Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday praised the student movement against the government’s handling of the cross-strait service trade agreement, saying it allowed Taiwanese “to see the signs of hope in the nation.”
Lee made the remarks in a statement released on Facebook yesterday morning, 13 days after a group of students occupied the Legislative Yuan in an effort to press President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration into renegotiating the controversial service trade agreement with China.
The student-led protest has been dubbed as the “Sunflower student movement” by media.
“Over the past few days, these students have demonstrated their enthusiasm for the nation, their unshaken determination to uphold their beliefs and their unstoppable pursuit of the future. They have shown the world the vitality of Taiwan’s democracy and have shown us that there is still hope for the nation,” Lee said.
Lee said he hoped the student movement could teach Taiwanese the true values of democracy, which require a lot more than just elections — including people’s full and active participation in society and their continuous supervision of the government.
“I look forward to seeing more opinion leaders and members of the public come forward to shoulder responsibility and think about the nation’s future. In the meantime, I urge [the government] to call a civil constitutional or a national affairs meeting to settle political disputes,” Lee said.
As for yesterday’s massive demonstration against the cross-strait service trade pact called by the student protesters on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei, which the event’s organizers said has attracted an estimated 500,000 participants, Lee urged the public to respect the students’ peaceful and rational demands and help them safeguard the nation’s democracy.
In light of riot police’s forced eviction of students occupying the Executive Yuan on Monday, Lee said the duty of law enforcement officers was to protect people’s lives and property and that both sides should remain calm and rational.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
‘MALIGN PURPOSE’: Governments around the world conduct espionage operations, but China’s is different, as its ultimate goal is annexation, a think tank head said Taiwan is facing a growing existential threat from its own people spying for China, experts said, as the government seeks to toughen measures to stop Beijing’s infiltration efforts and deter Taiwanese turncoats. While Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other for years, experts said that espionage posed a bigger threat to Taiwan due to the risk of a Chinese attack. Taiwan’s intelligence agency said China used “diverse channels and tactics” to infiltrate the nation’s military, government agencies and pro-China organizations. The main targets were retired and active members of the military, persuaded by money, blackmail or pro-China ideology to steal
RSS