Independence advocates yesterday announced the launch of a signature drive demanding that Academia Sinica change its name.
The initiative is supported by senior presidential adviser Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文), Taiwan Nation Alliance Convener Wu Shu-min (吳樹民) and more than 30 groups. They expect that it would gather the targeted number of signatures next week.
Yao, Wu and others on June 20 paid Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) a visit, urging him to support their cause, they said.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
The name Academia Sinica, meaning “Chinese Academy” in Latin, might cause people in the international scientific community to mistakenly believe the institution is based in China, Yao said.
They might think that research conducted by Taiwanese academics was done by Chinese, Yao said.
Liao said that few people are aware that “Sinica” means “Chinese,” including his daughter, a student at Yale University.
However, he said he would forward the request to an institutional affairs meeting at Academia Sinica.
Yao said Liao’s reaction was “lukewarm” and he seemed to consider the request “troublesome.”
“Sinica” should be replaced by “Taiwan” or “Formosa,” he added.
Yao said he and other supporters of a name change would visit the Legislative Yuan, which is due to review Academia Sinica’s research budget in the next session.
He hopes that the institution would agree to change its name during that session.
Academia Sinica said that it established a task force in October last year after legislators had inquired about a name change and proposed four possible options.
The first was to keep the name; the second was to add “Taiwan” to the name; the third was to change the name to “Central Research Academy,” a direct translation of the institute’s name in Chinese; and the fourth was to change the name to “Taiwan Academy of Sciences” or “Academy of Sciences Taiwan.”
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
ELITE UNIT: President William Lai yesterday praised the National Police Agency’s Special Operations Group after watching it go through assault training and hostage rescue drills The US Navy regularly conducts global war games to develop deterrence strategies against a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, aimed at making the nation “a very difficult target to take,” US Acting Chief of Naval Operations James Kilby said on Wednesday. Testifying before the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Kilby said the navy has studied the issue extensively, including routine simulations at the Naval War College. The navy is focused on five key areas: long-range strike capabilities; countering China’s command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting; terminal ship defense; contested logistics; and nontraditional maritime denial tactics, Kilby
RSS