The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday urged Beijing to correct its “historical mistake” of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the massacre, which began overnight on June 3, 1989, and continued through June 4 to brutally crush tens of thousands of students, workers and others who had been protesting in and around the square, calling for democracy, free speech and a free press.
For 30 years, the Chinese government has lacked the courage to reflect on the historical significance of the June Fourth Incident, choosing instead to “block information, distort the truth and attempt to cover up its mistakes and the events of 1989,” the council said in a statement.
Photo: CNA
China should face its historical mistakes, apologize and correct the incident so that the victims of the incident may “rest in peace,” it said.
Taiwan would continue to “lead the way” for the democratization of China, and support China’s move to democracy “in all manner of ways,” it said.
Hopefully, people in Taiwan and abroad would not forget the history and spirit of June 4, the council said, adding that “one day, the dawn of democracy will eventually come.”
The council also called on China to immediately release Taiwanese human rights advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲), who is serving a five-year prison sentence in Hunan Province for “subversion of state power.”
Reflecting on Tiananmen, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said that it was a shame that although China’s economic development has improved over the past few years, human rights there are still limited.
Speaking to a group of overseas democracy activists at the Presidential Office in Taipei, Tsai drew comparisons between today’s 30th anniversary of the massacre and the 40th anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident, saying the two events were of crucial historic significance.
The Kaohsiung Incident was a crackdown by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) authoritarian government on a demonstration organized by Formosa Magazine and its publisher — Legislator Huang Shin-chieh (黃信介) — and other pro-democracy advocates on Dec. 10, 1979, in Kaohsiung.
Taiwan’s democratization was fraught with difficulty, she said as she pointed to a photograph of Presidential Office Secretary-General Chen Chu (陳菊) when she was on trial in a military court for her role in the Kaohsiung Incident.
The direction and pace of development in Taiwan and China diverged after their respective incidents, with Taiwan firmly taking the path of democracy and freedom, while human rights and freedom have been severely constrained in China, Tsai said.
Taiwan will defend the values of democracy, and cares about the development of democracy and human rights in China, which are universal values that she hopes China would pursue, she said.
Additional reporting by Su Yung-yao, CNA and Reuters
Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has died of pneumonia at the age of 48 while on a trip to Japan, where she contracted influenza during the Lunar New Year holiday, her sister confirmed today through an agent. "Our whole family came to Japan for a trip, and my dearest and most kindhearted sister Barbie Hsu died of influenza-induced pneumonia and unfortunately left us," Hsu's sister and talk show hostess Dee Hsu (徐熙娣) said. "I was grateful to be her sister in this life and that we got to care for and spend time with each other. I will always be grateful to
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
TAIWAN DEFENSE: The initiative would involve integrating various systems in a fast-paced manner through the use of common software to obstruct a Chinese invasion The first tranche of the US Navy’s “Replicator” initiative aimed at obstructing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be ready by August, a US Naval Institute (USNI) News report on Tuesday said. The initiative is part of a larger defense strategy for Taiwan, and would involve launching thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was first made public by the Washington Post in June last year, when it cited comments by US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue
Suspected Chinese spies posing as Taiwanese tourists have been arrested for allegedly taking photographs of Philippine Coast Guard ships, local media reported. The suspected spies stayed at a resort in Palawan, where from a secluded location they used their phones to record coast guard ships entering and leaving a base, Philippine TV network GMA said on Wednesday. Palawan is near the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) and other disputed areas of the South China Sea, where tensions have been on the rise between China and the Philippines. The suspects allegedly also used drones without permission and installed cameras on coconut trees in the
RSS