On the eve of the 21st anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square Massacre, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday urged China to learn a lesson from the incident and prevent similar occurrences.
It also urged the two sides to jointly advance the development of democracy, freedom and human rights.
“It will benefit the sustainable peace, stability and prosperity across the Taiwan Strait,” the council said in a statement issued last night.
Saying that democracy, freedom and human rights are universal values, the council said it hoped that as China improves its economy, it will also make its politics more democratic and society more open and diverse. It also hoped to see the Chinese people live a life that is happier and more dignified, adding that it hoped the Chinese government would take a look at history, learn a lesson from it and never let anything similar happen again.
The council said Taiwan’s democratization process had been shaky, but it has made great strides since 1987 when martial law was lifted.
To show his resolve to protect human rights, the statement said that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had signed two UN human rights covenants into law and promised to complete amending related measures and regulations by next year to conform to the two conventions.
MAC Chairperson Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) said in the statement that as China becomes an economic powerhouse, the world hopes to see China reform its civil society and create an environment that will let its people live a happier and more dignified life.
“The key to the harmonic development of the mainland society and sustainable peace and prosperity on both sides of the Taiwan Strait is to re-examine the cause of the incident, its course and outcome,” she said.
Aftershocks from a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck off Yilan County at 3:45pm yesterday could reach a magnitude of 5 to 5.5, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Seismological Center technical officer Chiu Chun-ta (邱俊達) told a news conference that the epicenter of the temblor was more than 100km from Taiwan. Although predicted to measure between magnitude 5 and 5.5, the aftershocks would reach an intensity of 1 on Taiwan’s 7-tier scale, which gauges the actual effect of an earthquake, he said. The earthquake lasted longer in Taipei because the city is in a basin, he said. The quake’s epicenter was about 128.9km east-southeast
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