Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have called for an inquiry after retired army general Chen Ting-chung (陳廷寵) on Tuesday said that “Taiwan’s military combat capabilities are close to none, and it has no chance in a war against the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.”
“I am a Chinese, which is a symbol of pride ... but our Chinese race has a lot of scum who are willing to become running dogs of the US and Japan,” the former commander-in-chief of the army said in a speech at the Republic of China Military Academy in Kaohsiung.
After he also said that the nation’s leaders are “ignorant” people with “no intelligence” who have “distorted and misrepresented history, leading the descendants of the Chinese Yellow Emperor to be downtrodden in their current impoverished state of despair,” DPP lawmakers on Thursday urged the Ministry of Education to review an annual NT$60 million (US$2.06 million) subsidy paid to Chen’s Huadong Taiwan Businessman’s School in China’s Kunshan.
Photo: Chang Li-hua, Taipei Times
Chen opened the school in 2001 and the ministry agreed to provide a subsidy so that children of the Taiwanese business community would receive a similar education as in Taiwan.
“Let’s terminate the subsidy to Chen’s school... As the school’s founder, he insulted people ... and the government should not provide him with further financial subsidies,” DPP Legislator Chaung Jui-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said.
“The ministry must re-enforce its scrutiny of the school’s curriculum and conduct its checks on the strictest terms,” DPP Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said.
Ministry officials said that while Chen’s words were inappropriate, there is no direct relationship between the speech and the subsidy, adding that they would confer with the Mainland Affairs Council and other agencies on how to handle the matter.
The council in a statement expressed its regret about Chen’s remarks, saying that his speech hurt the feelings of the public.
“Operating a school for the Taiwanese business community in China is no easy task. To guarantee the right to education for Taiwanese students in China, we should not link the education subsidy to Chen’s personal remarks, as there is no direct connection,” the statement said.
Additional reporting by Chung Li-hua
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
RSS