Several hundred Taiwanese demonstrators joined student organizers from Hong Kong and Macau at a sit-in at Taipei’s Liberty Square last night, showing their support for ongoing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong’s Central District.
The rally, originally scheduled for next Wednesday, was abruptly moved to yesterday, following the surprise launch of Hong Kong’s Occupy Central protest.
“On Sunday afternoon, we decided to follow suit and take action,” said Clementine Ho (何慧欣), a member of organizer the Democratic Alliance of Hong Kong and Macau Students in Taiwan (港澳在台灣民主同盟).
“We deeply value Taiwanese support for Hong Kong’s democracy,” Hong Kong activist Lau Ka-yee (劉家儀) said.
“However, there is one person who has not spoken out,” Lau added. “President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) enjoys a great amount of popularity in Hong Kong. As president of the Republic of China, shouldn’t he stand firmly behind democratic values?”
Tensions in Hong Kong have escalated over the past week, as student protesters launched a week-long strike in response to Beijing’s announcement of its regulations for Hong Kong’s 2017 chief executive election, which critics say fall short of promised universal suffrage.
Tear gas and rubber bullets were fired on protesters yesterday evening in a show of force not seen since WTO protests in 2005.
Exiled Chinese dissidents Wang Dan (王丹) and Wu’er Kaixi, both veteran student leaders of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, spoke at Liberty Square in support of Hong Kong’s movement.
“We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our friends in Hong Kong,” Wuer Kaixi said, adding: “Although we might come from different backgrounds, what unites us is our support for freedom and democracy.”
Sunflower movement leaders Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) and Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) also expressed their solidarity with the protesters in Hong Kong.
Lin and Chen emphasized how much they valued the support they had received from Hong Kong students during the Sunflower movement, in which student-led protesters took over the Legislative Yuan’s main chamber in Taipei to protest the government’s handling of the cross-strait service trade pact.
Huang called on Taiwanese to send a clear message to the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.
“If bloodshed of any kind occurs in Hong Kong as a result of police crackdowns, we will not stand idly by. We will take to the streets and stand up against the Chinese Communist Party,” Huang said.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS