While Chinese netizens lambasted remarks Greater Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) made in China that touched on Taiwan independence and the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Taiwanese netizens lauded Lai, who they described as the only domestic political figure with the backbone to address such topics in China.
On Friday, Lai took his first trip to China as mayor to preside over the opening ceremony of an exhibition of paintings by Taiwanese artist Chen Cheng-po (陳澄波) at the China Art Museum in Shanghai.
On his second and final day in Shanghai, the mayor said the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) pro-independence narratives represent the ideas of many Taiwanese and that China needs further understanding about the spirit of the party’s platform if it wishes to forge stronger cross-strait ties. The remarks were in response to comments from Fudan University professor Jiang Yihua (姜義華) at a gathering of Chinese academics.
In the same setting, Lai went on to mention the 1989 Tiananmen Square student movement, saying that “Fudan University students answered to the cause of the student movement that took place after the death of [Chinese Communist Party] secretary-general Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦) in 1989. And there were more than 400 professors who signed the petition urging the government to recognize the student movement as a patriotic movement.”
Some Chinese netizens criticized Lai’s comments about the exhibition being shown in “three nations and five cities.”
A commenter using the handle “Jiang Shan S8” said: “What sort of nation can Taiwan be? [They] should have embarrassed him [Lai] right then and there!”
Despite the dissatisfaction over Lai’s comments, most of the Chinese netizens’ ire was aimed at China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO).
Commenters said that the TAO and other Chinese officials should have “preserved some of the dignity of the 1.3 billion Chinese people,” adding that Lai’s comments were a “direct slap to the face.”
Netizen “Bi Mo Dan Xin” said: “The community is on one hand saying that Taiwanese are our brothers, but on the other hand they are arranging for pro-Taiwan independence individuals to put Chinese people to shame. It is very upsetting.”
On the other hand, Taiwanese netizens on the Professional Technology Temple (PTT) — the nation’s largest academic online bulletin board— applauded Lai’s actions, with more than 200 posts debating the issue as of yesterday.
Taiwanese commenter “KingKingCold” said the reason some groups in the Chinese forum were angered by Lai’s comments was because for the first time, Taiwanese officials who visited China did not bow and scrape to the Chinese.
“That we can talk about Taiwan independence while still interacting with the Chinese shattered the sense of superiority of those who saw themselves as ‘the spokesmen of a strong nation,’” he said.
Netizen “suntree” praised Lai as the only Taiwanese official so far who has the backbone to discuss Taiwan independence and the Tiananmen Square Massacre in China.
China appears to have built mockups of a port in northeastern Taiwan and a military vessel docked there, with the aim of using them as targets to test its ballistic missiles, a retired naval officer said yesterday. Lu Li-shih (呂禮詩), a former lieutenant commander in Taiwan’s navy, wrote on Facebook that satellite images appeared to show simulated targets in a desert in China’s Xinjiang region that resemble the Suao naval base in Yilan County and a Kidd-class destroyer that usually docks there. Lu said he compared the mockup port to US naval bases in Yokosuka and Sasebo, Japan, and in Subic Bay
Police are investigating the death of a Formosan black bear discovered on Tuesday buried near an industrial road in Nantou County, with initial evidence indicating that it was shot accidentally by a hunter. The bear had been caught in wildlife traps at least five times before, three times since 2020. Codenamed No. 711, the bear received extensive media coverage last year after it was discovered trapped twice in less than two months in the Taichung mountains. After its most recent ensnarement last month, the bear was released in the Dandashan (丹大山) area in Nantou County’s Sinyi Township (信義). However, officials became concerned after the
DETERRENCE: US National Security Council Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell said cross-strait affairs are on the agenda at the US-ASEAN Special Leaders’ Summit The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday thanked the Czech Senate for passing a resolution supporting Taiwan’s inclusion in the WHO and other international organizations for the second consecutive year. The resolution was passed on Wednesday with 51 votes in favor, one opposed and 11 abstentions. In addition to the WHO, it also called for Taiwan’s participation in the “meetings, mechanisms and activities” of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the International Civil Aviation Organization and Interpol. In its opening, the resolution states that the Czech Republic “considers Taiwan as one of its key partners in the Indo-Pacific region,” while noting its
The majority of parents surveyed in northern Taiwan favor the suspension of all on-site classes at schools from the junior-high level and below amid a surge in domestic COVID-19 infections, parent groups said yesterday. About 84.4 percent of respondents in a survey of 2,912 parents in northern Taiwan, where the outbreak is the most serious, said they supported suspending classes, the Action Alliance on Basic Education, the Taiwan Parents Protect Women and Children Association, and the Taiwan Love Children Association said. The groups distributed questionnaires to parents in New Taipei City, Taipei, Keelung, Taoyuan and Hsinchu city and county from Saturday morning
RSS