About 30 protesters armed with signs and slogans were cordoned off by plainclothes police outside the Grand Hotel in Taipei yesterday where a meeting between cross-strait negotiators was being held.
The gathering, led by the Alliance of Referendum for Taiwan, was part of ongoing protests the group has planned against all types of cross-strait meetings, with the protest’s leaders saying interactions have eroded Taiwanese sovereignty.
“Taiwan and China, each side is a different country,” chanted members of the group, most of whom were middle-aged or elderly, before several of them ripped up paper emblems of the Republic of China and People’s Republic of China combined on one flag.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
The protesters were held back by a dozen plainclothes officers who cordoned the group into a small area outside the main gate of the hotel.
Prevented from entering the hotel, the protest’s leaders decided to hand a Straits Exchange Foundation official on the scene a pot filled with dried jasmine flowers and a bottle containing di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, or DEHP, the chemical at the center of the recent food scare in Taiwan.
The two items were chosen because they were representative of cross-strait relations, said Chang Ming-yu (張銘祐), an executive director of the alliance.
“The flowers represent Taiwan’s democracy and freedoms that are being taken away by closer interactions between Taiwan and China,” Chang said. “Meanwhile, DEHP products have been found only in Taiwan and not China — despite being made by the same company in one instance.”
It shows the cross-strait inequality and how in some cases inferior products are left in Taiwan while better products are exported across the Taiwan Strait, he said.
“We will continue to monitor and protest cross-strait discussions,” he said, echoing promises by other pro-independence group leaders to rally against cross-strait meetings, regardless of whether they are of business nature or other.
Earlier the alliance, the Northern Taiwan Society and other groups gathered at the legislature where, supported by a Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker, said cross-strait pacts have failed to make life better for most Taiwanese.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
RSS