Following President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) closely watched apology to Aborigines in August, the Council of Indigenous Peoples announced plans to publish a full text of the apology in 18 languages, including 16 officially recognized Aboriginal languages, as well as English and Japanese.
Council Minister Icyang Parod told a news conference in New Taipei City on Wednesday that Tsai’s apology, made on behalf of the government for the discrimination and neglect of Aborigines over the past 400 years, was not only the first step toward reconciliation and peace, but also the first time any head of state in the Asian region has offered an apology to Aborigines, adding that it was historically significant for Indigenous peoples.
The apology, made on Aug. 1, Indigenous People’s Day, was given in Mandarin after a ceremony in front of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei, if front of representatives of Taiwan’s 16 recognized Aboriginal communities.
Photo: Wu Po-wei, Taipei Times
The council assembled a team of 48 translators and linguistic experts to translate the text into 16 Aboriginal languages so that more people could understand the content of the apology.
This took four months to complete, Parod said.
The translated scripts are given with the original text in each version, with pictures of Aboriginal representatives, as well as pictures from the event featuring Tsai, Parod said.
“We plan to publish them soon, which is not only a step toward implementing historical justice and transitional justice for Aborigines, but could also elevate the status of the Aboriginal languages,” Parod said.
It is also the first time that the nation has published an important government document in Aboriginal languages, Parod said, adding that the documents show that the government wants to conserve and advance Aboriginal languages.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS