As the one-year anniversary of the Sunflower movement approaches, activists have scheduled a series of events to highlight the goals sought during the landmark protests in which tens of thousands of demonstrators rallied against the government’s handing of a proposed service trade pact with China.
Led by Economic Democracy Union convener Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強), a coalition of social advocacy groups are to rally outside the Legislative Yuan on Wednesday next week, marking the day when student-led protesters first swarmed the Legislative Yuan’s main chamber.
Lai called on the public to support the groups’ three main demands: the establishment of an oversight bill to monitor cross-strait agreements, constitutional reforms and an immediate halt to cross-strait negotiations on trade in industrial and agricultural goods.
The passage of a cross-strait oversight bill was the primary demand of the Sunflower movement, after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠) sparked a public outcry when he attempted to ram through a preliminary reading of the service trade pact in about 30 seconds.
With eight versions of a cross-strait oversight bill now under legislative review, the groups announced the launch of an online voting campaign to invite grassroots input.
“The Internet is the most powerful weapon for civic participation, which is why we aim to use the Internet to change the face of the nation’s politics,” Congress Investigational Corps member Wang Hsi (王希) said.
A Web site detailing the eight versions of the oversight bill is set to be launched on Wednesday next week to coincide with the movement’s anniversary, Wang said, adding that the group is planning a detailed online questionnaire to invite public participation.
Although President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration has drafted one version of a cross-strait oversight bill, the proposal has been met with serious opposition from pro-independence groups.
The groups also urged comprehensive constitutional reforms, as events leading up to the Sunflower movement spurred discussion about the nation’s political institutions being unable to prevent presidential abuse of power.
A public forum on the oversight bill and constitutional reforms has been scheduled for Saturday next week, the groups said.
Headed by Sunflower leaders Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) and Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), a separate rally is to take place on April 10, the one-year anniversary of the day that protesters ended their 23-day occupation of the legislature’s main chamber.
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