City mayors and advocacy groups yesterday called for support for Ukraine at events across Taiwan to commemorate the 228 Incident.
“Taiwan’s authoritarian ruler ordered the indiscriminate killing of people in 1947. Now similar things are happening in far-away Ukraine,” Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said at a ceremony at the city’s 228 Peace Memorial Park.
“We sympathize with [Ukraine], because peace, justice and liberty are universal values. The Kaohsiung lantern festival has put on a blue and yellow light display in recent days, to show that we stand in solidarity with Ukraine,” Chen said.
Photo: Lee Hui-chou, Taipei Times
Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) at his city’s commemoration event also urged people to support Ukrainians.
“We have seen great courage displayed by the president of Ukraine and his people, who stood up and took up arms to defend their homeland ... When they rise up with such determination, they create a very powerful force,” he said.
“Now we pray that the war ends soon, so that the people of Ukraine can enjoy ... their democracy and live in freedom,” Cheng said.
He said that Taiwanese could learn from Ukranians who have shown the world their determination to defend their country,
In Taipei yesterday afternoon, the Taiwan Republic Office and leaders of the Anti-M Society Association held a 228 Incident rally at which they held up Ukrainian national flags in a display of support.
Taiwan Republic Office director Chilly Chen (陳峻涵) said it is understandable for Taiwanese to stand together with Ukraine.
“KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and now [Russian President Vladimir] Putin invaded other countries ... but Chiang’s massacre and the atrocities committed in Taiwan were worse than Russia’s invasion, because he continued to rule over Taiwan for several decades ... and tens of thousands of victims were killed during the White Terror era,” Chilly Chen said.
At a commemoration event in Kaohsiung held each year by civic groups, Chen Chi-mai said he represented all city residents by presenting lilies to the surviving family members of victims of the 228 Massacre.
The 228 Massacre refers to protesters being shot by security personnel on Feb. 28, 1947. A resulting crackdown left thousands dead, and was followed by nearly four decades of martial law.
Wang Wen-hung (王文宏), chairman of the 228 Victims Care Association of Taiwan, said the government must complete the transitional justice process and remove all Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) statues and other symbols of authoritarianism.
Wang’s father was a city councilor who was executed by the KMT.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods