Taiwanese Americans took to the streets of New York Saturday to call attention to Taiwan’s exclusion from the UN, just two weeks before Pope Francis is expected to address the 70th UN General Assembly in his first trip as pontiff to the US.
“Every year, we’re gonna shout, we’re gonna fight and we’re gonna be heard,” Outreach for Taiwan co-founder Jenny Wang (汪采羿), one of the organizers, screamed through a microphone as more than 100 people, penned in by New York Police Department metal barricades along Seventh Avenue near Times Square, waved baby-blue “UN for Taiwan” flags.
For 24 years, Taiwanese in New York have staged rallies similar to the one held on Saturday, usually timing them to the start of each new general assembly. Unlike last year’s event, this year’s included a sidewalk march from Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, a park near the UN, to Seventh Avenue between 41st and 42nd streets.
Photo: Chris Fuchs
Chanting “keep Taiwan free,” among other slogans, marchers held aloft UN for Taiwan flags as well as small green-and-white ones, featuring a green image of the nation in the center, as they threaded their way through throngs of tourists and a motley mix of cartoon characters, like Spongebob and Mickey Mouse, who posed for photos in exchange for cash with sightseers visiting Times Square.
Those attending Saturday’s rally — including more than 20 members of the Taiwan-UN Alliance (臺灣聯合國協進會), led by former Defense Minister Michael Tsai (蔡明憲) — said that Taiwan should be allowed to rejoin the UN, which gave the country’s seat to China in 1971.
“Taiwan should really strive to head in this direction,” said Hsu Chin-feng (許青風), a member of the Taiwan-UN Alliance delegation, in Mandarin. “Taiwan can’t be an international orphan.”
Photo: Chris Fuchs
One of only three countries not in the UN, Taiwan has long faced stiff opposition from China in its attempts to join the intergovernmental body. Beijing has argued that Taiwan, which it views as a breakaway province, is not a sovereign nation.
That position doesn’t sit well with Wale Adefope, a Nigerian who was visiting New York on vacation and who just happened to pass by the rally with his son Goodness. The small blue flags were what caught his eye.
“When I saw ‘United Nations for Taiwan,’ it gladdened my heart,” Adefope said, adding that Taiwan and China should both have seats in the UN.
Saturday’s march comes two weeks before the pope embarks on a six-day tour of the US, stopping in New York on Sept. 24 and 25 to say mass at Madison Square Garden and to address the UN. Some of the groups that organized Saturday’s rally were also planning to hold a sit-in at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, near the UN, on the day the pope speaks.
Recognizing the Republic of China as the legitimate government of China, the Vatican, or Holy See, is one of only 23 nations that maintain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. In years past, Beijing has protested when Taiwanese presidents have attended Vatican events — such as in 2013, when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was present for Francis’ inaugural mass — where they were seated with heads of states of countries in the UN.
For Adefope, Taiwan should be able to have its own identity and be free to govern as it chooses.
“Taiwan, even back home in Africa, is well-known,” Adefope said. “And I think it would be nice if China could let go.”
Towering high above Taiwan’s capital city at 508 meters, Taipei 101 dominates the skyline. The earthquake-proof skyscraper of steel and glass has captured the imagination of professional rock climber Alex Honnold for more than a decade. Tomorrow morning, he will climb it in his signature free solo style — without ropes or protective equipment. And Netflix will broadcast it — live. The event’s announcement has drawn both excitement and trepidation, as well as some concerns over the ethical implications of attempting such a high-risk endeavor on live broadcast. Many have questioned Honnold’s desire to continues his free-solo climbs now that he’s a
As Taiwan’s second most populous city, Taichung looms large in the electoral map. Taiwanese political commentators describe it — along with neighboring Changhua County — as Taiwan’s “swing states” (搖擺州), which is a curious direct borrowing from American election terminology. In the early post-Martial Law era, Taichung was referred to as a “desert of democracy” because while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was winning elections in the north and south, Taichung remained staunchly loyal to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). That changed over time, but in both Changhua and Taichung, the DPP still suffers from a “one-term curse,” with the
Lines between cop and criminal get murky in Joe Carnahan’s The Rip, a crime thriller set across one foggy Miami night, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Damon and Affleck, of course, are so closely associated with Boston — most recently they produced the 2024 heist movie The Instigators there — that a detour to South Florida puts them, a little awkwardly, in an entirely different movie landscape. This is Miami Vice territory or Elmore Leonard Land, not Southie or The Town. In The Rip, they play Miami narcotics officers who come upon a cartel stash house that Lt. Dane Dumars (Damon)
Today Taiwanese accept as legitimate government control of many aspects of land use. That legitimacy hides in plain sight the way the system of authoritarian land grabs that favored big firms in the developmentalist era has given way to a government land grab system that favors big developers in the modern democratic era. Articles 142 and 143 of the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution form the basis of that control. They incorporate the thinking of Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) in considering the problems of land in China. Article 143 states: “All land within the territory of the Republic of China shall
RSS