The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday denied allegations that it had removed the national flag from the latest version of its Web site, saying that the flag was not on the Web site during the administration of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
The ministry issued a statement yesterday morning after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yang Cheng-wu’s (楊鎮浯) office director, Huang Tzu-che (黃子哲), on Thursday accused the ministry of being an accomplice in furthering President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) “de-Sinicization” of the nation.
At a time when relations with our diplomatic ally the Dominican Republic are on shaky ground, the ministry has apparently kept itself occupied by updating its Web site, Huang said on Facebook, adding a screen shot of what he said was the earlier version of the ministry’s Web site.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The screen shot showed a blurry national flag on the banner of the ministry’s Web site.
“What left me dumbfounded is that the front page of a government body that best represents the nation’s sovereignty does not even have an image of our national flag,” Huang wrote, adding that the national flag has become collateral damage in the Tsai administration’s political manipulation.
In response, ministry spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) said the national flag was not incorporated on the site’s design in its previous update in June 2014 to utilize the limited space to present all the necessary content.
“Allegations that we removed the flag in our latest update on Thursday are therefore untrue,” Lee said, adding that the screen shot provided by Huang was a sub-page of the Web site and was from May 2013.
It has been the ministry’s practice to introduce a special edition of the Web site on a handful of holidays, such as Lunar New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Double Ten National Day, Lee said.
The ministry embellished its site with images of the national flag and a “Double Ten” logo for this year’s National Day celebrations from Oct. 6 through Wednesday, he said.
The national flag has long been a subject of contention between the pan-blue and pan-green camps, as some members of the latter consider the Republic of China a government in exile and deem the removal of the system a necessary step to normalize the nation.
Controversy over the flag was renewed earlier this month when the Tsai administration was criticized for its failure to include the national flag and title in this year’s Double Ten National Day celebrations.
SPEEDING ELETRIC VEHICLES: Available without license requirements, the low-cost vehicles, especially if illicitly modified, can often reach a dangerous speed The government should crack down on illegal electric bicycles and scooters, the non-profit Consumers’ Foundation said on Friday, citing research on the potentially dangerous speed of the vehicles. Electric bicycles and lightweight electric scooters have gained popularity as they do not require registration and riders do not need licenses, the foundation said, adding that as many as 40 percent of them can reach speeds exceeding the legal limit of 25kph for non-licensed two-wheelers. Some consumers also purchased legal electric vehicles and modified them to reach higher speeds, it said. “If the government does not step up efforts to confiscate these
DIPLOMATIC MOVES: Beijing is reportedly pressing the state after reports of forming links with Taiwan, while the ministry is also planning to reopen its office in Guam soon A representative office is set to open in Somaliland at the end of this month, at the earliest, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday amid reports that Beijing is sending a diplomatic delegation to the east African country. The ministry on July 1 announced that Taiwan and Somaliland would establish representative offices, following a report by the Somaliland Chronicle Web site. It said at the time that the two nations did not plan to establish formal ties. Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi has instructed close confidants to explore the possibility of “mutual recognition between Taiwan and Somaliland,” the Somaliland Chronicle reported
A Belgian man who tested positive for COVID-19 in Taiwan last week is likely to have contracted the disease in Taipei in late June, National Taiwan University (NTU) College of Public Health vice dean Tony Chen (陳秀熙) said yesterday. The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Saturday reported that the man, who is in his 20s, came to Taiwan for work on May 3 and tested positive on Wednesday last week as he was about to depart. The man in March reported loss of taste and smell, the center said, adding that he worked in Changhua County, but visited Taipei several times,
NEW CASE REPORTED: A man who returned from South Africa on a flight with the nation’s 460th and 461st cases has now tested positive for the disease The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday said that there is no need to test all arrivals to the nation for COVID-19, a policy the Executive Yuan supports. The center reported one new imported case, bringing the nation’s tally of confirmed cases to 477. The new case is a Taiwanese man in his 60s who on July 25 returned from South Africa, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is also the CECC’s spokesman. The man had returned to Taiwan on the same flight as cases Nos. 460 and 461, reported on July 27, Chuang said. On July 24,
RSS