Taiwan should suspend all religious exchanges with China before Beijing stops its oppression on Tibetan monks, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) said yesterday.
TSU legislative caucus whip Hsu Chung-hsin (許忠信) said China’s recent crackdown on Tibetan monks has been one of the most brutal cases of persecution in history, which has resulted in at least 20 monks dying from 30 cases of self-immolation since March last year.
The TSU would propose to observe a moment of silence before the next legislative session to pay tribute to those monks who perished, Hsu said.
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration should recognize the gravity of the oppression and suspend all religious exchanges across the Taiwan Strait until Beijing stops its violent actions, Hsu said.
TSU Legislator Huang Wen-ling (黃文玲) said China is an atheist country and that it oppresses all religions, including Christianity and Catholicism.
The most recent crackdown in Tibet began in 2008, when China tightened its control over the region before the Beijing Summer Olympics by deploying its troops there and enforcing “patriotism education,” TSU Legislator Lin Shih-chia (林世嘉) said.
The Tibetan issue goes beyond religion as it is also related to human rights and ethnicity, Lin said.
“Engaging in religious exchanges with a country like China would amount to self-belittlement for Taiwan,” Lin said.
The Democratic Progressive Party expressed similar concerns on Feb. 21 over the situation in Tibet amid an intensifying crackdown by Chinese authorities and called on Ma to voice his concerns to Beijing.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS