Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

The misinterpretation of stability

Taipei Times Editorial

The presence of up to 250,000 people at a protest on Aug. 3 made the government succumb to public pressure with the removal of the military judiciary in peacetime. The protest was billed as a watershed moment for Taiwan as well as the beginning of a new civil movement. Things have begun to change.

There was criticism of the hundreds of people who “ambushed” the Joint Central Government Building and occupied the plaza on Sunday in protest at the Ministry of the Interior’s (MOI) ignorance of numerous land expropriation cases across the country, in particular the one in Dapu Borough (大埔), Miaoli County.

US, PRC plan joint defense task force

Taipei Times

US and Chinese defense officials plan to set up a joint task force to deal with issues of mutual concern, but weapons sales to Taiwan will not be part of the agenda, an unnamed Pentagon official said on Wednesday.

The official’s statement came after Chinese media reported that the US has given a “positive response” to a proposal to discuss the arms sales with China.

Chinese media reports quoted Rear Admiral Guan Youfei (關友飛), who spoke to Chinese journalists on Tuesday in Washington, where Chinese Minister of Defense Chang Wanquan (常萬全) had met with US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel a day earlier.

Taiwanese Spring in the making

Peter Huang 黃文雄

Several days ago, about 30 young people went into the compound in front of the Executive Yuan, spattered the building and gold name plaque with eggs and paint and began a sit-down protest.

They were protesting the broken promise, made three years ago by then-premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and then-minister of the interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) to the residents of Dapu Borough (大埔) in Miaoli County whose four homes were forcibly demolished last month.

Protesters occupy government building

Taipei Times

Protesters stage a sit-in at the entrance of the Ministry of the Interior in Taipei yesterday, voicing opposition to land seizures and forced demolitions in Miaoli County.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times

Hundreds of protesters yesterday evening ended their 20-hour “occupation” of a government building in Taipei to protest against a land seizure in Miaoli County and land expropriation across the country, but vowed more occupation campaigns if the government failed to listen to their demands.

“As the protest draws to a close now, it is, at the same time, only a beginning. [The protest] serves as a warning to all government agencies, which betrayed their responsibility to the people, that they should be ready for people’s occupation at all times,” said Tsai Pei-hui (蔡培慧), spokesperson for the Taiwan Rural Front, the protest’s main organizer.

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