Veteran entertainer Lisa Cheng (鄭惠中) yesterday said that several false claims have been made about her after she slapped Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) in the face at a lunar year-end banquet in Taipei on Tuesday.
For one, the Confederation of Entertainment Unions has said it is considering revoking her membership, but she is not a member of the group, Lisa Cheng said at a news conference with members of the New Party in Taipei
While she has sincerely apologized to the minister and to the public for her “impulsive” behavior, her position remains unchanged, she said, referring to her disapproval of government efforts to remove symbols of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his son, former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國),
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
She personally refers to the government’s transitional justice efforts as “transitional injustice,” she said.
The New Party believes people should stop condemning Lisa Cheng because she has bravely accepted responsibility for her action, apologized and explained her action to prosecutors and police on her own accord, spokesman Wang Ping-chung (王炳忠) said.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) says Lisa Cheng has hurt Taiwan’s democracy by slapping the minister in the face, “but let us look at what means DPP legislators have used to demonstrate the democracy they speak of,” he said, holding a photograph of what appears to be DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) engaging in a physical confrontation with a fellow lawmaker at the Legislative Yuan.
Wang Ping-chung urged the DPP to ask its legislators who have “set the worst example for Taiwan’s democracy” to apologize to the public.
Lisa Cheng’s attorney, Chen Li-ling (陳麗玲), questioned a decision by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office to place her under house arrest.
As the minister of culture of the Republic of China (ROC), instead of promoting “zhonghua culture” (中華文化, Chinese culture), Cheng Li-chiun wants to engage in desinicization efforts and remove symbols of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo, New Party member Lin Ming-cheng (林明正) said, calling the minister an incompetent official.
It was only natural that her efforts would incite anger, he said.
Lisa Cheng told him that she is most concerned about young people being guided by an incorrect historical perspective, he said.
He urged Lisa Cheng’s supporters to back a referendum proposal by National Chiayi University professor Wu Quen-tsai (吳昆財) to reintroduce Chinese history to school curriculums, he said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift