The Ministry of Education’s youth development administration granted Yunlin County camp volunteers a subsidy for their work last year revitalizing the now-deserted Jianguo Veterans’ Village (建國眷村) in Huwei Township (虎尾).
Jianguo Village Revitalization Association director-general Lu Yun-hsiang (魯紜湘) said the village is a large complex of four communities and had once been home to more than 5,000 veterans and their families. The village was mostly deserted in 2007, with only a few families still living in the area, she said.
Some of the buildings were dormitories originally built for Japanese naval air group pilots during the Japanese colonial era, Lu said, adding that since the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) came to Taiwan from China, the village had been converted into units for veterans and their families.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Education
The village also has underground bunkers with telecommunication facilities, which were installed after the KMT came to Taiwan, Lu said.
“The village has seen cruel times, but it is modern history. It should not be forgotten,” she said.
Youth group member Liu Chih-chien (劉志謙) said that while efficient use of the land is a good thing in the eyes of governments, it means great changes to the living conditions and relationships of the few residents in the area.
“With our efforts, we hope to bring the village back into the spotlight,” Liu said.
Yunlin County Government Cultural Affairs Director Lin Yuan-chuan (林源泉) said the county government has listed the village as a “cultural settlement.”
The county government is applying to the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of the Interior for funding to conserve the village and revitalize the area, Lin said.
“The village and its history, especially its ties to Japanese naval air groups — many of which became Kamikaze pilots — are collective memories of the Huwei townsfolk,” Huwei resident Lin Hung-wen (林鴻文) said, adding that if the county government could conserve the area, he would be glad to see it.
During the latter stages of the war, the Japanese Empire resorted to suicide attacks on the Allied forces in the Pacific — mainly US forces — after having lost its aerial superiority in the theater following a crippling loss at the Midway Atoll.
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