A stamp that was pulled from circulation the day it was issued because it failed to show Taiwan as part of China fetched a record price at auction in Hong Kong on Sunday.
The rare 1968 stamp was picked up by an unidentified Asian buyer, who paid HK$3.68 million (US$475,000), a record for a Chinese stamp.
Six other smaller stamps of the same design were also sold for a combined HK$2.93 million.
PHOTO: AFP
Designer Wan Weisheng (萬維生), who watched the hammer fall, said he had feared he would be punished for his mistake.
“For a long time I was really worried that I would be jailed,” he said. “Officials told me that it was a really big mistake, but in the end nothing happened.”
Wan and other designers had been commissioned to make a series of stamps during the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long period of mass political and social upheaval in China starting in the mid-sixties.
His stamp features a worker holding The Little Red Book, a book of Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) quotations, and a red China map in the background.
On the map is written “The whole country is red” (Quanguo shanhe yi pian hong, 全國山河一片紅).
However, Wan left Taiwan uncolored, sparking a recall of the stamps just half a day after their release.
MAKING WAVES: China’s maritime militia could become a nontraditional threat in war, clogging up shipping lanes to prevent US or Japanese intervention, a report said About 1,900 Chinese ships flying flags of convenience and fishing vessels that participated in China’s military exercises around Taiwan last month and in January have been listed for monitoring, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said yesterday. Following amendments to the Commercial Port Act (商港法) and the Law of Ships (船舶法) last month, the CGA can designate possible berthing areas or deny ports of call for vessels suspected of loitering around areas where undersea cables can be accessed, Oceans Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. The list of suspected ships, originally 300, had risen to about 1,900 as
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
Japan’s strategic alliance with the US would collapse if Tokyo were to turn away from a conflict in Taiwan, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday, but distanced herself from previous comments that suggested a possible military response in such an event. Takaichi expressed her latest views on a nationally broadcast TV program late on Monday, where an opposition party leader criticized her for igniting tensions with China with the earlier remarks. Ties between Japan and China have sunk to the worst level in years after Takaichi said in November that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could bring about a Japanese
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
RSS