The Cabinet yesterday officially named the newly completed Taipei-Ilan freeway the "Chiang Wei-shui [蔣渭水] Memorial Freeway" in line with a proposal by Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
"Chiang was Taiwan's nationalist pioneer and a person who inspired the value of democracy. He was also an Ilan native. It is a good idea to name this freeway after him," said Government Information Office Minister and Cabinet Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (
"Mayor Ma, who proposed this idea, said he affirmed and appreciated this decision as well," Cheng said.
Trailblazer
On Jan. 15, Ma and Ilan County Commissioner Lu Kuo-hua (呂國華) first proposed that the freeway be named the "Chiang Wei-shui Memorial Freeway" because Chiang was an Ilan native as well as a trailblazer for Taiwan's democracy movement under Japanese rule.
In the 1920s, Chiang set up the Taiwan National Council and the Taiwan People's Party, the first political parties to be established in Taiwan. He was also the first person to seek to improve the status of Taiwanese during the Japanese occupation through the establishment of a democracy movement.
Cheng said Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) decided to make public the official name of the freeway because it will be opened to the public tomorrow.
Cheng also described the freeway as connecting technology, history and civilization.
"[The freeway] begins from Nangang, Taipei City, and goes through Pinglin, Taipei County, and then eventually enters Ilan County. We have high-tech industries in Nangang, famous tea production in Pinglin and historical sites in Ilan," Cheng said.
Freeway workers
On behalf of the premier, Cheng expressed gratitude to the technicians, architects and workers who devoted themselves to the construction of the freeway as well as its controversial Hsuehshan Tunnel (雪山隧道), which has become the fifth-longest tunnel in the world.
"On June 16, we will be very proud to prove wrong those who said that it would be impossible for us to finish the tunnel," Cheng said.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by