Academics and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday advocated the establishment of a democratic alliance, based on participants’ firm belief in democracy, to advance human rights and freedom, and to combat the global phenomenon of a retreating democratic movement.
DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), who initiated the campaign on a visit to Japan in February, told a forum organized by the DPP at its headquarters in Taipei yesterday that the value-based alliance would seek to consolidate East Asian democratic countries in particular.
The alliance would not be a forum for military cooperation, but a platform of governments, political parties and societies, DPP Policy Research Committee executive director Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said.
Democracies, including Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India and the US, which share the same democratic values should be able to build a strong partnership on regional issues, Wu said, adding that the alliance would prioritize cooperation over competition.
The initiative is a new form of diplomacy that emphasizes core values — the soul of a nation — over short-term strategic interests, former deputy foreign minister Michael Kao (高英茂) said.
Academia Sinica political scientist Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) defended criticism of the alliance over its “potential to bring back a Cold War structure.”
“It does not advocate a new Cold War structure in East Asia and it should not either,” Hsu said, adding that civil societies, including non-governmental organizations, should be the primary players in the alliance, which encourages transparency, mutual trust and peace.
The democratic system and its values, and the process of its development, is Taiwan’s most precious non-transferable asset, said Michael Hsiao (蕭新煌), chairman of the Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching