President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday stressed that Taiwan was a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural country and urged different ethnic groups to respect each other.
"The language and culture of every ethnic group are our common valuable assets and we should preserve and promote them. This is the responsibility of the government and the obligation of every citizen," Chen said.
"Be it Hokkien, Mandarin, Taiwanese or Aboriginal languages, every language is a beautiful Taiwanese language; be they Taiwanese, Chinese or Aboriginals, every citizen is a real Taiwanese. We should respect, tolerate and learn from each other to create a new harmonious Taiwanese society," he said.
Chen made the speech at the ninth anniversary of the Formosa Hakka Radio Station. He lauded the radio station as a leading promoter of Taiwanese culture, and thanked it for its contribution to promoting multi-cultural values. He also touted the Taiwanese culture as being unique and great.
"In the past four hundred years, Hakka people have played an important role in Taiwan. From the initial frontier-development stage to the later construction stage, Taiwanese people have been stoic and hard-working and made great contributions to the country," Chen said.
"We are very happy to see that the Taiwanese cultural movement has taken root in different social, political and academic circles as its identification with Taiwan becomes more prominent," he said.
Chen pointed out that he had been paying closing attention to the welfare of Hakka people and he had been pushing for different Hakka-promoting policies, including setting up the first Hakka Cultural Building and the Taipei Hakka Cultural Foundation when he was mayor of Taipei.
"More important Hakka policies have been realized within the past three years, because I, as preseident, hope the Hakka culture can be revived as soon as possible," Chen said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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
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The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift