Various civic groups yesterday gathered outside the Presidential Office Building as President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was sworn in.
Hundreds of campaigners, including retirees and students, gathered in the designated “protest zone” on Ketagalan Boulevard next to Jingfu Gate (景福門), with Taiwanese independence advocates comprising the largest group, studding the zone with independence-themed banners and flags.
Independence advocates offered differing levels of support to Tsai, as well as different stances on how she should promote national sovereignty.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
“We are here to support Tsai, because we have been waiting for the day when [former president] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) leaves office,” said Free Taiwan Party Chairman Tsay Ting-kuei (蔡丁貴), whose fellow party members sported shirts calling for “bandit Ma” to leave office.
He added that his group did not expect or hope for any dramatic moves toward independence.
“We hope that Tsai would focus on the economy and transitional justice — she should avoid addressing sovereignty issues as much as possible, because she will be caught in a dilemma as the president of the Republic of China,” he said, adding that his group would “understand” if Tsai preserved the use of the “Republic of China” title on passports.
“We will applaud if she makes changes, but we can understand if she does not dare to touch the issue for the time being,” he said, adding that Tsai should instead end the “harassment” of people who use “Taiwan” stickers to cover the “Republic of China” title on their passports.
“We hope she can hold the middle ground for now — and let us take responsibility for advocating independence. At the same time, she should not continue to toe Ma’s ‘Chinese unification’ line,” he said, calling for Tsai to consider declining to participate in next week’s World Health Assembly in a bid to defend national sovereignty, while adding that his group might protest if the Democratic Progressive Party moves toward approving the trade in services agreement negotiated under Ma.
Protesters from the Taiwan Republic Campaign called for the immediate issuance of passports that bear the name “Taiwan” to end the confusion caused by the similarity of the name Republic of China to the People’s Republic of China used in Chinese passports.
“Republic of China passports are not passports for a real country and to hold on to them is a disgrace. Only if we end the ‘Republic of China’ and replace it with a Taiwanese nation will we be able to travel abroad with dignity,” campaign founder Peter Wang (王獻極) said.
Wei Yao-chien (魏耀乾), head of a Tainan retiree “action team” advocating the drafting of a new Constitution, said that while he was “worried” about Tsai’s handling of cross-strait relations because it was unclear what she thought about sovereignty issues his group did not “dare” require her to take any immediate steps because of the domestic and international situation.
Banners proclaiming Taiwan’s independence from China contrasted with Chinese flags waved by unification advocates from the China Unification Promotion Party and other groups that rallied on the other side of police barriers, calling on the new administration to acknowledge the so-called “1992 consensus” to preserve cross-strait peace.
The “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted making up in 2000, refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese government that both sides of the Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
“If we do not stand up right now, there will not be any more Chinese people in Taiwan,” China Unification Promotion Party Chairman Chang An-le (張安樂) said, adding that Taiwanese with “red hearts” often “do not dare to speak up in a sea of green.”
Workers’ rights campaigners occupied much of the middle ground between barriers separating unification and independence advocates, chanting throughout Tsai’s inaugural speech for her to realize the promises to address the plight of laid-off national freeway toll collectors, as they held a banner inscribed with the dates of every day individual toll collectors had worked.
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