The 800 Heroes for the Republic of China Association and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday announced plans to hold a march in Taipei on Monday next week, Armed Forces Day, to oppose Taiwanese independence, which the association said is unconstitutional and not worth dying for.
The march is to protest against a series of policies by President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration that have contravened the Constitution and distorted history, retired lieutenant general and association president Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) told a news conference.
The veterans’ group, which has led protests to oppose pension reforms for retired military personnel — including attempts to break into the Legislative Yuan compound — became a registered association in June and shifted its focus to providing assistance to people filing for administrative appeals over lost pensions, as well as opposing independence.
“In the past two years, the Tsai administration has carried out many measures that disregarded the Constitution and undermined the livelihood of the nation’s 23 million people, as well as the future of the Republic of China,” Wu said.
By calling the 823 Artillery Bombardment “a war between the Chinese Communist Party and the KMT” and not sending any representatives from the Presidential Office or the Executive Yuan to attend events to mark the battle on Thursday last week, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) denied the nation’s history and disregarded the sacrifice of military personnel and civilians, Wu said, an apparent reference to DPP Deputy Secretary-General Hsu Chia-ching’s (徐佳青) comments on a television show saying the battle might not be worth commemorating because the troops had died for the KMT.
The 823 Artillery Bombardment refers to the Aug. 23, 1958, Chinese attack on Kinmen that sparked the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis.
The DPP has also undermined cross-strait peace, as well as economic development and international relations, by promoting independence, Wu said, adding that independence is not in line with the Constitution.
“Armed Forces Day is a glorious day that should be celebrated, but this year veterans will be forced to take to the streets to express their anger at the government,” KMT Legislator Alex Fai (費鴻泰) said.
The march is to begin at 2:30pm on Monday and culminate in a rally in front of the Presidential Office Building at 3pm, the association 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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