The Mainland Affairs Council yesterday called on China to reform its political system with resolve, wisdom and compassion, as well as to face historical facts concerning the Tiananmen Square Massacre and reflect on their significance for the development of democracy and human rights in China.
The council made the remarks in a statement marking the 23rd anniversary of Beijing’s crackdown on unarmed protesters in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.
Citing the “Taiwan experience,” the council said it was because of Taiwan’s acceptance of the 228 Massacre and the White Terror era that the power of reconciliation spurred the nation to progress and develop.
The council said China’s rapid development has been the source of many economic and social clashes, adding that China should seriously consider using democratic and peaceful means to resolve these issues, as well as pursuing social equality and human rights.
Re-evaluation of the Tiananmen event would be a critical index to measure China’s will to launch political reforms, it said.
Beijing still considers the Tiananmen incident a “counter-revolutionary rebellion” and has refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing or consider compensation for those killed.
“We hope Mainland China would respond to calls to protect human rights and establish a true civic society,” the council said, adding that such a move would be beneficial to cross-strait interactions.
To commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, a group of students from National Taiwan University, National Chengchih University, National Cheng Kung University and National Tsing Hua University were to hold a commemoration ceremony tonight at Liberty Square in Taipei.
Wang Dan (王丹), an exiled leader of the Tiananmen protests who is currently visiting the US, will deliver a recorded statement at the event, while another former student leader at Tiananmen, Wuer Kaixi, will give a speech in person.
Meanwhile, Democratic Progressive Party Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday warned Taiwanese against indifference toward the Tiananman massacre.
Taiwanese indifference toward the event is of great concern, Su wrote on his Facebook page, in particular because undemocratic regimes still resort to similar means against their own people, like what is happening in Syria.
Because Taiwan and China are engaging in closer exchanges, Su said, Taiwan should care about more than just economic exchanges and pay closer attention to the development of freedom, democracy and human rights in China.
Separately yesterday, the Taiwan Friends of Tibet (TFOT) condemned the Chinese government’s large-scale arrests of Tibetans in Tibet on the eve of the Tiananmen anniversary and asked President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to express concern over human rights issues in cross-strait talks — including one scheduled for later this month.
“Since March last year, as many as 38 people — monks and civilians alike — have expressed their strongest protest against China’s repression of religion and human rights in the form of self-immolation,” the TFOT said in a statement. “For the first time, two young Tibetans set themselves on fire in front of the Jokhang Monastery in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, under tight surveillance of military and police forces, and the incident was followed by yet another self-immolation of a woman in Ngaba Prefecture in Sichuan Province.”
On the eve of the Tiananmen anniversary, “as many as 600 Tibetans in Lhasa have been arrested, which is the largest-scale arrest made in the city since the Cultural Revolution,” the statement said, urging the Chinese government to withdraw troops from Tibet, stop illegal arrests, torture and religious persecution.
Additional reporting by Chris Wang and AFP
Translation by Jake Chung, staff writer
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
RSS