In response to comments made by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) in his speech at Peking University last Friday, several Taiwanese university students yesterday gathered in front of National Taiwan University's College of Law to demand that Lien not denigrate the school.
In a backlash against the KMT chairman's assertion that NTU inherited its academic liberalism from Peking University, the students berated Lien for heaping praises on Peking University while undercutting NTU's prestige.
The group of students also demanded that the KMT chairman accept the growing Taiwanese consciousness and not deny it.
"It is preposterous to say that NTU inherited liberal traditions from Peking University," said Lin Pei-jing (林珮菁), a student at NTU's Graduate Institute of National Development.
"How could Lien compare an open-minded university with the suppressed Peking University? Look at the questions asked by Peking University students -- all were tailored to meet communist propaganda," Lin said.
"The voice of liberalism at Peking University was erased in the Cultural Revolution and the bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square in 1989," Lin said.
While liberalism is stifled under the despotic Chinese regime, democracy sprouts from the NTU campus to Taiwan as a whole, Lin said.
"By contrast, Taiwan's Wild Lily Students' Movement (
With regard to academic performance, Lin observed, NTU is on the list of the world's leading universities and exceeds Peking University in many disciplines.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail