The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday came under fire over stickers it designed identifying the wearer as a Taiwanese national and which it planned to give to Taiwanese in Vietnam in a bid to protect them from being attacked by anti-China protesters.
The stickers bear the message: “I am Taiwanese. I am from Taiwan” written in Vietnamese against a yellow silhouette of the island with “I am from Taiwan” repeated underneath in English.
Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) said the ministry’s missions in Vietnam will give Taiwanese businesspeople there the stickers so “Vietnamese could easily distinguish them and their firms from their Chinese counterparts.”
Photo: MOFA
According to the ministry, out of the 2,287 Taiwan-funded firms in Vietnam, 669 are located in Binh Duong Province and 331 in Dong Nai Province, the sites of the violent protests against Beijing’s move to put an oil rig close to the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) in the South China Sea, which are claimed by Taiwan, Vietnam and China.
The plan to hand out stickers to the estimated 40,000 Taiwanese in Vietnam drew harsh criticism from opposition lawmakers.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said the ministry’s stickers could put Taiwanese in danger because Vietnamese are taught that Taiwan is part of China, so what is needed is to clarify that Taiwanese are not from China.
DPP Legislator Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) said Taiwanese firms and factories had been “inadvertently affected” by the anti-China sentiment in Vietnam because school textbooks teach pupils that “Taiwan is a province of China.”
The ministry should demand that Hanoi allow companies owned or funded by Taiwanese to display the Republic of China (ROC) flag to protect themselves from anti-Chinese violence, much as South Korean companies have done, DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said.
Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Chou Ni-an (周倪安) asked the ministry to replace the slogan on the sticker with “I am ROC citizen. I am from the ROC.”
“You favor the ROC over Taiwan, don’t you? So why did you choose to use the designation ‘Taiwan’ this time?” Chou said.
Lin responded that despite Hanoi’s adherence to the “one China” policy and the way in which the Taiwan-China relationship is explained in schools in Vietnam, the majority of Vietnamese have a clear understanding that there is no connection between Taiwan-owned firms and China because Taiwanese have been investing in the country for more than 20 years.
In his National Day Rally speech on Sunday, Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) quoted the Taiwanese song One Small Umbrella (一支小雨傘) to describe his nation’s situation. Wong’s use of such a song shows Singapore’s familiarity with Taiwan’s culture and is a perfect reflection of exchanges between the two nations, Representative to Singapore Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said yesterday in a post on Facebook. Wong quoted the song, saying: “As the rain gets heavier, I will take care of you, and you,” in Mandarin, using it as a metaphor for Singaporeans coming together to face challenges. Other Singaporean politicians have also used Taiwanese songs
NORTHERN STRIKE: Taiwanese military personnel have been training ‘in strategic and tactical battle operations’ in Michigan, a former US diplomat said More than 500 Taiwanese troops participated in this year’s Northern Strike military exercise held at Lake Michigan by the US, a Pentagon-run news outlet reported yesterday. The Michigan National Guard-sponsored drill involved 7,500 military personnel from 36 nations and territories around the world, the Stars and Stripes said. This year’s edition of Northern Strike, which concluded on Sunday, simulated a war in the Indo-Pacific region in a departure from its traditional European focus, it said. The change indicated a greater shift in the US armed forces’ attention to a potential conflict in Asia, it added. Citing a briefing by a Michigan National Guard senior
CHIPMAKING INVESTMENT: J.W. Kuo told legislators that Department of Investment Review approval would be needed were Washington to seek a TSMC board seat Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said he received information about a possible US government investment in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and an assessment of the possible effect on the firm requires further discussion. If the US were to invest in TSMC, the plan would need to be reviewed by the Department of Investment Review, Kuo told reporters ahead of a hearing of the legislature’s Economics Committee. Kuo’s remarks came after US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Tuesday said that the US government is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that
CLAMPING DOWN: At the preliminary stage on Jan. 1 next year, only core personnel of the military, the civil service and public schools would be subject to inspections Regular checks are to be conducted from next year to clamp down on military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers with Chinese citizenship or Chinese household registration, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. Article 9-1 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) stipulates that Taiwanese who obtain Chinese household registration or a Chinese passport would be deprived of their Taiwanese citizenship and lose their right to work in the military, public service or public schools, it said. To identify and prevent the illegal employment of holders of Chinese ID cards or
RSS