President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday said the reason why he demanded the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) change its party emblem is to to break the myth of a one-party state and to carry out the goal of leading Taiwan to become a normal democratic country.
"In the past, the KMT's emblem has mingled with the national emblem in many aspects, which was a result of the KMT acting as it saw fit. Yet it did not mean it was a right thing," Chen said during the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) weekly Central Standing Committee meeting.
"Likewise, I believe that the people of Taiwan wouldn't accept it if the DPP adopted its party emblem as a new national emblem either," Chen said.
Chen also said the former KMT government intentionally used its party emblem when it designed the national emblem so that it could establish a one-party state.
"Those who insist that it is OK to mix the KMT's emblem with the national emblem simply show that they are still haunted with the mindset of favoring a one-party state," Chen said.
"Such a mindset is also the biggest obstacle ... to Taiwan's democratization," he said.
Because the KMT thought the party and the state were one and the same, it had no problem with seizing the nation's assets without giving compensation for the land it acquired. This sort of behavior led the KMT down the road of "black gold" politics, Chen said.
Chen said the KMT seized control of the military, governmental organizations and schools and replaced civic education with party education under the concept of a one-party state, all of which had confused the people of Taiwan about their national identity.
"People cannot help but be angered by what the KMT did to the country during its 50-year rule," he said.
"Fortunately, only a handful of people still indulge in the KMT's kind of obsolete and reactionary thinking," he said. "We would like to declare that the era of one-party rule should come to an end and the DPP will never make the same mistakes the KMT did."
"All political parties are equal before the nation's laws and we will carry out the goal of separating the party from the state, helping Taiwan become a normal and democratic country," he 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