Members of a Chinese team participating in the International Children's Games in Thailand, yesterday snatched Taiwan's national flag from Taiwanese medalists as they accepted their awards.
The Taiwanese team was led by Deputy Taipei Mayor King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) and officials from the city government's Department of Education.
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
"It's the sixth time Taipei City has joined the event, and the first time for Beijing. Its attitude is surprisingly rude. This issue could have been solved through negotiation," Ma said last night as he watched the Taipei Firework Festival in Dadaocheng (
The first incident occurred before the Taiwanese athletes went on to the podium to receive their awards.
The flags which the athletes were planning to use had gone missing. It emerged that the flags had been stolen by members of the Chinese team, Angel Chen (
The second incident occurred when the athletes were on stage and ready to receive their awards, when individuals later identified as members of the Chinese team approached them and ripped off the flag that the athletes had worn.
The third incident occurred after the ceremony was over. Taiwanese athletes were sitting among the audience when members of the Chinese team approached and again ripped away the flag, Chen said.
Taiwanese officials immediately filed a complaint with the organizer.
They demanded an apology from China and the return of the flag, according to a statement released by city government officials last night.
A survey of young Taiwanese showed that only 36.5 percent of men and 19.6 percent of women believe marriage is important, a trend that academics say is key to the nation’s low birthrate. Yang Wen-shan (楊文山), an adjunct research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology, yesterday announced the 12th round of results from a longitudinal survey of attitudes among young Taiwanese toward markers of adulthood. While few of the respondents, who were aged 28 to 32 when surveyed in 2017, found marriage to be important, 95.8 percent believed that being responsible for oneself should take precedence, data showed. Economic independence came in
SHRINKING FEMALE POPULATION: Last year, 107.74 boys were born for every 100 girls in Taiwan, which is a greater gender imbalance than in Japan and South Korea The Ministry of the Interior recorded 9,601 births in January, the first time the nation has produced fewer than 10,000 newborns in a single month, while different indicators showed that Taiwan might also be facing a population with increasingly fewer births, women and marriages. It comes after the ministry reported a record low 165,249 births last year, which was lower than the 173,156 deaths recorded last year. The nation experienced negative population growth for the first time last year, ministry data found. The number of births in January also dropped from a year earlier, when there were 12,510 births. In February, there were
The Hualien District Prosecutors’ Office has listed six people as suspects in a judicial investigation into a fatal train crash on Friday last week. Fifty people were killed and more than 200 were injured when the Taroko Express No. 408 train slammed into a crane truck that had slid onto the tracks near the entrance of Cingshuei Tunnel (清水隧道) in Hualien’s Sioulin Township (秀林). The office also summoned six officials at the Taiwan Railways Administration’s (TRA) Hualien Engineering Section for questioning about alleged illegal business operations and unsafe work conditions by Yi Hsiang Industry Co and Tung Hsin Construction Co, the two
KEEPING FOCUSED: Premier Su Tseng-chang was said to have commended Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung, but said the tragedy takes priority Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) has submitted a verbal resignation in the wake of the Taroko Express No. 408 train crash two days ago, Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said yesterday. In a call, Lin told Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) that he wished to step down, to take responsibility for the deadliest accident involving a Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) train in 40 years. As of press time last night, the Hualien District Prosecutors’ Office had revised the death toll from 51, which had been reported on the previous day, to 50, after DNA testing showed that what had