Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Memorial hall perfect home for legislature

Lee Hsiao-feng 李筱峰

Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫堃) on April 18 announced that he would visit 19 possible sites for relocating the Legislative Yuan, rekindling a long debate about whether and where the legislature should move.

Parliaments are sometimes called “temples of democracy” and their appearance and environment are symbols of a democratic country.

The Legislative Yuan has since 1960 been located at the site of the former Taihoku Prefectural Second Girls’ High School, built during the Japanese colonial era. There is nothing wrong with using a high school to house the legislature provisionally, but 62 years and counting is anything but temporary.

Delegation from Japanese ruling party’s Youth Division visits Taiwan this week

Taipei Times

A delegation from the Youth Division of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party led by Japanese House of Representatives Member Masanobu Ogura, third left, pose with Representative to Japan Frank Hsieh, third right, at the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan in January.
Photo: Lin Tsuei-yi, Taipei Times

A delegation from the Youth Division of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is arriving in Taiwan tomorrow on a five-day trip that includes a meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and a visit to the grave of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) to pay their respects.

The 11-person delegation, led by division head Masanobu Ogura, a member of the Japanese House of Representatives for Tokyo’s 23rd District, are also to meet with other senior government officials before they leave on Saturday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Slovenia, Taiwan share similar pasts

Taipei Times Editorial

On Sunday, Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa was defeated in the country’s parliamentary election.

Jansa’s loss was largely welcomed by the Western media, which had called him an autocratic populist, and reported on Slovenia’s slide to the right and a sharp decline in democratic standards during his two-year leadership, an assessment backed up by reports from Freedom House and Amnesty International.

Taiwan’s response was always going to be more nuanced. In January, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) had called Jansa “a good friend of Taiwan” for his government’s plan to establish a representative office in Taiwan, and for his remarks that he supported Taiwan’s entry into the WHO and that Taiwanese should have the right to determine their future, without any pressure, military intervention or blackmailing from China.

‘House of Sweden’ in Taipei motion tabled at Riksdag

Taipei Times

Members of a Swedish parliamentary delegation pose for a photograph after arriving at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on April 10.
Photo: EPA-EFE / Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Swedish lawmakers have proposed a motion to have a building in Taiwan similar to the House of Sweden in Washington, with the motion expected to be debated and voted on soon, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.

The idea was first mentioned on April 14 during a five-day visit to Taiwan by a Swedish delegation.

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