Taipei City’s Cultural Assets Review Committee members agreed yesterday that preserving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) emblem on the East Gate was a debatable issue and that modifications were permissible if done legally.
Three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors — Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄), Liu Yao-ren (劉耀仁) and Huang Hsiang-chun (黃向群) — who slapped paint over the KMT emblem on the gate on Tuesday did not cause structural damage, so the Taipei City Government could reconsider bringing them to justice, members said.
Committee member Huang Fu-sen (黃富三) said the Council of Cultural Affairs had failed to identify the emblem when it designated the East Gate a national monument in 1998.
“Now that we face this problem, what we can do is discuss whether or not the emblem, a product of a party-state, should be preserved. This is a debatable issue,” he said.
The committee members made the remarks in a public hearing organized by Taipei City’s Department of Cultural Affairs yesterday to discuss whether or not the KMT emblem should be removed from the gate.
The three councilors, KMT Taipei City councilors and about a dozen citizens attended the public hearing to express their opinions.
Chuang yesterday defended his action in the public hearing and slammed the city government for ignoring opposition to the emblem.
“The government cannot make the decision for the people and it should not hold such a dictatorial attitude,” he said.
Participating citizens were divided on whether the emblem should be removed, while some challenged the city government for failing to hold more public hearings gather opinions.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Lai Su-ru (賴素如), who attended the public hearing on behalf of the KMT’s Culture and Communication Commission, did not clarify the KMT’s stance on the matter, and said the party would leave the issue to the CCA.
Commissioner of the department Lee Yongping (李永萍) said the department would gather opinions in a public hearing and present them to the CCA, which holds authority over the monument.
“The department has no stance on this issue and we will do whatever the CCA decides,” she said.
The KMT emblems were first carved and painted on the East Gate and other three historical gates in 1966 when the KMT modified the Qing Dynasty gates.
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
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
The National Immigration Agency has banned two Chinese from returning to Taiwan, after they published social media content it described as disrespectful to national sovereignty. The agency imposed a two-month ban on a Chinese man surnamed Liang (梁) and a permanent ban on a woman surnamed Yang (楊), an influencer with 23 million followers, in October last year and last week respectively. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting that Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to comply with the rules and regulations governing their entry permits. The government has handled the ban and
RSS