Having recently resigned as executive director of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD), Lin Wen-cheng (林文程) has now been invited to serve as an adviser, the foundation said in a press statement late on Friday night.
Acknowledging Lin’s past contribution, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-Pyng (王金平) — who doubles as chairman of the foundation — extended the invitation to Lin and said he expected him to continue to take part in the foundation’s work, the press release said.
Lin resigned as executive director on Thursday, citing political interference.
Lin said that in June then-National Security Council (NSC) secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起) met Wang and told him that Lin should step down because he once served as a NSC adviser under the DPP administration and that Lin had expressed support for Taiwanese independence during a closed-door meeting at the Brookings Institution in the US in 2004. Lin also quoted Su as telling him in October that although he was doing a good job, his position was a symbolic one and that he had to leave because the ruling party had changed.
Wang on Thursday told the board that Lin was not removed, but that he had resigned.
In a statement on Friday night, the foundation said: “Wang specially nominated Huang for the post of executive director with the belief that the foundation would perform better” given Huang’s extensive experience in academia and government.
The foundation, established in 2003 under the Democratic Progressive Party administration, is affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and works to promote human rights and democracy worldwide.
In the press release, Wang also lauded the foundation’s new executive director, former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker Huang Teh-fu (黃德福), adding he was confident that Huang would endeavor to promote the work of the foundation.
Meanwhile, in an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) on Friday, Maysing Yang (楊黃美幸), one of the foundation’s board members, who is deemed close to the pan-green camp, said the TFD was created to promote democracy and human rights and should therefore not be controlled by the government just because the latter provides the budget.
She said that if the government wanted to have complete control of the foundation, it might as well subsume it into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Under the leadership of Wang and Lin, board members have worked together regardless of political affiliation.
Yang said the TFD was ranked No. 23 out of 1,183 public policy think tanks in Asia last year, the highest among all 52 think tanks in Taiwan evaluated that year.
Yang said the foundation’s operations had faced continual political interference since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) came into office, adding that in addition to interventions in personnel appointments, the government had tended to express “concern” for the TFD whenever it hosted events and conference, or published articles in its own magazine expressing opinions that differed from those of the government.
Yang said she suspected that such interventions were an attempt to please China, as the foundation has paid particular attention to the development of democracy in that country.
Because of government interference, several people working in the TFD’s international affairs department are considering handing in their resignations, she said.
Although the foundation’s funding comes from public coffers, it is actually taxpayers’ money, Yang said.
The government needs to rid itself of its authoritarian mindset and allow an organization that is supposedly independent to freely defend its beliefs, she said.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS