The Taiwan Statebuilding Party yesterday called for the government to create a Taiwanese national day and drop holidays celebrating the Republic of China (ROC), while the Taiwan Republic Office called for a referendum to choose a date to hold a national day for Taiwan.
Double Ten National Day was created by the former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime to celebrate the Oct. 10, 1911, Wuchang Uprising against the Qing Dynasty, which preceded the founding of the ROC, Taiwan Statebuilding Party secretary-general Wang Hsing-huan (王興煥) said.
“It is a tragedy to celebrate Double Ten National Day, which was imposed by force by the KMT dictatorship, indoctrinating Taiwanese to submit to the colonial ROC regime and resulting in the current confusion of identifying Taiwan with the foreign Chinese nation-state,” he said. “But it is not the ‘national day’ for Taiwanese, as there is no nationhood for Taiwan yet.”
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
“Successive governments in Taiwan have taken to celebrating Double Ten National Day each year to re-enforce ROC colonial rule over the subjugated people,” he added.
The Taiwan Statebuilding Party also disagrees with the Democratic Progressive Party’s efforts to remove the term ROC from holiday signage and promotion materials by using “Taiwan National Day” instead, Wang said.
“This is not transitional justice,” he said, adding that the DPP is impeding efforts to pursue Taiwan’s national identity and oust the remnants of the ROC colonial regime.
Photo provided by Taiwan Republic Office media release
Taiwan needs to do away with Double Ten National Day celebrations, and phase out the ROC political framework, he said.
“Forcing Taiwan inside the constraints of the ROC regime is not the right way to go,” he added.
Separately, members of the Taiwan Republic Office and allied pro-Taiwanese independence groups protested on Ketagalan Boulevard outside a cordoned off area in front of the Presidential Office Building during a Double Ten National Day ceremony yesterday morning.
The protesters said that as the holiday commemorated the Wuchang Uprising, when Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule, it had nothing to do with Taiwan.
Instead, a new national holiday should be created and a date relevant to Taiwan’s history should be decided by voters through a referendum.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS