The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday denied allegations that it had removed the national flag from the latest version of its Web site, saying that the flag was not on the Web site during the administration of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
The ministry issued a statement yesterday morning after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yang Cheng-wu’s (楊鎮浯) office director, Huang Tzu-che (黃子哲), on Thursday accused the ministry of being an accomplice in furthering President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) “de-Sinicization” of the nation.
At a time when relations with our diplomatic ally the Dominican Republic are on shaky ground, the ministry has apparently kept itself occupied by updating its Web site, Huang said on Facebook, adding a screen shot of what he said was the earlier version of the ministry’s Web site.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The screen shot showed a blurry national flag on the banner of the ministry’s Web site.
“What left me dumbfounded is that the front page of a government body that best represents the nation’s sovereignty does not even have an image of our national flag,” Huang wrote, adding that the national flag has become collateral damage in the Tsai administration’s political manipulation.
In response, ministry spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) said the national flag was not incorporated on the site’s design in its previous update in June 2014 to utilize the limited space to present all the necessary content.
“Allegations that we removed the flag in our latest update on Thursday are therefore untrue,” Lee said, adding that the screen shot provided by Huang was a sub-page of the Web site and was from May 2013.
It has been the ministry’s practice to introduce a special edition of the Web site on a handful of holidays, such as Lunar New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Double Ten National Day, Lee said.
The ministry embellished its site with images of the national flag and a “Double Ten” logo for this year’s National Day celebrations from Oct. 6 through Wednesday, he said.
The national flag has long been a subject of contention between the pan-blue and pan-green camps, as some members of the latter consider the Republic of China a government in exile and deem the removal of the system a necessary step to normalize the nation.
Controversy over the flag was renewed earlier this month when the Tsai administration was criticized for its failure to include the national flag and title in this year’s Double Ten National Day celebrations.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
TAKE BREAKS: A woman developed cystitis by refusing to get up to use the bathroom while playing mahjong for fear of disturbing her winning streak, a doctor said People should stand up and move around often while traveling or playing mahjong during the Lunar New Year holiday, as prolonged sitting can lead to cystitis or hemorrhoids, doctors said. Yuan’s General Hospital urologist Lee Tsung-hsi (李宗熹) said that he treated a 63-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙) who had been sitting motionless and holding off going to the bathroom, increasing her risk of bladder infection. Chao would drink beverages and not urinate for several hours while playing mahjong with friends and family, especially when she was on a winning streak, afraid that using the bathroom would ruin her luck, he said. She had
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry
RSS