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.
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