Taiwan Youth Anti-Communist Corps (TYAC) cofounder and political commentator Paul Lin (林保華), a frequent Taipei Times contributor, presented his autobiography at a book launch in Taipei that was attended by a number of pan-green supporters, including Democratic Progressive Party Chairman Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰).
The book, titled Hybrid: Memoir of Lin Bao-hua (我的雜種人生：林保華回憶錄), tells the life story of 81-year-old Lin, who was born in China and raised in Indonesia. He studied and taught Chinese Communist Party (CCP) history at universities in China, and then left for Hong Kong, where he became a political commentator who often criticized the CCP.
Lin left Hong Kong just before it was returned to China in 1997, and lived in the US for nine years, before settling in Taiwan with his wife, TYAC executive director Yang Yueh-ching (楊月清).
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Citing the old saying: “The scholar dies for his bosom friend” (士為知己者死), Lin said he began writing the book five years ago.
Many events have happened in the past five years, so while he had planned to devote himself “to protect Taiwan,” he might now choose to fight for Hong Kong, Lin said.
He was referring to the protests in Hong Kong that began over a now-suspended extradition bill, but have extended to demands for greater democracy and the resignation of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥).
Turing to Taiwanese politics, Lin said he understands if the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) deceives Taiwanese, but he cannot stand it when groups claiming to be pro-localization lie to the people while seeking to gain personally, “which is the biggest obstruction to Taiwan becoming a country.”
“There is no issue of Taiwanese independence, because Taiwan is already an independent country,” Chinese human rights lawyer Teng Biao (滕彪) said at the event. “There is only one issue, which is how [Taiwan is] to avoid China’s infiltration.”
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS