The legislature’s Internal Administration Committee on Monday slashed the Taiwan Provincial Government’s administrative budget and demanded that it investigate and submit a report within one year on historic injustices against Aboriginal communities.
The decision followed Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kolas Yotaka’s criticism of a plan by the provincial government to spend NT$2.73 million (US$86,349) for Retrocession Day celebrations next year, calling the commemoration of the unofficial holiday offensive to Aborigines.
Retrocession Day commemorates Japan’s so-called transfer of power over Taiwan to the Republic of China government on Oct. 25, 1945.
The provincial government was the highest local government in Taiwan, but was stripped of most of its functions following an administrative reorganization in 1997.
Kolas made the comments in response to Taiwan Provincial Governor and Minister Without Portfolio Hsu Chang-yao’s (許璋瑤) remarks that the NT$2.73 million budget for Retrocession Day was routine and that the event would celebrate ethnic harmony.
Kolas said Retrocession Day is a “political symbol” of a Han Chinese-dominant culture that has deprived Aborigines of their culture and identity.
The retrocession inaugurated a series of policies — such as the “Regulations on Restoration of Original Names of Citizens of Taiwan” in 1945, which empowered civil servants to arbitrarily change Aboriginal names into Chinese — and meddling into Aboriginal traditions and rites by Han officials, she said.
To Aborigines, Retrocession Day represents a “deep sense of loss,” in contrast to the holiday’s “political meaning” to Han citizens as a celebration of the “war of Chinese national self-defense,” Kolas added.
Kolas proposed abolishing all expenses related to Retrocession Day, demanded that the provincial government investigate historical injustices committed against Aborigines by the government and called for it to commemorate of Aboriginal Day on Aug. 1 next year by assigning a budget to mark the event.
DPP members of the committee unanimously backed Kolas’s proposal, while Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) opposed abolishing Retrocession Day performances, saying that Aboriginal communities should be consulted prior to rendering a decision.
After negotiations, the committee agreed to slash the provincial government’s administrative operations funds, demanded that it commemorate Aboriginal Day next year by assigning a budget to celebrate transitional justice and ordered it to compile a report on cultural repression by the state.
The central government is to decide whether public agencies may assign budgets in commemoration of Retrocession Day, the committee said.
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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