A group of pro-independence activists announced yesterday that they would like to have Sept. 8 designated as Taiwan's national day.
Wang Hsien-chi (王獻極), convener of the Taiwan Nation Movement Preparatory Committee and founder of the Alliance to Campaign for Rectifying the Name of Taiwan, claimed at a press conference that Taiwan has been independent since 1945, when Japan surrendered at the end of the World War II.
More precisely, Wang said, Japan merely gave up its territorial claims to Taiwan in the peace treaty it signed with the Allied nations in San Francisco on Sept. 8, 1951 and did not give the island to any country.
According to Wang, this means Taiwan became independent.
This is the reason why the preparatory committee chose Sept. 8 as the national day,Wang said.
Every Sept. 8, Wang said, the people of Taiwan should celebrate Taiwan national day on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office.
He said the committee will also strive to establish a national policy advisory group, enact a Taiwan constitution and draft a national policy white paper -- all measures aimed at materializing and substantiating the national system of Taiwan, as well as detaching Taiwan from what Wang said was its current meaningless name of "the Republic of China [ROC]."
lamentable facts
However, Wu Li-pei (吳澧涪), a senior adviser to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), claimed that genuine materialization of Taiwan's independent sovereignty did not begin until 1996, when the people of Taiwan directly elected their president.
"Lamentably," he said, the country has continued to use the unrealistic name of the ROC under an "untrustworthy" constitution authored by people in China more than 80 years ago.
Wu said that since historical facts "prove" that Taiwan is not a part of China, there should be a clear distinction between "independence" and "unification, " meaning that there should be no question that Taiwan is not an independent nation and that no issue of "unification with China" should be contemplated by the Taiwanese people.
ambiguous identity
Reverend Lo Rong-kuang (羅榮光), a minister in the Taiwan Presbyterian Church, said the nation continues to face diplomatic crisis in the international community because of the ambiguity of its identity.
Describing Chen as the ROC president but not the president of Taiwan, Lo said the Taiwanese people should re-elect another president who would be the "Taiwan president."
Taiwan would have a good chance of joining the UN if it were called Taiwan, Lo said.
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