After a six-year review process, on Thursday the Yellow Tiger Flag used by the short-lived Republic of Formosa in 1895 was acknowledged by the Ministry of Culture as a national heritage item.
Following the Qing Empire’s defeat in the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894 and the signing of the Shimonoseki Treaty, then-governor-general of Taiwan Tang Ching-sung (唐景崧) formed an army to resist the Japanese takeover of the island, with the flag flying as their banner.
The National Taiwan Museum said the flag, 315cm wide and 263cm tall, is a copy made by Japanese painter Untei Takahashi of the flag flown over the cannons at Keelung in the 1895 battle.
Photo courtesy of the National Taiwan Museum
The copy was thought to have been made by Takahashi in 1909, a year before the Taiwan Governor Office Museum, the predecessor of National Taiwan Museum, was opened to the public, the museum said.
With all three original flags lost, Takahashi’s is the oldest known copy of the flag in existance and is thought to be the closest to the original design, the museum said.
When the museum filed an application for the flag to be considered a national heritage item six years ago, the ministry turned down the request on grounds that the flag was a copy and its relation to the original was unclear.
The museum began routine maintenance of the flag in 2013 while simultaneously starting a research project that lasted a year and three months, before providing all the new information it had gathered on the flag in another application sent to the ministry last year.
While it was thought that the tattered rear end of the tiger, as well as the path on its tail, was due to a lack of maintenance, the museum’s research found that it was likely due to Takahashi’s fidelity to the original.
The results of the research point to the possibility that the flag’s tattered state was due to the battle in Keelung, when the Japanese forces prevailed, the museum said, adding that if this was confirmed, the Takahashi copy would be even more valuable in historic terms.
Meanwhile, the museum said EasyCard Corp would be releasing three limited edition EasyCards of the flag — the 1909 Takahashi copy, a 1953 copy by Lin Yu-hsan (林玉山) and a digital reconstruction of the flag as it was in 1895.
Not only would the cards celebrate the acknowledgement of the flag’s status as a national heritage item, they would also be one of the first national heritage items to be printed on EasyCards, the museum said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and