The organizers of the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally yesterday launched a book and VCD documenting the spectacle of the world's longest human chain, which attracted nearly 2 million people across the country in protest against China's missile threat.
The book Hand-in-Hand to Protect Taiwan (
Ruan Ming (
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUI, TAIPEI TIMES
The rally, he said, was also the cornerstone for President Chen Shui-bian's (
Ruan said the rally not only demonstrated a rejection of the "one China" principle, but also prevented the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party alliance, which identifies with the "one China" principle, from gaining power.
Poet Lee Ming-yung (李敏勇) said the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally was an artful demonstration which encapsulated the passion of Taiwanese people.
The rally, which took its name from the infamous 228 Incident in 1947 in which tens of thousands of Taiwanese were slaughtered by KMT forces, represented the transformation of sorrow from the 228 Incident into the courage to recognize this part of history, Lee said.
"For a very long time during KMT rule, the Taiwanese people were told to forget history out of political considerations. The success of the 228 human-chain rally symbolizes the people's courage in seeking and confirming the importance of history," Lee said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
RSS