Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

Taipei Times

A paramilitary policeman stands guard in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, on Nov. 17, 2015.
Photo: Reuters

China is pushing growing numbers of Tibetan rural laborers off the land and into recently built military-style training centers where they are turned into factory workers, mirroring a program in Xinjiang that rights groups have branded coercive labor.

Swedish MP calls for name change to Taipei office

Taipei Times

Swedish Member of Parliament Hampus Hagman is pushing for changing the name of the nation’s trade office in Taipei to signal improved relations with “Asia’s perhaps foremost democracy.”

Hagman on Wednesday last week proposed renaming the Swedish Trade and Invest Council to “Sweden’s Office in Taipei,” following similar changes by other nations.

The Swedish Trade and Invest Council, part of Business Sweden, is owned by the Swedish government and Swedish industry.

Ending oaths to portraits of Sun democratic: DPP

Taipei Times

Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai raises his right hand as he takes his oath of office in front of a portrait of Sun Yat-sen during his swearing-in ceremony on Aug. 24.
Photo: Chang Chung-yi, Taipei Times

A proposal to eliminate a requirement that public officials and military personnel take their oaths of office in front of a portrait of Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) was aimed at “doing away with authoritarianism,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) said yesterday.

Hard questions KMT must answer

Jerome Keating

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Sept. 6 finished its annual national congress. However, if Taiwan wants to have a viable opposition party in its democracy, the results were far from satisfying.

The KMT again seems to be caught in a time loop, like that one in the 1993 film Groundhog Day.

Yet, unlike the protagonist in that film, the KMT seems unable to learn from past experience and change for the better. Instead, it remains locked in its never-ending cycle of repeating the past.

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