Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Shu-fen (
Lin told a press conference that many of the KMT's assets were cultural assets from the Japanese colonial period and that they needed to be preserved.
The site of the KMT's former headquarters on Zhongshan S Rd, for example, bears historical importance because it used to be the office of the Red Cross Society in Taiwan, but it was demolished by the KMT and sold to the Chang Yung-fa Foundation last year, Lin said.
"Many of the KMT's assets, sold or not, are buildings with unique architectural styles and historical worth," she said.
Lin added that she would take the lead in filing applications to the council and local cultural affairs departments, demanding they start the procedure of historical heritage review immediately.
"I hope the Taipei City Government and other local governments deal with applications as efficiently as the city government did when it had Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall [temporarily declared] a heritage site on Tuesday," she said.
Lin launched the campaign as a countermeasure against Taipei City Government's efforts to protect the memorial by citing the Cultural Heritage Preservation Law (
According to the law, local cultural affairs departments are obliged to review the historical value of a place or building after they accept an application from the public.
During the review process -- which can last from six months to a year -- no alterations can be made as it is first declared a temporary historical site.
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