High School, takes the championship after defeating Vietnam in the semifinals and Mongolia in the final. The Jingmei team later won the World Indoor Championships in Italy.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
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