Social activist Chang Chih-mei holds up a copy of the 908 Taiwan Republic Campaign 2013 calendar in Greater Taichung on Monday.
Photo: Su Chin-fong, Taipei Times

With 2013 around the corner, the 908 Taiwan Republic Campaign has produced a calendar in an effort to strengthen pro-localization consciousness and make Taiwanese history more widely known.

The numbers 908 — signifying the date on which the San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed — are included in the pro-Taiwan independence organization’s name because founder and convener Peter Wang (王獻極) believes that Japan gave up its rights of governance over Taiwan but made no mention of who it ceded control to, making Taiwan a sovereign country that is, in Wang’s words, temporarily and unlawfully occupied by the “Republic of China government-in-exile.”