President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday upheld precedent and paid tribute to Republic of China (ROC) founding father Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) at the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei, but the traditionally formality-rich ceremony was reduced to just six minutes.
Tsai was greeted by an honor guard representing the three branches of the nation’s armed forces as she arrived at 10am along with Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), Presidential Office Secretary-General Lin Bih-jaw (林碧炤), and the heads of the five branches of the government.
The ceremony consisted of three parts, including the playing of national anthem, presentation of a floral wreath, and three bows to the altar. Neither Tsai nor the heads of the five government branches sang the anthem during the event, but Chen did.
Photo: CNA
The Presidential Office also canceled a traditional ritual called yaoji — meaning paying tribute to the tomb of someone from afar — to Sun, who was buried in Nanjing, China, as well as civilian and military “martyrs” who died during several wars and rebellions before and after the founding of the ROC in 1912.
The service was a stark contrast to past ceremonies under former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), which usually lasted up to 30 minutes and involved other procedures such as the offering of fruit, the burning of incense and the recitation of a liturgical text.
Shrugging off speculation that the simplification of the ceremony carried political connotations, Presidential Office Spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) said it is the thought that counts.
Huang said it is customary for newly sworn-in presidents to pay tribute to Sun at the shrine, which was constructed in the 1960s by then-president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
“In the past, such a ceremony revolved around a yaoji ritual to the ROC’s founding father, but since we are now living in a democracy, we decided to perform a simple tribute to Sun and national martyrs instead,” Huang said, describing the ceremony as simple, but solemn.
A group of pro-independence activists staged a protest outside the shrine against Tsai’s decision to observe the ceremony, holding banners reading “Taiwan Republic” and demanding that Tsai refrain from worshiping the martyrs and founding father of a “Chinese government-in-exile.”
“Tsai should put an end to the ideology of sinicization promoted by the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] when the party was in power and enjoyed a legislative majority,” said Leung Man-to (梁文韜), a Hong Kong-born professor teaching at National Cheng Kung University’s department of political science.
Leung said that Taiwanese have fought for seven decades to see a political party representing them take total control of the nation, urging Tsai not to follow in the steps of the authoritarian KMT regime and lock the nation into a China-centered historical perspective.
Taiwan Solidarity Union Department of Youth Affairs director Chang Chao-lin (張兆林) said that while they viewed positively Tsai’s abrogation of the yaoji ritual, she must be solemnly reminded that her policies and values should not run counter to Taiwan’s status as an independent sovereign state.
The protesters also called on the new president to convert the shrine into a memorial hall commemorating Taiwanese who sacrificed their lives fighting foreign colonists.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
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
RSS