The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) said yesterday that the party will mobilize 200,000 people to take part in a "1 million hand-in-hand" campaign scheduled for Feb. 28.
TSU Chairman Huang Chu-wen (
Former president Lee Teng-hui (
Huang said the campaign, the "peace referendum" and defense of "the local regime" on election day, March 20, were the three major goals of the TSU this year.
The TSU regards Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), both born in China, as "aliens."
Huang said his party would mobilize 200,000 people for the "1 million hand-in-hand" campaign and that in the toughest area for TSU supporters -- Miaoli County -- the party is aiming to attract 10,000 people.
Huang also cited the examples of three Baltic nations, saying that the total population of the three countries was only a little more than 8 million, but in 1989, facing the threat from the Soviet Union, the countries mobilized a total of 2 million people to form a giant human chain. Lithuania held a referendum in February the following year and declared independence in March.
According to Huang, this showed the importance of the "1 million hand-in-hand" campaign as the first step. The subsequent peace referendum and the defense of "the local regime" were also crucial, he said.
He claimed that only by defending the "local regime" could Taiwan cement its democratic achievements, uphold its reforms and stabilize the political situation.
TSU secretary-general Lin Chi-chia (林志嘉) said that all participants in the campaign would turn east toward the Central Mountain Range at 2:28pm and shout "Taiwan yes, China no."
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