Taiwanese and Chinese students at Asia University have joined together to raise funds for victims of the magnitude 6.6 earthquake that struck China’s Sichuan Province on Saturday.
About 30 Taiwanese and 14 Chinese students from Sichuan’s Southwestern University of Finance and Economics are participating in the fundraiser, which was launched on Tuesday.
Wu Shang-lin, president of Asia University’s student association, said yesterday that it launched the campaign because students empathized with the quake’s victims.
The 21-year-old said Wufeng District (霧峰) in Greater Taichung, where the university is located, was badly hit by the 921 Earthquake in 1999.
The association hopes to raise NT$500,000 from students and teachers, and donation boxes will be set up on campus until May 10, Wu said.
The money will be given to the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China to help with reconstruction in Sichuan, he said, adding that teachers and students have made generous donations so far.
Donations of clothing and other supplies are also encouraged, Wu said, adding that the public should extend a helping hand to victims.
“We are all members of the global community,” he said. “We should not discriminate when it comes to helping each other in times of disaster.”
Yu Yuxiao, a 22-year-old finance major from China, said he and other Chinese students had been discussing the idea of raising funds when they heard about the association’s initiative.
“When you are doing this, and find out that someone is already doing it, you feel touched, especially when you are away from home,” said Yu, who arrived to Taiwan earlier this month.
The Chinese students have made posters and videos to promote the fundraiser.
Yu, who was in Sichuan during the massive earthquake that hit the province in 2008, said the latest disaster has shown him the caring spirit of Taiwanese.
Meanwhile, TransWorld University in Yunlin County said yesterday that Chinese exchange students there have launched a fundraiser for Sichuan victims and will begin collecting donations today.
The students said they hope to work with Taiwanese students to assist with disaster relief and reconstruction in Sichuan Province, the university said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods