President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday dismissed rumors that her administration is to ban incense burning.
The government encourages people to burn less incense as an environmental protection measure, but the policy is not a ban, she told representatives of the General Association of Chinese Taoism and various temples during a meeting at the Presidential Office in Taipei.
Temples are not only centers of faith, but also places where people discuss public affairs, she said, adding that temple officials are in tune with local opinion.
Photo: Lee Jung-ping, Taipei Times
Tsai said that she almost always arranges visits to temples while traveling around the nation and also holds incense when she prays.
Many temples have adopted the government’s incense reduction policy in the past few years, she said.
The government also never intended to ban people from burning joss paper, but is addressing the issue with other measures, such as promoting environmentally friendly furnaces, the president said.
The representatives complained about the Legislative Yuan’s exclusion of religious foundations from the Foundations Act (財團法人法) that it passed in June last year in favor of a separate bill to regulate such organizations.
Opponents have said that the proposed “religious groups act” would interfere with religious freedom, as it would place religious groups under greater government oversight.
Tsai said she has asked the Executive Yuan to communicate with the public about the bill, and only after doubts have been cleared and a basic consensus has been reached would the government proceed.
The government attaches great importance to the strengthening of the social safety net, Tsai said, adding that it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that those in need are taken care of.
However, the government cannot do this alone and needs the help of religious groups, she added.
Even when the government is fully invested in building the social safety net, there are still some areas in which it falls short, she said.
She praised the Taoism association and the various temples whose representatives were present at the meeting for their many contributions to society, saying that she hopes temples would continue to promote charity and to work together to improve society.
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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