Pro-independence activists joined forces to launch a new political party to advocate for vigorous protests, to promote Taiwanese identity and to achieve the nation’s independence by overthrowing the Republic of China (ROC) regime, which they said is a rapacious occupying force imposing its illegal rule over Taiwan.
At the inaugural event in Taipei yesterday, members and supporters announced the formation of the Taiwan Independence Party (TIP, 台灣獨立黨), and unveiled the party’s insignia, banner and charter.
Following a balloting session, the party members elected Chen Chao-ming (陳兆銘) as the first-term party chairman.
Chen has been active in the Taiwanese National Congress (台灣民族同盟) movement, and has headed the Taiwan Guardian Group (台灣守護隊), a community service organization that employs street protests to challenge the authorities.
Chen said the TIP would join next year’s legislative election, nominating candidates to campaign on the political platform of home rule for Taiwanese, Taiwanese national sovereignty and independence, abolishing the “fraudulent” ROC regime and declaring the birth of a new nation named Taiwan that would join the UN.
“We will be a force to be reckoned with, as part of the pro-Taiwan coalition of political groups and parties in the election. We advocate for revolutionary actions, to overthrow the ROC regime, for the formation of an independent, sovereign Taiwan nation,” he added.
Chen said the TIP has many younger members, and has youthful, revolutionary energy to make a big impact in cyberspace, where the battle for Taiwanese nationalism and the Taiwanese people’s newfound identity will be fought against the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its China-centric mentality.
Among the supporters and groups who attended to help launch the TIP were Kao Chin-lang (高金郎), an author and former political prisoner who participated in the famous “Taiyuan Insurrection” (泰源起義) against the KMT regime in 1970; Huang Kuo-hua (黃國華), chairman of the Taiwan Government Party (台灣建國黨); prominent Sunflower movement leader Wang Yi-kai (王奕凱), and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology computer science professor Ted Lau (劉重義).
They were joined by Winston Chi (紀文清) and Peter Ku (古文發) from the Happy National Connection in Taiwan (台灣幸福國家連線), along with members of the Nation Building Forum (建國廣場) and the Organization for Taiwanese National Declaration (台灣國籍宣示促進會).
“The TIP aims to terminate the rule of the KMT, a foreign regime dominated by Chinese mainlanders who are making oppression and trampling upon the Taiwanese. When the KMT and its Chinese elite-based power structure is overthrown, then Taiwanese can have a normal country, and participate in the international world,” Ted Lau said in his address.
“This nation must have home rule by the Taiwanese, and for the Taiwanese. We can achieve it through a Taiwanese nationalism movement, upholding our civil liberties and stopping the KMT government from selling our birthright and our Taiwanese sovereignty to China, which is happening right now,” Lau said.
“We can succeed by standing up to deny the legitimacy of the current foreign occupying regime of the KMT,” he said.
“For those who identify as Chinese people, they should return to live in their homeland of China,” he said.
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,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
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: