The “Sing! China: Shanghai-Taipei Music Festival” scheduled for yesterday at National Taiwan University’s (NTU) athletic field came to an abrupt end following protests by pro-Taiwan independence groups and students at the school against the university’s decision to rent the venue for the event.
The site quickly descended into further dissarray, as members of pro-unification groups joined the fray.
Three students were reportedly injured by a member of the pro-unification Patriot Association (愛國同心會), police said.
Photo: Chou Yen-yu, Taipei Times
At the center of the furor was the school’s decision to rent the athletic field for the event, which was cosponsored by the Taipei Department of Cultural Affairs and the Chinese reality television show Sing! China.
Representatives of the school’s student council on Saturday said that the event had not only caused structural damage to the facilities, but also denied NTU students and sports teams use of the field and its track.
The festival is included in memorandums of understanding on cultural and arts events signed by Taipei and Shanghai, but posters for the event called the school “Taipei City Taiwan University (臺北市臺灣大學).”
Accusing China of using the concert as a “united front” tactic that infringed upon Taiwan’s interests, pro-Taiwan independence groups Free Taiwan Party and 908 Taiwan Republic Campaign first staged a protest outside the venue before purchasing tickets.
Scuffles broke out when they were barred from entering by event staffers as they shouted slogans such as: “This is the land of Taiwanese, why can’t Taiwanese with tickets get in?”
The protesters rammed the entrance at 4pm waving a “Republic of Taiwan” flag, sounding air horns and holding banners that read “Refuse to be China Taiwan University.”
About 30 minutes later, a crowd of NTU students entered the venue, holding placards reading “return the track and field” and tossing joss paper as they demanded an apology from the school and the Cultural Affairs Department.
Citing safety concerns by NTU, the emcee at 4:40pm announced the concert was over, prompting cheers from the student protesters, some of whom climbed onto the stage, shouting: “We are Taiwan National University, not China Taiwan University.”
As the crowd dispersed at about 5pm, verbal altercations erupted between some students and members of pro-unification groups, and three students were injured after being hit by a stick.
Police later found the alleged perpetrator, a 61-year-old man surnamed Hu (胡), and took him for questioning.
NTU official later condemned the violence and the event organizer’s “belittlement” of the nation’s premier university.
NTU secretary-general Lin Ta-te (林達德) said that it was “very inappropriate” for the event organizer to borrow the venue while belittling the university.
Additional reporting by Kuo An-chia
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
AIR ALERT: China’s reservation of airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea could be an attempt to test the US’ response ahead of a Trump-Xi meeting, the NSB head said China’s attempts to infiltrate Taiwan are systematic, planned and targeted, with activity shifting from recruiting mid-level military officers to rank-and-file enlisted personnel, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) integrates national security, intelligence operations and “united front” efforts into a dense network to conduct intelligence gathering and espionage in Taiwan, Tsai said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. It uses specific networks to screen targets through exchange activities and recruiting local collaborators to establish intelligence-gathering organizations, he said. China is also shifting who it targets to lower-ranking military personnel,
RSS