Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday referred to Taiwan by its official name, the Republic of China (ROC), during an ancestor worship ritual in China.
Speaking at the burial site of his ancestors in Xiangtan, Hunan Province, Ma said he was elected twice as “president of the ROC,” in the years 92 and 101 on the ROC calendar, referring to 2008 and 2012.
As president, Ma said, he governed with integrity, diligence and care for the people, as he was guided by his family’s philosophy that the main purpose of education is to do good deeds for others.
Photo: CNA
His presidency was the most peaceful and prosperous period in the 70 years of separate governance in Taiwan and China, he said.
His administration achieved it through a policy of maintaining peace with China, building closer ties with the US and enhancing friendship with Japan, Ma said, as he, his sisters and other family members burned incense and made offerings at their ancestors’ grave site.
“This is the first time in my life that I’ve come to the mainland to worship my ancestors and visit my relatives,” Ma said. “It is very emotional.”
The former president’s parents, Ma Ho-ling (馬鶴凌) and Chin Hou-hsiu (秦厚修), moved to Taiwan via Hong Kong after the Chinese Civil War of 1945-1949.
His historic 12-day trip to China, which started on Monday, marks the first of a former Taiwanese president since the ROC government retreated to Taiwan.
During his trip, Ma has used the term ROC on several occasions, but all instances have been edited out of China Central Television coverage of his visit.
At an event in Nanjing on Tuesday, Ma dated a calligraphy scroll “112,” referring to the 112th year since the founding of the ROC.
However, Ma did not write the characters for minguo (republican, 民國) in front of the date to refer to the ROC calendar, as is common in Taiwan.
However, he used the term several times in remarks.
Ma’s trip, and his choice of words, have been criticized by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and pro-independence groups in Taiwan.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS