Several hundred researchers at the Academia Sinica shouted appeals first made by the Sunflower movement at President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday when he visited the nation’s most eminent national research institution for an international conference about the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) issue.
While Ma was giving the keynote speech at the conference, Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深) and Shiu Wen-tang (許文堂), associate research fellows at the college’s Institute of Modern History, and Paul Jobin, an associate professor at the University of Paris Diderot, silently held aloft posters with messages for the president.
The posters read: “Taiwan’s future, the people decide (台灣未來, 人民作主),” and “Cross-strait agreements, legislative oversight (兩岸協議, 立法監督).”
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
“It is a good occasion to have the president look at what people have to say because apparently he did not listen to them at all” during the Sunflower movement, regardless of his recent pledge to reform the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Shiu said by telephone last night.
Jobin said he attended the conference because he was interested in the topic and hoped to listen to exchanges of views between Ma and academics from Japan, China and Hong Kong.
“The reason I joined with my colleagues who prepared the banners was that I feel concerned for young people. They are so brave and committed to democracy in Taiwan, but were disregarded and treated badly by the government, which is trying to indict them,” Jobin said to the Taipei Times by telephone.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
He added: “I feel like we are going back to the nation’s bad times and I am concerned about the things that are going on in Taiwan.”
Jobin said he totally agreed with Ma’s reaction when former Japanese prime minister Yoshihiko Noda said to the UN in September 2012 that “there exists no issue of territorial sovereignty” over the Senkaku Islands, as the Diaoyutai Islands are named in Japan.
“President Ma said that: ‘Unless the relevant parties recognize that the dispute does exist, a resolution cannot possibly be reached.’ That is a very nice way of thinking. However, for the service trade agreement with China, he does not recognize there is a dispute. I hope he can act in accordance with his words,” Jobin said.
Photo: CNA
Jobin said that he was disappointed to see Ma leave after his speech without speaking with participants at the conference.
“I know he is a very busy man, but he could have stayed for five or 10 minutes. I think this is an indication of the way he understands democracy: He speaks a lot himself, but he does not listen to others.”
Kevin Chang (張谷銘), an associate research fellow at the Institute of History and Philology, said that there were 300 to 400 researchers, staff and students at a protest targeting Ma when he arrived at the Academia Sinica.
“It’s the first time in the country’s history that the Academia Sinica has assembled in a rally against a president,” Chang said.
They were led by sociologist Chiu Hei-yuan (瞿海源) and held sunflowers and banners while chanting slogans, including: “Restore constitutionalism, defend democracy (重建憲政, 捍衛民主).”
At one point after Ma had arrived, Chiu shouted at the police, who were trying to ward off the protesters and media: “This is the Academia Sinica, not the investigative bureau.”
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 —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats