Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday said Taiwan needs to enlarge its civil society in order to cultivate a public that has the self-determination to build its own nation.
Lee made the remarks at the ceremony to mark the establishment of the Taiwan Association of Civil Society, a non-profit private organization founded by a group of university professors and young academics to promote the public's civil awareness and Taiwan's national identity.
Lee said that Taiwanese people were deprived of the right to self-governance during the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime's decades of authoritarian rule and therefore Taiwan has been slow to form a civil and democratic society.
"Many Taiwanese people were born with the belief that they were destined to be subjected to other people's ruling," Lee said. "Actually, there should be no such a thing. People are the most important element in composing a country. However, now in Taiwan, the phenomenon that people are the subjects of feudal rulers still exists.
"Such is the lack of the people's civil awareness," Lee said.
In his speech, Lee told young people to think for themselves and abandon the hackneyed slavish ideology to build Taiwan into a normal and independent country.
In related news, China condemned Taiwan's top leaders yesterday for "preaching separatism" and denounced their efforts toward a new constitution and a law allowing referendums, a move some say could produce a vote on the nation's independence.
An unidentified spokesman for the Chinese Cabinet's Taiwan Affairs office issued the comments through the official Xinhua News Agency and singled out President Chen Shui-bian (
"Chen Shui-bian is preaching separatism and is trying to carry out his separatist activities by making use of this referendum," the spokesman said.
The Chinese spokesman added: "The separatist activities by Taiwanese independence elements directly endangers the basic interests of Taiwanese compatriots, and it is a disaster for Taiwan.
"Activities like this cannot be tolerated by the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation," the spokesman said.
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
RSS