More than 100 demonstrators yesterday sang in unison outside the Taipei office of China Southern Airlines to express their opposition to controversial flight routes proposed by Beijing.
Headed by a coalition of social advocacy organizations and pro-independence groups, the protesters demanded that China cancel its plans for flight route M503, which runs close to the median line of the Taiwan Strait.
They said that the proposed route reflected China’s ambitions to encroach on Taiwanese airspace and posed a threat to national security.
Photo: Hsiao Ting-fang, Taipei Times
The groups accused President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration of failing to stand its ground in negotiations with Beijing.
While China originally planned for the new route to take effect today, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) on Monday said that China has agreed to postpone use of the route.
The CAA also cited an agreement with China that the proposed route would be moved 6 nautical miles (11km) west of its original location.
Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) on Tuesday said that although he thinks the route should have been moved even further to the west, he considers the adjustment “acceptable.”
Mao’s comments drew criticism from opposition legislators and civic groups alike, who said that the government had failed to safeguard the nation’s sovereignty.
Human rights lawyer Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強) said that civilian flight routes in China are congested as a result of large swathes of airspace being restricted to military use, adding that many areas along the Chinese coast are designated as “war preparation zones” in mind of a potential invasion of Taiwan.
“This is not a problem caused by Taiwan, but rather a problem caused by the People’s Liberation Army,” Lai said.
Lai said that the rally was inspired by Estonia’s “Singing Revolution” in the late 1980s, in which groups of protesters drew strength from choral music as they shouted out their defiance against the Soviet regime.
In Taipei, protesters sang several songs that featured prominently in past social movements, including Ilha Formosa (美麗島) — which was widely sung during anti-authoritarian rallies in the late 1970s — as well as other songs of political significance, such as 2008 power ballad Turning the Tide (逆轉勝) and last year’s Island Sunrise (島嶼天光).
Island Sunrise, written by Kaohsiung-based punk band Fire-EX, was the unofficial anthem of the Sunflower movement, in which tens of thousands of protesters took part in a massive choir to protest the government’s handling of a proposed trade pact with China.
The groups announced further protests leading up to the Boao Forum for Asia, a China-led economic conference scheduled to take place from March 26 to March 29 in China’s Hainan Province.
“Like the Baltic states that held faith in their struggle for independence from the Soviet Union, we should also persist until the end,” Lai said.
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