Taiwanese must discard the imposed colonial regime of the Republic of China (ROC) and establish a state of “Taiwan” that can protect the nation from Chinese invasion, Sovereign State for Formosa and the Pescadores Party Chairman Cheng Tzu-tsai (鄭自才) said on Monday.
He had to speak up on the issue of Taiwanese sovereignty and Taiwan’s international status after former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and several pro-China academics wrote about disputes in school textbooks dealing with Taiwan’s history, Cheng said.
“It is a fact that Taiwan remains under its ‘undetermined status,’ which is well-known in the international community,” Cheng told a seminar at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
Photo: CNA
“The allies after World War II did not ‘return’ Taiwan to be ruled by Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] regime. It was a fabrication about the KMT’s claim over Taiwan’s retrocession to China,” he said.
The best recourse for residents of Taiwan and the Penghu Islands is to follow the international accords in the post-World War II period on decolonization, and hold a plebiscite on self-determination to achieve statehood, as had happened in many countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Pacific, Cheng said.
Ma and pro-China academics have written letters criticizing two publishing houses over textbooks that mention the “undetermined status of Taiwan,” which Ma said was “nonsense.”
Cheng provided photocopied materials and historic documents from US and other nations to support his claim that the Allies had only given temporary custody of Taiwan and Penghu to the KMT regime, while the legal status was not spelled out, and the residents have the right to a plebiscite for self-determination.
He said that Japan signed the 1951 San Francisco Treaty only renouncing all right, title, and claim to Taiwan and Penghu without explicitly deciding on the sovereignty status of the two territories.
Taiwan historian Huang Sheng-feng (黃聖峰) said that many Taiwanese independence advocates are unhappy with the stance taken by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of maintaining the “status quo” by upholding the ROC political framework, which would mean Beijing can lay claim to Taiwan and the Penghu Islands.
“The best recourse is to follow the international laws and conduct a plebiscite for self-determination, by which the people of Taiwan and Penghu can declare to the world their decision to become a new Taiwan nation. This is the way for us to achieve statehood, and deter military invasion and annexation by China,” Huang said.
Cheng, 82, is a senior figure in the Taiwanese independence movement.
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck off Tainan at 11:47am today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 32.3km northeast of Tainan City Hall at a depth of 7.3km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Tainan and Chiayi County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and County, and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Kaohsiung, Nantou County, Changhua County, Taitung County and offshore Penghu County, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of
Weather conditions across Taiwan are expected to remain stable today, but cloudy to rainy skies are expected from tomorrow onward due to increasing moisture in the atmosphere, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). Daytime highs today are expected to hit 25-27°C in western Taiwan and 22-24°C in the eastern counties of Yilan, Hualien, and Taitung, data on the CWA website indicated. After sunset, temperatures could drop to 16-17°C in most parts of Taiwan. For tomorrow, precipitation is likely in northern Taiwan as a cloud system moves in from China. Daytime temperatures are expected to hover around 25°C, the CWA said. Starting Monday, areas
Taiwan has recorded its first fatal case of Coxsackie B5 enterovirus in 10 years after a one-year-old boy from southern Taiwan died from complications early last month, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. CDC spokesman Lo Yi-chun (羅一鈞) told a news conference that the child initially developed a fever and respiratory symptoms before experiencing seizures and loss of consciousness. The boy was diagnosed with acute encephalitis and admitted to intensive care, but his condition deteriorated rapidly, and he passed away on the sixth day of illness, Lo said. This also marks Taiwan’s third enterovirus-related death this year and the first severe
A Taiwanese software developer has created a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model to help people use AI without exposing sensitive data, project head Huang Chung-hsiao (黃崇校) said yesterday. Huang, a 55-year-old coder leading a US-based team, said that concerns over data privacy and security in popular generative AIs such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek motivated him to develop a personal AI assistant named “Mei.” One of the biggest security flaws with cloud-based algorithms is that users are required to hand over personal information to access the service, giving developers the opportunity to mine user data, he said. For this reason, many government agencies and
RSS