The TSU celebrated its second anniversary at a park in downtown Taipei yesterday with a call for the people to support the "call Taiwan Taiwan" movement.
The TSU was formed in August 2001, with former president Lee Teng-hui (
Around 10,000 TSU supporters converged on the outdoor music hall at the 228 Memorial Park at noon. Singing and dancing kicked off the celebration activities. Then two giant ants, the mascots of the young party, led TSU Chairman Huang Chu-wen (黃主文), party officials and legislators to meet with their supporters.
Huang, in his address to the rally, said that only when Taiwan walks into the international community with its own status and name will the international community give Taiwan warm support.
"The people of Taiwan would realize more deeply that `the Republic of China' does not exist if they were overseas," Huang said, adding that "the ROC was kicked out of the UN long ago."
Huang said that if a person says that he is from Chiayi and that he is a Taiwanese, then he is a genuine Taiwanese; but if a person says that he is a Taiwanese and also a Chinese, then he has fallen into the trap of China's cherished "one country, two systems" rhetoric.
Huang said that he was especially "moved" by seeing so many supporters braving the sweltering heat to express their firm support for the cause of renaming the country "Taiwan."
He then brought the gathering to a climax by leading the supporters in shouting "we are Taiwanese!" and "long live Taiwan!"
After the celebration, the TSU supporters left the park in groups to join the "Call Taiwan Taiwan" demonstration.
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