The Formosa Alliance plans to hold a rally in Taipei on Oct. 20 to protest against Chinese bullying and promote Taiwan’s right of self-determination.
The group yesterday also called for the public to support its proposed Taiwanese independence referendum.
The Referendum Act (公民投票法), amended in December last year, lowered the support threshold for referendum proposals and signature drives to pass, but limitations on constitutional amendments and the definition of a sovereign territory were left untouched, alliance convener Kuo Pei-hung (郭倍宏) said yesterday.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The problem with the definition of sovereign territory stems from the language used in the Constitution — “Sovereign territory of the Republic of China will comply with its inherent boundaries.”
The language tacitly includes China as part of the ROC’s sovereign territory, leading to the pro-independence camp — of which the Formosa Alliance is a part — seeking to remove that clause from the Constitution.
The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) support of such limitations deprives Taiwanese of their chance to determine the future of Taiwan, Kuo said.
The alliance plans to hold a protest in front of the Presidential Office Building to demand that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and DPP legislators push for another amendment to the Referendum Act to allow Taiwanese to vote for their own future, Kuo said.
“We hope everyone will stand with us and seize the chance for Taiwan to become a normal nation,” he said.
New Power Party (NPP) Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said his party believes that defined territory, the sovereignty of the nation and the name of the nation should all be issues that a referendum can be held on.
“These are rights that people are owed,” Huang said, adding that the NPP would be proposing an amendment at the next legislative session to address this concern.
Meanwhile, Sheng Ching-kai (沈清楷) the convener of the Tokyo Olympics for Taiwan Name Rectification Action Working Group, said that the group’s proposed referendum calling for Taiwan’s team to participate in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics under the name “Taiwan” instead of “Chinese Taipei,” has collected 400,000 signatures.
Campaigners must collect more than 280,000 signatures in the second stage to launch a referendum.
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
China has reserved offshore airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts that are usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Sunday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. The alerts, known as notice to air missions (NOTAMs), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert
RSS