Exiled Chinese democracy activist Wang Dan (王丹), who is a visiting assistant professor at National Tsing Hua University, said he has been informed by the school that his teaching contract is not to be renewed, following five years of employment set to end in July.
Wang’s support of prominent Sunflower movement student Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), who has been involved in a scandal over allegedly groping several women, met with protests and demands for his removal from his post.
Wang yesterday said on Facebook that he had a meeting with university president Hocheng Hong (賀陳弘), on Wednesday, at which Hocheng said that academics should not become involved with politics, and Wang was informed of the university’s decision not to renew his contract.
“The president first praised my achievement in the field of teaching, where I have several times been ranked among the top in the school’s teaching evaluation. He then said he cares about my future career and advised me to find stable employment in the US,” Wang wrote.
In response to Hocheng’s suggestion, Wang said he told him that he has not been teaching in Taiwan out of personal interest.
“[I came here] out of my feelings for Taiwan and the ideal that I could do something meaningful,” he wrote.
While Wang told Hocheng he could “totally understand” if the university made the decision not to renew his employment for financial reasons, and he “is willing to believe that the school is not asking me to leave for political reasons,” the exiled activist said that the school has not been clear on the issue.
“The department head [of the university’s Interdisciplinary Program of Humanities and Social Sciences] expressed his hope to keep me to the president and stressed the department and the college have decided to fundraise and are confident that they could succeed,” Wang said of his meeting with the university.
However, Hocheng told him during the meeting on Wednesday that “budget was not exactly the main reason, which was rather that the university usually would not renew the contract of a contract employee except under special circumstances,” Wang wrote.
Wang has been criticized, and a Facebook page dedicated to a call for his ouster from Taiwan established, for his defense of Chen over the latter’s alleged sexual misconduct last month.
Those who fiercely attacked Wang included Lee Fu-chen (李富城), a news weatherman who has made no bones about his aversion toward the student activists and the Sunflower movement and at the height of the Chen scandal called on his followers to exert pressure on the university to banish Wang by making nonstop phone calls.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is