The Taiwanese community in Los Angeles formed a special committee yesterday to push the Los Angeles municipal government to change a road sign on which Taipei is named as a city of China."
The committee, composed of senior executives of the three largest Taiwanese associations in Los Angeles, will lodge a protest with the city government tomorrow over the arbitrary name change, a spokesman said.
"We'll demand the city government immediately remove the word `China' at the end of `Taipei' on a road sign which lists the city's 22 sister cities around the world," the spokesman said.
If the city government fails to respond its demand, the spokesman said, the committee will mobilize major Taiwanese groups to demonstrate in front of the Los Angeles city hall.
Over the past few days, many Taiwan expatriates in Los Angeles have voiced strong protests to the city government by phone or e-mail, the spokesman said.
Taipei entered into sisterhood ties with Los Angeles more than two decades ago.
The Los Angeles government erected the road sign on Sept. 18 with the names of its 22 sister cities, including Taipei, around the world to highlight Los Angeles' status as an international city.
When the road sign was inaugurated, Jason C. Yuan, head of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles, was invited by L.A. Mayor James K. Hahn to witness the event.
However, on Nov. 14 -- without any fanfare -- the city government added the word "China" to the end of "Taipei Municipality, Taiwan" to indicate that Taipei is part of China.
The move has reportedly alarmed a significant portion of the large ethnic Chinese population in the city, many of whom are firm supporters of the Republic of China.
An official from the ROC's representative office in Los Angeles said his office has already sent a letter to the city hall to protest the change.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods