Senior Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members gathered in Taipei yesterday to launch a book on the party’s early history.
The launch of photographer Chiu Wan-hsing’s (邱萬興) Taiwan’s Defiant Years: The Rise of the DPP 1986-1987 (台灣關鍵年代 : 民進黨的誕生 1986-1987) was part of a series of activities to mark the 35th anniversary of the party’s founding on Sept. 28, 1986, at the Grand Hotel Taipei.
“We must never forget the DPP’s original spirit and the party’s founding principles. Taiwanese have much expectation for the DPP, and we must remember this responsibility,” President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who is the DPP’s chairperson, said in her keynote address.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Chiu has for years been associated with the DPP, donating many photographs, early DPP publications and election pamphlets to the party for the establishment of a museum celebrating the the DPP’s history.
Several DPP founding members attended the event, including Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫堃), former Taipei county commissioner You Ching (尤清) and former DPP chairman Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文).
Those who were present at the DPP’s founding event recalled the tense atmosphere as many feared that then-president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), who was also the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman at the time, might order security forces to crack down on the newly founded party.
There were rumors that opposition leaders would be arrested, they said.
You Ching said that he made calls to foreign news organizations upon arriving home from the event.
It was urgent to announce the party’s founding to the world, he said, adding that it was crucial that foreign media reported the event.
In the party’s early days, DPP members lobbied foreign governments to support Taiwan’s push for democracy and recognize the atrocities committed by the KMT during the waning Martial Law era, he said.
The events led to then-Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham’s trip to Taiwan to interview Chiang on Oct. 6, 1986.
Chiang told Graham that the government would lift martial law and introduce reforms and policies to liberalize Taiwan, You Ching said.
In the interview, Chiang also said that any newly formed party would need to adhere to the Republic of China Constitution and contribute to countering the agenda of communist China, You Ching said.
The interview assured DPP members that “Chiang had come to accept the DPP’s existence,” he said.
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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