Nearly 10,000 people turned out for a rally in Taichung City yesterday supporting those "wishing to renounce their membership" in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Ever since the Falun Gong-backed Epoch Times newspaper published a denunciation of the CCP called the Nine Commentaries on its Web site, the number of withdrawals from the party had accelerated and was expected to top 4 million soon, said Chen Chang-hui (陳昌輝), a spokesman for the Global Alliance to Say Goodbye to the CCP, the organizer of yesterday's rally.
It was not immediately clear how the alliance gathered that information.
PHOTO: CHU CHUN-YEN, TAIPEI TIMES
The group is a private organization based in Washington and was established by 91 smaller Chinese groups across the US last December.
Waving banners and shouting slogans, the marchers encouraged CCP members to give up their party membership and accelerate China's democratization.
Other participants were former Government Information Office minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) and Hwang Kun-hu (
Lin and Hwang said that communism was no longer viable in today's world and that it was detrimental to human rights.
They added that it was a meaningful act for Chinese people to denounce communism and turn their back on the party.
Chen Rongli (陳榮利), a Chinese dissident and democracy activist who also appeared at the rally, announced that he canceled his membership of the Chinese Communist Youth League yesterday.
Chen Rongli said the CCP was continuing to jeopardize human rights and hinder the progress of democratization in China, neither of which was conducive to China's development.
He said he would also continue to encourage other Youth League members to leave the party.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS