The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is holding a series of events to mark the 75th anniversary of Taiwan’s “retrocession” to highlight the close links between the Republic of China (ROC) and Taiwan, and has nothing to do with Beijing’s “one China” principal, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrote yesterday on Facebook.
The ROC government defeated Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which was why Taiwan was able to return to the ROC and Taiwanese were freed from half a century of repressive Japanese colonial rule, Ma wrote.
Retrocession paved the way for today’s democracy, freedom and prosperity in Taiwan, and commemorating Retrocession Day is a reminder of the close links between the ROC and Taiwan, Ma wrote, adding that it should be a responsibility of all ROC presidents.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
His Facebook post followed criticism by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokeswoman Yen Juo-fang (顏若芳), who accused the KMT of using the day to play along with the Chinese government’s “one China principle” and its events commemorating the day.
Such a remark showed some people’s “ignorance of historical facts” and their “confused national identity,” Ma wrote.
Taiwan became a Japanese colony after China lost the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894 and ceded the island with the signing of the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki.
The KMT has held a series of events, including an online exhibition of historical materials and photographs related to Taiwan’s return to the ROC, and a concert.
Retrocession Day was a public holiday in the ROC from 1946 until the then-DPP government in December 2002 amended the Implementation Regulations on Memorial Days and Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法) to remove its public holiday status.
The KMT has criticized the DPP for not holding a commemorative event this year.
The People’s Republic of China held seminars in Beijing on Thursday to mark the occasion.
Taiwan’s retrocession proved the island “has always been part of China,” Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Yang (汪洋) said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching