The government has decided to remove a plaque bearing the name “National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall” from the main building of the hall and would reinstate the “Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall” plaque in July, Minister Without Portfolio Ovid Tseng (曾志朗) said on Thursday.
The decision was made after coordination meetings between different government branches, Tseng said.
As for the inscription on the memorial hall’s entry arch, the Ministry of Education said yesterday it would hold three public forums next month to discuss whether to reinstate the four-character inscription, dazhong zhizheng (大中至正), which means “great neutrality and perfect uprightness.”
Participants at the forums will include academics and experts, while elected representatives and government officials will be excluded from the meetings, the ministry said.
Tseng said the government would not replace the “Liberty Square” inscription at the hall entrance until after gauging public opinion on the matter during the ministry-sponsored forums.
The hall has been the subject of dispute between pan-blues and pan-greens over the years. In 2007, the then-Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration renamed the memorial National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall as part of its efforts to remove symbols commemorating dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
The DPP government also changed the inscription dazhong zhizheng to “Liberty Square” (自由廣場) and redecorated the hall. The move drew protests from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-dominated legislature, which blasted the government for failing to put it through a legislative vote.
With the KMT regaining power last year, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) in August instructed the Executive Yuan to withdraw from the legislature a proposal to abolish the Organic Statute of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (中正紀念堂組織條例).
During the review of the central government’s budget request for the current fiscal year in January, the KMT-controlled legislature passed a resolution stating that “the name of National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall shall be changed to Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.”
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
MORE FALL: An investigation into one of Xi’s key cronies, part of a broader ‘anti-corruption’ drive, indicates that he might have a deep distrust in the military, an expert said China’s latest military purge underscores systemic risks in its shift from collective leadership to sole rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and could disrupt its chain of command and military capabilities, a national security official said yesterday. If decisionmaking within the Chinese Communist Party has become “irrational” under one-man rule, the Taiwan Strait and the regional situation must be approached with extreme caution, given unforeseen risks, they added. The anonymous official made the remarks as China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli (劉振立) were reportedly being investigated for suspected “serious
RSS