Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday said Taiwan needs to enlarge its civil society in order to cultivate a public that has the self-determination to build its own nation.
Lee made the remarks at the ceremony to mark the establishment of the Taiwan Association of Civil Society, a non-profit private organization founded by a group of university professors and young academics to promote the public's civil awareness and Taiwan's national identity.
Lee said that Taiwanese people were deprived of the right to self-governance during the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime's decades of authoritarian rule and therefore Taiwan has been slow to form a civil and democratic society.
"Many Taiwanese people were born with the belief that they were destined to be subjected to other people's ruling," Lee said. "Actually, there should be no such a thing. People are the most important element in composing a country. However, now in Taiwan, the phenomenon that people are the subjects of feudal rulers still exists.
"Such is the lack of the people's civil awareness," Lee said.
In his speech, Lee told young people to think for themselves and abandon the hackneyed slavish ideology to build Taiwan into a normal and independent country.
In related news, China condemned Taiwan's top leaders yesterday for "preaching separatism" and denounced their efforts toward a new constitution and a law allowing referendums, a move some say could produce a vote on the nation's independence.
An unidentified spokesman for the Chinese Cabinet's Taiwan Affairs office issued the comments through the official Xinhua News Agency and singled out President Chen Shui-bian (
"Chen Shui-bian is preaching separatism and is trying to carry out his separatist activities by making use of this referendum," the spokesman said.
The Chinese spokesman added: "The separatist activities by Taiwanese independence elements directly endangers the basic interests of Taiwanese compatriots, and it is a disaster for Taiwan.
"Activities like this cannot be tolerated by the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation," the spokesman said.
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
RSS