Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Voting Tsai could make Taiwan a true nation

Lee Min-yung 李敏勇

The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has to endure the ignominy of being simultaneously watched over by the US and confined by China. The US likes to keep a close eye on Taiwan, because although Japan renounced Taiwan as a colonial territory, under the terms of the US-directed San Francisco Peace Treaty — which entered into force in 1952 and officially ended World War II in the Asia-Pacific region — Taiwan was not reassigned to any other nation. The US’ Taiwan Relations Act also contains relevant clauses, while China’s continued persistence in its claim of sovereignty over the ROC squatters on Taiwan means that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has yet to break free from China’s spell.

Magnitude 6.3 earthquake rocks nation

Taipei Times

A Taipei stacked parking lot lies in disarray after a magnitude 6.3 earthquake hit Taiwan yesterday.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times

The nation was struck by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake and four large aftershocks yesterday, killing one person and damaging infrastructure and private properties in the north.

After the main earthquake hit at 9:42am, an aftershock measuring magnitude 5.0 occurred seven minutes later, with the two epicenters only 13.2km apart.

Groups team up to protest curriculum

Taipei Times

A group of civic organizations yesterday announced that today it would form an alliance to protest the Ministry of Education’s handling of the high-school social sciences curriculum and the 12-year national education plan which they alleged was designed in a “black-box,” or non-transparent, manner.

As the Taipei High Administrative Court in February ruled against the ministry’s decision to implement a controversial curriculum adjustment — which the ministry implemented anyway — the groups said the ministry should attempt to make information more transparent and easily accessible to the public.

Taiwan will never be an equal partner

Taipei Times Editorial

China rolled out a fine example of its command of Orwellian language and logic on Wednesday, with the State Council Information Office’s release of a nearly 18,000-word white paper on the Dalai Lama and Tibet. Taiwan, and the rest of the world, should take note.

In the paper, Beijing declared that the exiled Tibetan leader must focus on seeking China’s forgiveness for his separatist activities. It also claimed that the Buddhist monk supports and incites the waves of self-immolations by Tibetans, and his calls for Beijing to stop its drive for more Han Chinese migration into Tibet are “tantamount to an ethnic cleansing of the [Tibetan] plateau,” adding: “The Dalai group’s logic is absurd and chilling, proposing to force tens of millions of people of other ethnic groups out of this region, where they have lived for generations.”

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