Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials yesterday advised president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) against restoring names the DPP government had abolished.
The DPP government had changed the name of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall and replaced the inscription dazhong zhizheng (
"Illegally changing the name of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall was ill-mannered and was, of course, invalid," Ma was quoted as saying in an interview with the Chinese-language China Times published yesterday.
The name-change lacked legitimacy because the DPP government amended the Organic Statute of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (中正紀念堂組織條例) despite opposition, Ma said in the interview, adding that he would restore the names after soliciting opinions from different groups.
Ma added that he would not make the change if the public supports the new names.
Cabinet Secretary-General Chen Chin-jun (
"Replacing the inscription of dazhong zhizheng with Liberty Square was a collective consensus," he said. "The new government should keep this in mind and refrain from causing unnecessary ethnic conflicts and creating an unnecessary authoritarian symbol."
"There is no room for doubt that the DPP government had followed the law in changing the names. The names were changed after all legal procedures were completed," he said.
Meanwhile, Vice President Annette Lu (
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
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The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
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