Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Ministry keeps mum on Taiwan’s status at expo

Taipei Times

The Taiwan pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo is pictured on Apr. 25, 2010. Photo: CNA

The organizer of the 2015 World Exposition in Milan is reportedly only willing to place the Taiwan Pavilion in the “corporate area” rather than in the “country area,” a matter on which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday declined to comment, citing insufficient information.

Following its participation in the World Exposition held in Japan’s Osaka in 1970, Taiwan, due to interference by China, has not participated in any of the subsequent world expos until Expo 2010 in China’s Shanghai. The Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination sent an official invitation to the Taipei World Trade Center organization for a Taiwan Pavilion at the expo in May 2009.

Declaration lacks legal power

Coen Blaauw

I was intrigued by the article about a conference on Sunday to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Cairo Declaration (“Declaration ‘intended to return Taiwan to ROC,’” Dec. 2, page 1).

“It is a ‘very big mistake’ to think that the Cairo Declaration was only a press communique. Both the US and Japan have included the Cairo Declaration, the 1945 Potsdam Declaration and the 1945 Japanese Instrument of Surrender in their official collection of treaties,” President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said at the conference in Taipei, adding that all three documents are legally binding.

Schools to teach Nanjing is ROC capital: ministry

Taipei Times

A Ministry of Education circular describing Nanjing as the Republic of China’s capital and Taipei as the current seat of its central government is shown in a photo posted on Facebook yesterday by National Taipei University of Education professor Lee Hsiao-feng.
Photo downloaded from Lee Hsiao-feng’s Facebook page

A government document ordering schools’ procurement of teaching materials that mark Nanjing as the capital of the Republic of China (ROC) and Taipei as the current location of the central government indicated President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration’s persistent attempts to promote the links between Taiwan and China, as well as the administration’s misinterpretation of the Constitution, lawmakers and academics said yesterday.

A photograph posted by National Taipei University of Education professor Lee Hsiao-feng (李筱峰) on Facebook yesterday, which showed a Ministry of Education document issued on Monday to schools nationwide, went viral on the Internet.

Cairo Declaration as legal basis incorrect: advocates

Taipei Times

Former Examination Yuan president Yao Chia-wen, center, and Taiwan Society chairman Chang Yen-hsien, right, listen as Sim Kiantek speaks yesterday at a press conference in Taipei on interpreting the Cairo Declaration.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times

President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) interpretation of the Cairo Declaration, issued on Dec. 1, 1943, as the legal basis of Taiwan’s “return” to the Republic of China (ROC) after World War II was not only incorrect, but also dangerous because his rhetoric was exactly the same as that of Beijing, pro-independence advocates said yesterday.

“[Ma’s interpretation] fits right in with the ‘one China’ framework, which would be interpreted by the international community as saying Taiwan is part of China because hardly anyone would recognize the China in ‘one China’ framework as referring to the ROC,” Taiwan Society President Chang Yen-hsien (張炎憲), a former president of the Academia Historica, told a press conference.

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