A set of events are planned for tomorrow to mark the one-year anniversary of the overnight occupation of the Executive Yuan’s (EY) main building and compound, an offshoot of the student-led Sunflower movement, which saw a violent crackdown that left several hundreds of protesters injured.
“The events will let us think back to what happened when we participated in the movement between March 18 and April 10 and exchange views on its impacts,” said Wu Cheng (吳崢), a student participant in the movement, which reflected public concerns over cross-strait ties forged under President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
Now a leader of Democracy Tautin (民主鬥陣), one of the many youth activist groups that sprouted from the movement centering on the 24-day occupation of the legislature’s main chamber, Wu said: “It’s important that Sunflower participants recollect why were we there, what we realized at that time that drive us to take part in the movement.”
The crackdown ordered by then-premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) and outgoing National Police Agency director-general Wang Cho-chiun (王卓鈞) on midnight March 23 last year that forcibly dispersed protesters from the Executive Yuan by early morning should never be forgotten, Wu told a press conference.
Wu said the Sunflower movement was an act of civil disobedience action and should not have been regarded as a riot and treated with violent use of force by police.
The events, to be held from 3pm to 10pm on the section of Qingdao E Road between Zhongshan S Road and Zhenjiang Street, next to the legislature where thousands of protesters had gathered during the siege, is to bring together photographs, video, written stories and drawings collected from the public and feature stalls, forums and performances by bands to recreate the movement.
Alliance of Referendum for Taiwan convener Tsay Ting-kuei (蔡丁貴) said the events would remind the public of what the protesters had advocated and continue to advocate for.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) said the legacy the Sunflower movement has left is worthy of reflection.
Huang said Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has taken measures to address the problem of excessive use of force by police by demanding officers keep their badges visible when enforcing the law.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) was wooing leaders from across Africa with a banquet on Wednesday night, King Mswati III of Eswatini was notably absent. That is because the kingdom — about the size of New Jersey and with just 1.2 million people — is one of Taiwan’s remaining dozen diplomatic allies. That means Eswatini does not participate in Xi’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the centerpiece of China’s diplomatic outreach to Africa, which was held in Beijing this week. The landlocked nation, which sits between Mozambique and South Africa, is the last holdout in Beijing’s seven-plus decade mission to make Africa
RSS