Chinese have a “sacred mission” to ensure Taiwan is always considered part of China, a top Chinese leader said yesterday ahead of the 70th anniversary of Japan giving up control of Taiwan at the end of World War II.
Taiwan was a Japanese colony between 1895 and 1945 and the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government took over the rule of the nation after Japan lost World War II. Japan had gained control from imperial China.
The KMT fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the Chinese Civil War with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which insists Taiwan is an integral part of China and has never renounced the use of forces to bring it under Beijing’s control.
Speaking at an event in Beijing to mark the anniversary, National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Yu Zhengsheng (俞正聲), the party’s fourth-ranked leader, said Taiwan’s “recovery” had “washed away the national shame” of repeated foreign invasions of China.
Since 1949, the reality that the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan were part of one China had never changed, Yu said, in comments carried by the Xinhua news agency.
“Maintaining the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and maintaining no changes to the position that Taiwan is part of China is a sacred mission for all the sons and daughters of China,” he added.
Taiwan marks Retrocession Day tomorrow at an event overseen by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). Retrocession Day celebrates the end of the Japanese colonial period in Taiwan on Oct. 25, 1945, as well as the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and is observed by Chinese worldwide.
Yu made no direct reference to January’s legislative and presidential elections in the speech, but said that both Taiwanese and Chinese must oppose any move to upset ties and damage rapidly improving relations.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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