Thousands of people attended a rally yesterday afternoon in Taipei to voice their opposition to the so-called “1992 consensus” and express their concern over Taiwan’s sovereignty under President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration.
Thousands of people gathered in front of the Presidential Office to mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty as part of the rally, which was organized by the Taiwan Nation Alliance.
The aim of the parade was to say to both the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the international community that Taiwan does not belong to China, organizers said.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
Japan signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty with 48 UN member countries in a meeting on Sept. 8, 1951. In the treaty, Japan declared that it would relinquish its claims to Taiwan, Penghu and all other offshore islands.
Although the treaty has weight in international law, it does not say to which party Japan ceded Taiwan and Penghu, alliance spokesperson Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文) said, adding that this means Taiwan is not part of China and that Taiwanese have the right to establish their own country.
The “1992 consensus” never existed, Yao said, adding that by accepting a consensus on the basis of “one China,” Ma had committed treason because he claimed that Taiwan’s sovereignty belongs to another country.
The parade started in front of Wanhua (萬華) Train Station at 2:28pm, in commemoration of the 228 Massacre in 1947, and ended on Ketagalan Boulevard.
Several political parties, including the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and the Taiwan Nationalist Party, as well as many pro-independence groups, took part.
During the parade the crowd chanted slogans: “Dump Ma, protect Taiwan,” “Taiwan Consensus: ‘One China, One Taiwan’” and “Protect sovereignty, safeguard peace,” with protestors carrying various handmade signs and placards, some of which read “anti--annexation” and “China: hands off Taiwan.”
The parade was held to remind the international community that the San Francisco Peace Treaty gave Taiwanese the status of “free men” who, like people of other colonies around the world after World War II, were given the right to establish their own country, TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said.
Taiwan’s sovereignty belongs to no one else — neither to the Republic of China nor the People’s Republic of China. It belongs only to Taiwanese, he said.
It is a fact that Taiwan’s status remains undetermined, because the “Taiwan problem” after World War II was handled differently from that of Korea and Okinawa, said Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深), an associate research fellow in the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica.
After Japan ceded its right to Taiwan and Penghu, Taiwanese never exercised their right to self-determination and this was because of the occupation by KMT military forces, Taiwan Association of University Professors president Chang Yen-hsien (張炎憲) said, adding that if the KMT won the presidential election next year, Taiwan’s status risked being be further jeopardized.
“Nobody can deny the fact that Taiwan is a sovereign country,” DPP Secretary-General Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) told reporters before the parade.
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
RSS