Taiwan Friends of Tibet (TFOT) chairwoman Chow Mei-li (周美里) yesterday urged the public to voice support for the Tibetan cause by joining a parade on Sunday.
Chow said that doing so would also be a way of voicing support for Taiwan’s freedom.
The group will hold a parade in Taipei to commemorate the 51st anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule on March 10, 1959. The actual parade date this year, March 14, coincides with the date of the most recent protests against Chinese rule in the Tibetan capital Lhasa two years ago, and the date China passed its “Anti-secession” Law in 2005 that threatens to use “non-peaceful means” to bring Taiwan under its control if Taiwan declares independence.
“Fighting for Tibet’s freedom today is fighting for Taiwan’s own freedom in the future,” Chow told a press conference to publicize the parade and the release of the first Chinese translation of the Dalai Lama’s autobiography My Land, My People.
“If we look at the history of negotiations between Tibet and China, we find that all the promises Chinese leaders made to Tibetans during negotiations over the past 50 years were empty ones,” Chow said. “Should we still be so naive as to believe China’s cross-strait promises?”
Yiong Cong-ziin (楊長鎮), co-founder of TFOT, agreed.
He said it was ironic that the government put so much effort into promoting cross-strait agreements last year as the Tibetans commemorated the 50th anniversary of their exile, and Mainlander Taiwanese commemorated the 60th anniversary of their escape from China following the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) defeat by the Chinese Communist Party.
“The 17-point agreement signed between Tibet and China, with commitments made by the Chinese [in the 1950s] to leave cultural, social and religious affairs in the hands of Tibetans, was the Tibetan version of ‘one country, two systems,’” Yiong said. “Thinking about the agreement, are we not afraid about the economic cooperation framework agreement [ECFA] that President Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九] said should be signed with China this year? No one knows what it’s about so far.”
“While many first-generation exiled Tibetans may have passed away as we commemorate the 51st anniversary of the uprising, the next generation of Tibetans will carry on the mission to make Tibet free,” Chow said. “Remember, the Jews rebuilt their country more than 1,000 years after their country was destroyed.”
The Free Tibet parade will begin at 1pm on Sunday outside Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT station in downtown Taipei.
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
The Civil Aviation Administration yesterday said that it is considering punishments for China Airlines (CAL) and Starlux Airlines for making hard landings and overworking their cabin crew when the nation was hit by Typhoon Kong-rey in October last year. The civil aviation authority launched an investigation after media reported that many airlines were forced to divert their flights to different airports or go around after failing to land when the typhoon affected the nation on Oct. 30 and 31 last year. The agency reviewed 503 flights dispatched by Taiwanese airlines during those two days, as well as weather data, flight hours
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
Three people have had their citizenship revoked after authorities confirmed that they hold Chinese ID cards, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said yesterday. Two of the three people were featured in a recent video about Beijing’s “united front” tactics by YouTuber Pa Chiung (八炯) and Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源), including Su Shi-en (蘇士恩), who displayed a Chinese ID card in the video, and taekwondo athlete Lee Tung-hsien (李東憲), who mentioned he had obtained a Chinese ID card in a telephone call with Chen, Liang told the council’s weekly news conference. Lee, who reportedly worked in
RSS