Timed to coincide with the national day of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), an online school aimed at promoting Chinese democracy was launched yesterday in Taipei by democracy activist Wang Dan (王丹).
The New School for Democracy’s first semester, which started yesterday and runs through January, offers six free Internet courses on the democratic movements in Taiwan and Hong Kong, the history of the PRC, China’s foreign policy, human rights and its implementation, the role of media in democracy, and a workshop on citizen journalism.
“Today [Oct. 1] was not a day to celebrate the founding of the PRC, but a national mourning day, because the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] regime has done more harm than good to the country,” Wang said at the opening ceremony.
Wang, one of the student leaders of the 1989 pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square in Beijing and who is now a visiting professor at Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University, said he hoped the online classes would reach out to many Chinese overseas.
Meanwhile, students in China are encouraged to use anti-censorship devices to “break the cyberwall,” Wang said, adding that they are the school’s “main targets among whom we want to sow the seeds of democracy.”
The initiative is the first-ever attempt at cooperation among civil groups from Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and other countries, Wang said.
The younger generation and the Internet are indispensable to China’s road to democracy, and civil groups in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and overseas have to enhance cooperation so that students can turn theory into action rather than just learning, he said.
“[Former US president John F.] Kennedy once said: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.’ Here is what I want to say: Ask not what Chinese democracy can do for you; ask what you can do for Chinese democracy,” Wang said.
Andrew To (陶君行), a member of Hong Kong’s legislative council and chairman of the League of Social Democrats, said the school would not just serve as a platform for cyberdiscussion, but would promote “social movement” by establishing connections among activists worldwide.
Joseph Cheng (鄭宇碩), a political science professor at City University of Hong Kong who is the chancellor of the New School for Democracy, was also at the launch yesterday.
Dawa Tsering, chairman of the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the de facto embassy of the Tibetan government-in-exile in Taiwan, expected the school to increase access to information for people in China.
“Authoritarian regimes are based on atrocity and lies. When people can freely access information, a false tale will betray itself,” Dawa said.
He added that he did not view China as a mighty country as some have said.
“No matter how far its material strength grows, it’s a country in spiritual vacuity. And its people are not respected because they lack freedom and a democratic system to safeguard liberty,” he said.
“From this point of view, pursuing democracy is an act of patriotism and democratization is the best gift for China,” Dawa said.
The school, first publicized in late May in Taipei, was registered in Hong Kong, with offices in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Its funding comes mainly from donations from civil groups in Hong Kong, said Tseng Chien-yuan (曾建元), a board member of the school.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
One person was killed and another seven injured today when a tourist shuttle bus plunged 30m to 40m down a ravine in Nantou County, the Tourism Administration said. The bus is suspected to have suddenly accelerated out of control near the flower center of the Sun-Link-Sea Forest Recreation Area, a popular attraction during cherry blossom season. Of the eight onboard, a 66-year-old man was killed, four were seriously injured and three sustained minor injuries, including the driver. The Nantou County Police Department said it received a report of the incident at 12:15pm and dispatched seven teams to assist. All surviving passengers have been transferred
RSS