Amid overcast skies and a steady rain that fell for much of the afternoon, more than 200 Taiwanese converged on Times Square Saturday to call for Taiwan’s inclusion in the UN, and to raise New Yorkers’ awareness of the island nation and its political struggles.
“If you want to love Taiwan, then you have to learn about Taiwan,” said Eric Tsai (蔡宗霖), 23, co-director of this year’s Keep Taiwan Free rally.
Tsai, who was born in California and grew up in Taiwan, said they also circulated two petitions among attendees: one to demand that Taiwan’s government amend a law requiring at least 50 percent voter turnout to pass a referendum, the other to ask that US Secretary of State John Kerry review the one-China policy recognizing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the legitimate representative of China.
Photo: Chris Fuchs
Since 1993, overseas Taiwanese in New York have participated in this annual rally, also attended by the Taiwan United Nations Alliance (台灣聯合國協進會). In the past, Tsai said, thousands of protesters would descend on the Manhattan streets outside the UN, which gave the island’s seat to the PRC in 1971.
Sovereignty
Taiwan is one of only three countries not in the UN. The PRC has repeatedly blocked efforts by Taiwan to join, arguing that the nation, which it views as a breakaway province, is not a sovereign nation.
Photo: Chris Fuchs
Organizers chose to hold this year’s event in Times Square and did not march to the UN since the 69th General Assembly does not convene until Sept. 16, Tsai said. They were also hoping to attract a younger generation of Taiwanese to augment the ranks of older participants who have been active in this movement for decades, he said.
The dreary weather Saturday did not dampen the spirits of those who attended the three-hour rally. To keep the crowd energized, live bands performed on a makeshift stage, penned in by metal police barricades, and the Taiwanese American Association of New York (大紐約區台灣同鄉會) Santaizi (三太子) Troupe, dressed in colorful head-to-toe costumes of various gods and deities, strutted their stuff in front of smiling protesters waving yellow-and-black flags that read Keep Taiwan Free.
Education
Photo: Chris Fuchs
This year’s event also helped educate everyday New Yorkers about Taiwan, organizers said. Dressed in Keep Taiwan Free t-shirts, many attendees lined up along the sidewalk barriers set up by police, handing out literature and flags to passersby as they made their way down 42 Street.
One participant, Melissa Daly, 23, said she made the trek in from nearby New Jersey with her friend Jenny Wang (汪采羿), her high school classmate, also 23, and the event’s other co-director. But Daly said she also has a personal investment in the movement — she is half-Taiwanese.
“When people think Taiwan is part of China, I always feel the need to say something,” said Daly, whose mother was born and raised in Taiwan.
Jason Chen, 23, also attended the rally after learning about it through his friend Daly. Like the others, Chen, whose parents are from Taiwan, echoed a similar sentiment that Taiwan should finally be allowed into the UN to join the international community of nations.
He also said he views himself as a cultural ambassador for Taiwan.
“When people ask, I try to be informative and paint a good picture of Taiwan and Taiwanese values,” Chen said.
In the long run, organizers explained, outreach to overseas Taiwanese and Americans alike is an important step toward countering the growing threat that China poses to this democratic island nation.
“It takes time,” Wang said. “But right now, we’re in Times Square. People are going to see this, and maybe they’ll Google it. It’s little events like this one that make a difference.”
In 1990, Amy Chen (陳怡美) was beginning third grade in Calhoun County, Texas, as the youngest of six and the only one in her family of Taiwanese immigrants to be born in the US. She recalls, “my father gave me a stack of typed manuscript pages and a pen and asked me to find typos, missing punctuation, and extra spaces.” The manuscript was for an English-learning book to be sold in Taiwan. “I was copy editing as a child,” she says. Now a 42-year-old freelance writer in Santa Barbara, California, Amy Chen has only recently realized that her father, Chen Po-jung (陳伯榕), who
Famed Chinese demographer Yi Fuxian (易富賢) recently wrote for The Diplomat on the effects of a cross-strait war on demography. He contended that one way to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is by putting the demographic issue front and center — last year total births in the PRC, he said, receded to levels not seen since 1762. Yi observes that Taiwan’s current fertility rate is already lower than Ukraine’s — a nation at war that is refusing to send its young into battle — and that its “demographic crisis suggests that Taiwan’s technological importance will rapidly decline, and
For anyone on board the train looking out the window, it must have been a strange sight. The same foreigner stood outside waving at them four different times within ten minutes, three times on the left and once on the right, his face getting redder and sweatier each time. At this unique location, it’s actually possible to beat the train up the mountain on foot, though only with extreme effort. For the average hiker, the Dulishan Trail is still a great place to get some exercise and see the train — at least once — as it makes its way
These are volatile times for the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), with the party’s founder, Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), in and out and back in jail repeatedly, Ko resigning as party chair and naming TPP caucus convener Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) to replace him and an upcoming party leadership vote. How representative of the party’s supporters has the party’s leadership been recently? The TPP caucus in the legislature is so closely aligned — and votes so similarly to — the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that they are in effect a pan-blue party now. Billing themselves as the “white force” between the pan-blue and pan-green
RSS