The Free Taiwan Party and other pro-independence groups yesterday called on their supporters to gather on Ketagalan Boulevard today and “allow the world to see the true Taiwanese flag,” party Chairman Tsay Ting-kuei (蔡丁貴) said.
Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is to become Taiwan’s first female president when she is inaugurated today.
The Free Taiwan Party, the Taiwan Referendum Alliance and pro-independence youth groups plan to wave the “Taiwan flag” at the rally, not because they are staging a protest against Tsai, but because they are protesting against the Republic of China (ROC), Tsay said.
“We want the international community to see that Taiwan is not a part of China, that Taiwan is not the Republic of China and that Taiwan is not Chinese Taipei,” Tsay said.
The “Taiwan flag” is what pro-independence groups hope will be the national flag should Taiwan ever achieve independence. There is no consensus on what the flag would look like, but it would be different from the ROC flag.
Tsay said pro-independence supporters plan to stage an event on Ketagalan Boulevard at 8am to celebrate President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) departure from office and the beginning of a new era.
Pro-independence group 908 Taiwan Republic Campaign supporters also plan to gather in front of the Legislative Yuan before walking to the inauguration ceremony, with each member carrying a passport covered with a custom-made Taiwan passport sticker.
The sticker, created by Denis Chen (陳致豪), was released last year to promote “Taiwan consciousness” in an attempt to resist “China consciousness” annexing Taiwan.
“We will raise our covered passports high as we walk to the inauguration ceremony,” the group said. “This will convey to the new government and to the international community that Taiwanese want their own Taiwanese passport.”
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:
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