Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) yesterday criticized the organizers of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China (ROC) for their failure to play the national anthem during a ceremony to unveil the celebration’s logo and slogan.
“You didn’t dare sing the national anthem, but you had to speak on behalf of the nation, so you had no choice but to choose to play the National Flag Song,” Kuan said in a question-and-answer session with Council for Cultural Affairs Minister Emile Sheng (盛治仁) during a meeting of the Education and Culture Committee.
“You belittled the nation by turning the ROC into Chinese Taipei,” Kuan said.
Sheng, who doubles as chief executive officer of the organizing committee, defended the committee’s choice, saying the National Flag Anthem was chosen to go with the light pace of the Powerpoint presentation the committee prepared for the occasion.
“[Officials] at the Presidential Office sing the national anthem all the time,” he said.
The committee has come under fire since it introduced the logo and slogan for the celebration on Monday.
The Taipei Times and its sister paper, the Chinese-language Liberty Times, reported on Tuesday that the slogan of the event was toned down to avoid sensitive political issues.
Jerry Fan (范可欽), creator of the slogan, said the original slogan of “Republic of China, Founded 100 Years (中華民國，建國一百)” was later changed to “Republic of China, Splendid 100 (中華民國，精彩一百).”
Kuan yesterday said that the committee appeared to have come up with the slogan by copying the slogan from the upcoming Shanghai World Expo — “Successful Olympic Games, Splendid World Expo (成功奧運，精彩世博).”
DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) also questioned the appropriateness of the slogan, saying there was nothing “splendid” about the nation from the past century.
“The 228 Incident occurred in 1947. We withdrew from the UN in 1971. Diplomatic relations with the US were severed in 1978. The 921 Earthquake hit the nation in 1999 and we had a serious flood last year. Did we really have what we can call a splendid history over the past 100 years?” Chen asked.
KMT legislators Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and Kuo Su-chun (郭素春) defended the committee, saying plans for the celebrations had brought out the DPP’s passion for the ROC.
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