The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) should not misrepresent the passion for revolution of White Terror-era victims as sorrow for pro-Taiwan independence supporters, the New Party’s youth wing said yesterday.
The group was referring to the Xinhai Revolution (辛亥), which toppled the Qing Dynasty and ended imperial rule in China, culminating in the founding of the Republic of China.
The group made the comments while paying their respects at a stele commemorating the victims of the White Terror era on the 72nd anniversary of the 228 Incident.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
“The KMT did not launch a massacre of so-called Taiwanese on Feb. 28, 1947. The purge took place during the ensuing White Terror era,” youth wing member Lin Ming-cheng (林明正) said.
The truth is that there were mobs attacking waishengren (外省人, mainlanders), but the KMT did not widely retaliate, Lin said.
That members of Unit 27 Chung Yi-jen (鍾逸人) and Chen Ming-chung (陳明忠) remain alive to this day is proof, Lin said, adding that even former Imperial Japan Army veteran Huang Chin-tao (黃金島) had only passed away in January.
The mass execution of political prisoners took place during the White Terror era in the 1950s, and most were Chinese Communist Party members or socialists, Lin said.
They were people who wanted Taiwan to be unified with the “communist motherland,” Lin said.
Youth wing member Su Heng (蘇恆) said that most White Terror victims, who are often used by the DPP to bolster its political credibility, recognized China as their motherland and wanted nothing more than to “stop the civil war and be unified in peace.”
The KMT did not like their ideas and suppressed them, but those who have taken up their mantle are now being suppressed by the DPP, using autocratic methods, Su said.
The mentality of non-coexistence with the Chinese Communist Party embraced by the then-KMT often led to the suppression of those who favored negotiating peace with the communists, youth wing member Wang Ping-chung (王炳忠) said.
The KMT lumped dangwai (“outside the party,” 黨外) politicians and pro-Taiwan independence groups together under the label of “communist sympathizers” and purged them, Wang said.
The DPP has distorted the victims’ passion for the revolution to hit a chord with independence supporters, Wang said.
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration lauding the actions of “underground communist party members” during the Chinese civil war era, even as it purges those who want peaceful unification, is both ironic and hypocritical, the group said.
The group brought sunflowers — which it said represented the revolution’s fight for social justice and hopes for a unified homeland — and laid them at a public cemetery in the Liuzhangli area, where White Terror era victims were buried, Su said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
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
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
RSS