Under the Formosa Alliance’s rallying call, tens of thousands of people yesterday gathered in front of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) headquarters in Taipei, demanding an amendment to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) to allow for a poll promoting Taiwanese independence and rejecting Chinese annexation.
Amendments to the act promulgated in January have lowered the thresholds for proposing and passing referendums, but proposals about changing the national territory, flag and name are still not allowed.
Shouting slogans such as “Taiwan yes, China no” and “[we] want a referendum,” nearly 130,000 people rallied outside the DPP’s headquarters, according to the alliance’s estimate at 3:30pm.
Photo: EPA / Ritchie B. Tongo
“We should tell the world that we want to establish an independent country,” alliance convener and Formosa TV (民視) chairman Kuo Bei-hung (郭倍宏) said, encouraging people to press the ruling party to amend the law again.
Former Presidential Office adviser Peng Ming-min (彭明敏) said that many of his friends had asked him not to attend the rally, but he still went, even though he might lose friends.
To strive for a better future, Taiwanese should fight Beijing’s attempts to swallow the nation, otherwise China might eliminate Taiwanese, as it is doing to Uighurs in Xinjiang, Peng said.
There should be no limit to referendum proposals, given that initiating referendums is a basic democratic right, he said, adding that Taiwanese independence should be achieved through a referendum.
“Long live the Republic of Taiwan,” Peng shouted at the end of his speech.
The act has evolved from a “bird cage” to an “iron cage,” because it does not even allow people to decide on the name of their own country, former Presidential Office adviser Wu Li-pei (吳澧培) said, urging people not to let Taiwan become “another Hong Kong.”
“We are at a critical juncture of history,” Wu said. “There might be a long way to go to achieve Taiwanese independence, but everyone should play his or her own part to realize the goal.”
It has been more than 50 years since Peng initiated the Declaration of Formosan Self-Salvation in 1964, but Taiwan has not yet become a “normal” country, because Taiwanese did not fight for their rights bravely enough, Social Democratic Party convener Fan Yun (范雲) said.
The nation should be named “Taiwan” instead of the “Republic of China,” otherwise other countries would continue confusing the nation with China and rejecting Taiwan’s international presence, Taoyuan resident Teng Pang-yuan (鄧邦圓), 32, said.
Teng said that seeing Beijing’s bullying and the insistence of using the name “Chinese Taipei” at sports events makes him more inclined toward independence.
Taiwanese should make the nation independent, even if other countries refuse to admit this status, Teng added.
Yesterday’s event might be the biggest rally trumpeting independence in recent decades, event host Dennis Peng (彭文正) said, adding that the DPP’s march in Kaohsiung yesterday was not serious, because it averted the independence issue and only copied the alliance’s call to oppose Chinese annexation.
While the DPP has forbidden party members from joining the alliance’s activities, many still showed up at the rally, including Wu and former minister of foreign affairs Mark Chen (陳唐山).
Asked if the party would punish those who attended, DPP Deputy Secretary-General Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) said the order was to protect candidates running in the Nov. 24 elections, and that Wu and Chen would not be affected, because they are not candidates.
Additional reporting by Su Fun-her
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,
Japan and the Philippines yesterday signed a defense pact that would allow the tax-free provision of ammunition, fuel, food and other necessities when their forces stage joint training to boost deterrence against China’s growing aggression in the region and to bolster their preparation for natural disasters. Japan has faced increasing political, trade and security tensions with China, which was angered by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remark that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be a survival-threatening situation for Japan, triggering a military response. Japan and the Philippines have also had separate territorial conflicts with Beijing in the East and South China
RSS