Left-wing demonstrators yesterday rallied in Taipei in support of Chinese labor protests, calling for the Chinese government to allow the establishment of independent labor unions.
About 10 protesters from the Committee for a Workers’ International and the Nan Shan Life Insurance Co union braved rain showers to gather outside the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall’s Liberty Square, calling for capitalists to be made to “foot the bill” for massive layoffs expected in China’s state-owned enterprises.
“We feel that Taiwanese left-wing organizations should do more to support the struggle of the Chinese workers’ movement,” committee member Vincent Hsu (許偉育) said, adding that there had been a rise in labor activism as a result of China’s economic crisis, which he said was slated to lead to the layoffs of up to 1.8 million workers from state-owned corporations in the coal mining and steel industries.
“The Chinese Communist Party [CCP] is doing everything in its power to suppress the workers’ movement and their struggle to get wages that are owed to them,” he said, citing the suppression of miners’ protests in China’s Heilongjiang Province.
While thousands of workers from China’s state-owned Longmay Mining Group are to be paid back wages after taking to the streets early this month, this was only a “partial victory,” because leaders and organizers were still detained, he said, adding that the protests were only the “tip of the iceberg” of growing labor discontent, citing struggles by steel workers in China’s Jilin Province and miners in Shanxi Province.
He called for the establishment of independent unions apart from the CCP-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions, which he called a tool for the suppression of workers’ movements.
A Hong-Kong-based protester surnamed Lam (龍) said solidarity and support for Chinese workers’ movements were important, because they could ultimately lead to the overthrow of the CCP if they become politicized.
“If there is no international support for suppressed Chinese workers and no solidarity to join them in their struggle against the CCP and capitalists, the CCP and capitalists will have more and more power to suppress workers in Hong Kong and Taiwan,” he said, blasting the CPP for spending more than 1 trillion yuan (US$154.5 billion) to prop up its stock market while refusing to pay benefits and wages owed to workers.
‘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
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
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
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS