If a small of group of people could force the former dictatorial regime to dissolve the Taiwan Garrison Command and lift martial law, the 23 million people now living in Taiwan should be able to stop President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) from selling out Taiwan, independence supporters said yesterday at a forum in Taipei.
Speaking at the forum, which looked at the effects of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, former Examination Yuan president Yao Wen-chia (姚嘉文) urged Taiwanese to stand united to prevent the Ma administration from handing over Taiwan’s sovereignty to Beijing.
“We must be confident that we can stop Ma from turning Taiwan over to Communist China. Back then, there were only a few of us, but we still managed to force the government to dissolve the Taiwan Garrison Command and lift martial law,” he said.
Yao, also a student of Taiwanese history, said the treaty, in which China ceded control of Taiwan to Japan in April 1895, officially marked the beginning of Taiwan’s complete and perpetual severance from China.
Although Japan gave up its jurisdiction over Taiwan in the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952, Tokyo has never recognized Taiwan as part of China, so Taiwan is clearly not a Chinese province, he said.
Former vice-president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), publisher of the new pro-independence newspaper Formosa Post, said history has shown that Taiwan goes through a major transformation every 30 years and urged all Taiwanese to take the country’s fate in their own hands.
“Throughout history, the Taiwanese people have never been an active participant in their own destiny. We must change that. At the moment, the world is going through a major change, and Taiwan will undoubtedly be affected,” she said.
Lu said that since the Ma government entered office in May last year, the relationship between Taiwan and China has become closer than ever.
However, Lu said, the growing intimacy between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party would put Taiwan’s future in further jeopardy.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
UNREASONABLE SURVEILLANCE: A camera targeted on an road by a neighbor captured a man’s habitual unsignaled turn into home, netting him dozens of tickets The Taichung High Administrative Court has canceled all 45 tickets given to a man for failing to use a turn signal while driving, as it considered long-term surveillance of his privacy more problematic than the traffic violations. The man, surnamed Tseng (曾), lives in Changhua County and was reported 45 times within a month for failing to signal while driving when he turned into the alley where his residence is. The reports were filed by his neighbor, who set up security cameras that constantly monitored not only the alley but also the door and yard of Tseng’s house. The surveillance occurred from July
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