Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Casting off the ‘one China’ illusion

The Liberty Times Editorial

Fifty years ago on Oct. 26, then-president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) issued the “Letter Informing All Compatriots about the Republic of China’s Withdrawal from the United Nations.”

In the letter, Chiang wrote that the “Republic of China is an independent and sovereign country, and it brooks no external interference in the exercise of its sovereignty ... the government of the Republic of China is the true representative of the 700 million Chinese on the mainland ... the Mao [Zedong, 毛澤東] thieves, traitors and bandits are torn by constant internal power struggles, and we will steady our confidence, increase our strength, save our compatriots and recover the mainland.”

Wang Ye sent off to heaven in Pingtung King Boat burning

Taipei Times

Spectators watch as a King Boat is prepared to be burned on a beach in Pingtung County’s Donggang Township at the end of the Wang Ye Worshiping Ceremony yesterday.
Photo: CNA

The Wang Ye Worshiping Ceremony in Pingtung County culminated early yesterday with the burning of a purpose-built King Boat on a beach in Donggang Township (東港), signifying the deity being sent off.

The festival — held once every three years with the aim to prevent the spread of plagues — is one of the biggest Wang Ye festivals in Taiwan and dates back 300 years.

October an odd month in Taiwan

Jerome Keating

Anyone who has lived in Taiwan very long quickly sees that October is a month of posturing, irony and anomalies. This year’s October not only met that mark, but was rich in overtones and humor.

Oct. 1 is the National Day of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), formally established in 1949, and so the month always begins with PRC posturing. This October, Chinese president Xi Jinping (習近平) reiterated China’s worn out claims on how it must reunite what really had never been united in the first place.

As backstory, Xi’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded in 1921, a decade after the 1911 Xinhai revolution that split the Manchu Qing empire and the founding of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). That occurrence was also more than two decades after the Manchus had given “in perpetuity” the part of Taiwan that they controlled to Japan in the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki.

Nuclear has no place in Taiwan

Pan Wei-yiu 潘威佑

The public must be confused about the issue of whether it is appropriate to restart construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮).

The site has been sealed up for a long time, and the fuel rods have been shipped overseas. So why is a referendum needed on whether to restart construction of the mothballed plant?

The truth is that the plant has become something of a political ATM. If a political party wants to make it an issue for its own political benefit, it resurrects the debate.

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