Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

July 15’s significance for Taiwanese

Jerome Keating

Call it coincidence or call it pure chance, but for the symbolic-minded, it is remarkably fated that the celebrations of US Independence Day (July 4), French Bastille Day (July 14) and Taiwan’s lifting of martial law (July 15) all fall within a two-week period.

However, the real issue here is not the calendar month nor proximity of those days, but what they represent for their respective nations, and this is what Taiwanese need to reflect on concerning July 15 and the inner strength that brought about the lifting of martial law.

Monterey Talks to include F-35Bs: official

Taipei Times

National Security Council Secretary-General Yen Teh-fa is pictured in an undated photograph.
Photo: CNA

Taiwanese officials are to bring up the procurement of Lockheed Martin F-35B jets and submarine technology in the Monterey Talks, an annual high-level defense dialogue in the US scheduled for the middle of next month.

Taiwanese can stand proud, shake off China

Lee Min-yung 李敏勇

Following the end of World War II, Taiwan endured the 228 Incident, the Martial Law era — which lasted from May 21, 1949, to July 15, 1987 — the White Terror era of the 1950s and a half-century of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) party-state rule, which is the root of society’s present ills.

After martial law was lifted, Taiwan experienced a decade of radical democratization movements, before the era of directly elected presidents was ushered in with the election of then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) in 1996. Despite this, the conditions for the establishment of a true Taiwanese national identity were not present.

Pooh-poohing ban on Pooh Bear

Taipei Times Editorial

“The Communist Party doesn’t do humor.”

That pithy remark from Steve Tsang (曾銳生), director of the China Institute at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, was his response in a report by British newspaper the Independent on Monday about Beijing banning Winnie-the-Pooh from social media because of repeated comparisons of A.A. Milne’s teddy bear character to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).

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