Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners and unificationists took the opportunity to highlight their causes yesterday as the first cross-strait charter flights arrived.
The groups welcomed Chinese tourists with placards proclaiming their views outside Taipei Songshan Airport on Dunhua N Road.
“Human rights for China, independence for Tibet,” Tibetans and their supporters shouted, waving the Tibetan flag as buses carrying Chinese tourists passed by. “We welcome Chinese tourists to breathe the air of freedom in Taiwan!”
Chinese visitors waved at the Tibetan demonstrators and took pictures.
Across the street, members of the Concentric Patriotism Association of the Republic of China (ROC) — a group that promotes unification between Taiwan and China — also staged a rally, with signs welcoming “Mainland compatriots.”
Members of the association — one dressed as a Chinese police officer — waved the ROC and Chinese flags.
The demonstrations were peaceful and the Tibetans and pro-unificationists interacted only briefly when a Tibetan demonstrator walked across the street to hand flyers to the other group.
“In addition to seeing the beautiful landscape and meeting the friendly people of Taiwan, I hope that these Chinese visitors will be able to see what a truly free society is like,” said Chow Mei-li (周美里), chairwoman of the Taiwan Friends of Tibet.
Taiwan Tibetan Welfare Association chairman Rinzin Tsering said that Tibetans have nothing against the Chinese people.
“As a gesture of goodwill and friendship, the Tibetans in Taiwan heartily welcome Chinese brothers and sisters visiting this country on the first direct flights between China and Taiwan,” he told a crowd of Tibetans and Taiwanese at a ceremony to launch the Taiwan leg of the Tibetan Freedom Torch Relay at the Liberty Square in Taipei.
“The Tibetans have always maintained that their struggle is against the Chinese regime and its policies in Tibet “[and] has never been a struggle against the Chinese people,” he said.
Rinzin condemned the Chinese government for stoking tensions between Chinese and Tibetans.
“In the aftermath of the recent events in Tibet, the Chinese government has used deceit and distorted images to manipulate the whole Tibet issue to fan nationalism and create a racial divide between the Tibetan and Chinese peoples,” he said.
Meanwhile, a group of Falun Gong practitioners demonstrated outside the National Palace Museum in Taipei yesterday as hundreds of Chinese tourists arrived.
Separately, a Tainan City Government official said yesterday the city had persuaded Falun Gong practitioners to stop their long-term presence in front of a popular tourist attraction.
Director-General of the city’s Cultural Affairs Bureau Hsu Keng-hsiu (許耿修) said an exact date for the group of practitioners — who have regularly handed out information about the persecution of Falun Gong in China — to move from outside Fort Provincia (赤崁樓) had not been set.
Hsu said the city government would allow hotels to decide whether to fly the Chinese flag to welcome tourists expected to arrive there on Tuesday.
Although the group of Falun Gong devotees at Fort Provincia had been asked to move, Hsu said another group of practitioners in front of Fort Zeelandia, another tourist attraction, had rented public space there and would be allowed to stay.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
RSS