After a six-year review process, on Thursday the Yellow Tiger Flag used by the short-lived Republic of Formosa in 1895 was acknowledged by the Ministry of Culture as a national heritage item.
Following the Qing Empire’s defeat in the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894 and the signing of the Shimonoseki Treaty, then-governor-general of Taiwan Tang Ching-sung (唐景崧) formed an army to resist the Japanese takeover of the island, with the flag flying as their banner.
The National Taiwan Museum said the flag, 315cm wide and 263cm tall, is a copy made by Japanese painter Untei Takahashi of the flag flown over the cannons at Keelung in the 1895 battle.
Photo courtesy of the National Taiwan Museum
The copy was thought to have been made by Takahashi in 1909, a year before the Taiwan Governor Office Museum, the predecessor of National Taiwan Museum, was opened to the public, the museum said.
With all three original flags lost, Takahashi’s is the oldest known copy of the flag in existance and is thought to be the closest to the original design, the museum said.
When the museum filed an application for the flag to be considered a national heritage item six years ago, the ministry turned down the request on grounds that the flag was a copy and its relation to the original was unclear.
The museum began routine maintenance of the flag in 2013 while simultaneously starting a research project that lasted a year and three months, before providing all the new information it had gathered on the flag in another application sent to the ministry last year.
While it was thought that the tattered rear end of the tiger, as well as the path on its tail, was due to a lack of maintenance, the museum’s research found that it was likely due to Takahashi’s fidelity to the original.
The results of the research point to the possibility that the flag’s tattered state was due to the battle in Keelung, when the Japanese forces prevailed, the museum said, adding that if this was confirmed, the Takahashi copy would be even more valuable in historic terms.
Meanwhile, the museum said EasyCard Corp would be releasing three limited edition EasyCards of the flag — the 1909 Takahashi copy, a 1953 copy by Lin Yu-hsan (林玉山) and a digital reconstruction of the flag as it was in 1895.
Not only would the cards celebrate the acknowledgement of the flag’s status as a national heritage item, they would also be one of the first national heritage items to be printed on EasyCards, the museum said.
The US plans to deploy thousands of drones in the Taiwan Strait in an operation called “Hellscape” to ensure that any attempt by China to invade Taiwan does not succeed, US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo told the Washington Post. In an article published on Monday, columnist Josh Rogin quoted Paparo as saying from the sidelines of the recent Shangri-La Dialogue defense forum in Singapore that the “Hellscape” strategy would involve deploying thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation, Washington and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was devised to deter
CHINESE THREAT: Twenty-two military aircraft and vessels were detected around Taiwan over 24 hours, including a drone that flew as close as 80km to Oluanpi China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) yesterday said that the Chinese man who drove a motorboat into a strategic river mouth in Taiwan on Sunday was acting on his own and would be punished upon his return to China. However, the National Security Bureau said it would not exclude any possibilities regarding the man’s motivations, including the Chinese government’s involvement. The man has been identified as a 60-year-old former Chinese navy captain surnamed Ruan (阮). Coast guard personnel on Sunday arrested Ruan in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水) after his boat entered Tamsui River (淡水河). The boat was detected off the coast of
SHIN KONG SHENANIGANS: Eugene Wu is the father of Cynthia Wu, who was the TPP’s vice presidential candidate alongside Chairman Ko-Wen-je in January’s election Former Shin Kong Life Insurance Co chairman Eugene Wu (吳東進) and several other company executives are being investigated for alleged embezzlement and fraud resulting in corporate financial losses of about NT$150 million (US$4.63 million), New Taipei City prosecutors said yesterday. After being summoned to the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning, Wu was listed as among 17 suspects facing charges of aggravated breach of trust, embezzlement and breaches of the Insurance Act (保險法). Wu was released on bail of NT$100 million yesterday. The case has received much attention with Eugene Wu being the eldest son of Wu Ho-su (吳火獅), who founded Shin
REPORT: In a number of cases, Taiwanese have been detained or interrogated, the MAC said, while warning that Chinese authorities can from next month confiscate cellphones Taiwanese who are traveling to China for religious, business or other non-political purposes can all be interrogated by Chinese national security officers due to new national security laws, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said in a recent report. Starting next month, Taiwanese could also be asked to hand over their mobile phones and electronic devices for national security inspections when visiting China, the council said. Beijing has introduced a series of laws that were designed to impose heavier sanctions on people who are considered enemies of the state. An amendment to China’s Anti-Espionage Law, which took effect in July last year, expanded