A birth certificate purporting to show that the Republic of China’s (ROC) founding father was born in the US will be put on display tomorrow in Taipei, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said yesterday.
The document, issued on March 14, 1904, says that Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) was born on Oahu Island, Hawaii, on Nov. 24, 1870.
It enabled him to travel from Hawaii on April 7, 1904, to San Francisco as a US citizen while the Qing Dynasty issued a warrant for his arrest for attempting to overthrow the government.
The birth certificate, obtained from the US Immigration Office, will be a copy of the original file, said Sheila Paskman, spokesperson for the AIT, which represents US interests in Taiwan in the absence of formal diplomatic ties.
Asked whether this was the first time the document was revealed, Paskman said no and that “it has been around for a while.”
The birth certificate contradicts the generally accepted fact among historians that Sun was born on Nov. 12, 1866, in Cuiheng Village, Xiangshan County, in China’s Guangdong Province.
Many believe Sun’s friends helped him secure a fake birth certificate to facilitate his pursuit of US citizenship, which they felt was a necessary asset for Sun’s promotion of his revolutionary work in China.
Regarding the fake document controversy, Paskman said that US officials at the time held immigration hearings on Sun’s case. Documents from that hearing will also be displayed, allowing the public to judge the document’s authenticity for themselves.
The special exhibition, held to celebrate US Independence Day and the ROC’s centenary, will take place at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall from tomorrow through July 30.
LOOPHOLES: The people behind biased media content produced by a Chinese network, likely without sending staff to Taiwan, remain anonymous, a source said Beijing’s latest attempt at psychological warfare through heavily biased online media is aimed at sowing discord and polarizing Taiwanese society, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. The council’s comment came in response to Chinese network Southeast Television, which late last month began broadcasting an online program featuring commentary by Taiwanese unification supporters that authorities suspect was filmed illegally in Taiwan. To circumvent cross-strait regulations, the broadcaster collaborated with online service provider Baidu to air the series titles Diverse Voices From the Taiwan Strait (台海百家說). Only Taiwanese are shown on camera, without revealing the host, interviewer or production team. In one video, political commentator and
RULES IGNORED: CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang said that crew members who break the rules would be required to complete the full 14-day quarantine Three EVA Airways flight attendants were fired last month and this month after they failed to follow the government’s quarantine requirements. This was the first time that flight attendants have lost their jobs for quarantine failures. One flight attendant reportedly breached the quarantine mandate by going to school, visiting relatives and dining with friends, while lying to the company about her activities, EVA Air said. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) have established disease prevention measures for cabin crew members, such as monitoring their health and reporting their temperature daily, the company said. While on flight duty, crew
A group of overseas Taiwanese in Norway are taking a case on their national identity to the European Court of Human Rights — with plans to file the case in the first half of next year — after Norway’s Supreme Court rejected their appeal to change their listed nationality from “China” to “Taiwan,” Joseph Liu, a Taiwanese lawyer living in Norway, told reporters on Monday. One of the initiators of the movement, “My Name, My Right,” Liu and his group plan to hire lawyers from the UK and France who know European law and have knowledge of Asia to represent them,
SUPPRESSION: Michael Tsai, a former defense minister, said that Beijing’s list of Taiwan independence advocates contravenes the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights The best way to respond to threats from China against Taiwan independence advocates is for the president to publicly reiterate Taiwan’s sovereignty, former minister of national defense Michael Tsai (蔡明憲) said on Sunday. Chinese media on Nov. 15 said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was compiling “a list of stubborn Taiwanese separatists and will severely punish them in accordance with [China’s] Anti-Secession Law and hold them accountable for their actions for the rest of their lives.” Chinese media subsequently accused Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) of being a “first-rate war criminal,” because of his policy on mask exports. “The vast majority
RSS