The Tainan City Government recently unveiled plans to spend an additional NT$13 million (US$402,714) to build a cultural park to house the replica of a Ming Dynasty junk that it had built five years ago.
The boat was built based on a drawing of Ming-era ships in the Matsura Historical Museum in Nagasaki, Japan, and was intended to follow the route of Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功) to Taiwan, Tainan Bureau of Cultural Affairs director Yeh Tse-shan (葉澤山) said.
Cheng, more commonly known to Westerners as Koxinga, expelled Dutch colonists from Taiwan in 1662.
Photo: Hung Jui-chin, Taipei Times
Construction of the boat received a great deal of attention both in Taiwan and abroad, including by National Geographic, but the vessel’s main mast broke during a sailing trial in 2010. As a result, the city government sued the designers, sailors and boat building company, asking for NT$7.6 million in reparations.
The Tainan District Court in February ruled in favor of the city government, ordering the defendants to pay NT$3.7 million, but the defendants have appealed the ruling.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Tainan City Councilor Lu Kun-fu (盧崑福) said the lawsuit was a waste of taxpayers’ money.
Yeh said that due to standing regulations — the port authorities cited the Yachting Act (遊艇法) in the absence of rules regulating the sailing of wooden ships — the city government’s original plan to sail around the harbor was not financially viable.
The Yachting Act stipulates that wooden ships can only carry eight people at any given time, and the skeleton crew for the sailing of the boat accounted for six of those.
High maintenance costs were also a concern and the city government decided that it would use the ship as an exhibition center, which it hoped to be both educational and recreational, it said, adding that the space around the ship could be used as grounds for live theater.
The bureau said it has invested NT$3 million in repairs, which are expected to be finished in July, adding that it has committed an additional NT$13 million to build a Taiwanese Ships Cultural Park next year.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has fined Taobao NT$1.2 million (US$36,900) for advertisements that exceeded its approved business scope and ordered the Chinese e-commerce platform to make corrections in the first half of this year or its license would be revoked. Lawmakers have called for stricter supervision of Chinese e-commerce platforms and more stringent measures to prevent China from laundering its goods through Taiwan as US President Donald Trump’s administration cracks down on origin laundering. The legislature’s Finance Committee yesterday met to discuss policies to prevent China from dumping goods in Taiwan, inviting government agencies to report on the matter. Democratic Progressive Party
Taiwan and its Pacific ally Tuvalu on Tuesday signed two accords aimed at facilitating bilateral cooperation on labor affairs, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). The governments inked two agreements in Taipei, witnessed by Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) and visiting Deputy Tuvaluan Prime Minister Panapasi Nelesone, MOFA said in a news release. According to MOFA, the agreements will facilitate cooperation on labor issues and allow the two sides to mutually recognize seafarers’ certificates and related training. Taiwan would also continue to collaborate with Tuvalu across various fields to promote economic prosperity as well as the well-being of their
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office has continued its investigation into allegations of forged signatures in recall efforts today by searching the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) city chapter and questioning several personnel including the chapter director, according to media reports. Among those questioned and detained were KMT Taipei chapter director Huang Lu Chin-ju (黃呂錦茹), chapter secretary-general Chu Wen-ching (初文卿), chapter secretary Yao Fu-wen (姚富文) and first district committee executive director Tseng Fan-chuan (曾繁川). Prosecutors said they would not confirm reports about who had been summoned. The investigation centers on allegations that the ongoing recall campaigns targeting Democratic Progressive Party legislators Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤)
RSS