2004 was a roller-coaster year for Taiwanese politics, with at least two bullets being fired amid firecrackers in Tainan heralding the beginning of one of the most polarizing periods in Taiwan's history.
Taiwan failed to see a change of administrations during the presidential election on March 20. Defying wide-spread expectations of defeat, incumbent presidential and vice presidential candidates Chen Shui-bian (
PHOTO: SUNG CHIH-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIEMS
Extenuating circumstances surrounding the election, however, set the stage for the political, judicial and social turmoil that characterized 2004. On March 19 at 2pm, Chen and Lu were shot but only lightly wounded, leading to the activation of a national security mechanism which the pan-blue camp later said prevented pan-blue-leaning servicemen from casting their votes.
Bitter about the loss, over 300,000 pan-blue supporters staged a week-long protest outside the presidential office after results were released by the Central Election Commission at 9:20pm on March 20. Violence over election results later broke out when a mob led by PFP legislators smashed their way into the commission's headquarters on March 28.
After the protests subsided, the pan-blue camp insisted on holding a NT$60 million recount effort and filed two lawsuits seeking to annul the election and its results in April. Implying that the pan-green camp had staged the election-eve shooting, the pan-blue controlled-legislature pushed through a bill creating the March 19 Shooting Investigation Special Committee (
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
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