When Chen Jin-yuan (陳晉源), chief of the Directorate General of Highways, told reporters last month that all new license plates for cars and motorcycles will no longer indicate the areas where the vehicles are registered, his words signaled a new era in Taiwan's evolving history.
For the first time, license plates around the country will no longer state -- above the assigned numerals and in Chinese characters -- that Taiwan is a province of China.
The new policy, which went into effect on New Year's Day, will apply to all new license plates issued in Taiwan, Chen said. He added that all old plates will eventually have to be replaced.
So goodbye "Taiwan Province" on the old license plates and welcome to reality. All new licenses will just display numerals, with cities such as Taipei, Kaohsiung and Taichung also no longer serving as "area" marks for vehicles registered there.
All across the country, the new license plates will usher in a new era of consciousness and symbolism, not so much for the city area marks, but for the "Taiwan Province" mark that always seemed so out of place in the new Taiwan of the 21st century.
News reports say that drivers long questioned the necessity of printing "Taiwan Province" above the numbers on the plates since the Taiwan Provincial Government was officially downsized, or frozen, in 1998.
Basically, the provincial government no longer exists, and the new license plates being issued this month will reflect that reality.
Changes in public consciousness and national feelings of patriotism and identity occur in small steps and this new license plate policy is one of them.
No longer will Taiwanese have to explain to their foreign friends why their cars or scooters bear license plates with a "Taiwan Province" mark on them, since everyone knows there is no Taiwan Province anymore, thanks to former president Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) progressive initiative when he was in office.
Maybe you have not seen the new license plates yet. They have been printed and are being issued.
The streets of Taiwan will be the same, crowded and noisy and bustling with traffic, but they will have a new look and feel to them, as the remnants of an earlier chapter in this nation's history slowly fades away.
The new plates signal a new era in Taiwan's history and drivers nationwide -- even on Green Island, Kinmen and Matsu -- will have something new to be proud of.
All nations evolve and change in small, incremental steps, from the design of flags to the words of national anthems and license plate slogans.
This month, Taiwan takes a small -- but important -- step in the right direction.
Dan Bloom is a freelance writer based in Taiwan.
What began on Feb. 28 as a military campaign against Iran quickly became the largest energy-supply disruption in modern times. Unlike the oil crises of the 1970s, which stemmed from producer-led embargoes, US President Donald Trump is the first leader in modern history to trigger a cascading global energy crisis through direct military action. In the process, Trump has also laid bare Taiwan’s strategic and economic fragilities, offering Beijing a real-time tutorial in how to exploit them. Repairing the damage to Persian Gulf oil and gas infrastructure could take years, suggesting that elevated energy prices are likely to persist. But the most
In late January, Taiwan’s first indigenous submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), completed its first submerged dive, reaching a depth of roughly 50m during trials in the waters off Kaohsiung. By March, it had managed a fifth dive, still well short of the deep-water and endurance tests required before the navy could accept the vessel. The original delivery deadline of November last year passed months ago. CSBC Corp, Taiwan, the lead contractor, now targets June and the Ministry of National Defense is levying daily penalties for every day the submarine remains unfinished. The Hai Kun was supposed to be
The Legislative Yuan on Friday held another cross-party caucus negotiation on a special act for bolstering national defense that the Executive Yuan had proposed last year. The party caucuses failed to reach a consensus on several key provisions, so the next session is scheduled for today, where many believe substantial progress would finally be made. The plan for an eight-year NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.59 billion) special defense budget was first proposed by the Cabinet in November last year, but the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers have continuously blocked it from being listed on the agenda for
On Tuesday last week, the Presidential Office announced, less than 24 hours before he was scheduled to depart, that President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned official trip to Eswatini, Taiwan’s sole diplomatic ally in Africa, had been delayed. It said that the three island nations of Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar had, without prior notice, revoked the charter plane’s overflight permits following “intense pressure” from China. Lai, in his capacity as the Republic of China’s (ROC) president, was to attend the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession. King Mswati visited Taiwan to attend Lai’s inauguration in 2024. This is the first
RSS