Taiwan independence advocates at a rally in Taipei yesterday demanded that the government take action to assert national sovereignty and engage in international diplomacy by using the name “Taiwan.”
Led by Taiwan Republic Office director Chilly Chen (陳峻涵), members of pro-independence groups gathered outside the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) headquarters in the wake of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s remark last week that “Taiwan has not been a part of China.”
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and the DPP government must seize this opportunity to change the nation’s name to “Taiwan,” discard the “Republic of China”(ROC) title and establish diplomatic relations with other countries, they said.
Photo: Jason Pan
Pompeo and the US administration have shown solid support for Taiwan, and backed up their words with actions to oppose China’s rising hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region, Chen said.
“Taiwan has not been a part of China, and that was recognized with the work that the [former US president Ronald] Reagan administration did to lay out the policy that the United States has adhered to now for three-and-a-half decades,” Pompeo said during a telephone interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show.
However, “we are disappointed by the DPP government and Tsai’s inaction on this, as they continue to cling to the ROC name, and only talk of Taiwan on rare occasions. They have spurned the good intentions of [US President Donald] Trump and Pompeo in their solid support for Taiwan as they have pushed the US government for more favorable policies for Taiwan,” Chen said.
This is the right time to make the name change, “starting with Taiwan as our nation’s name and putting the ROC into the dustbin of history,” he said.
There are also rising voices in the US for Washington to recognize Taiwan’s national sovereignty as a distinct and separate nation from China, he added.
“In our society we have the highest-ever percentage of people identifying as Taiwanese, with those identifying as Chinese sinking to only a single-digit percentage,” Chen said.
“Pompeo’s remark ... also meant to state that ‘Taiwan is not a part of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and also not a part of the ROC.’ Therefore it is time for the government to declare this to the world,” he said.
The Hualien District Prosecutors’ Office has listed six people as suspects in a judicial investigation into a fatal train crash on Friday last week. Fifty people were killed and more than 200 were injured when the Taroko Express No. 408 train slammed into a crane truck that had slid onto the tracks near the entrance of Cingshuei Tunnel (清水隧道) in Hualien’s Sioulin Township (秀林). The office also summoned six officials at the Taiwan Railways Administration’s (TRA) Hualien Engineering Section for questioning about alleged illegal business operations and unsafe work conditions by Yi Hsiang Industry Co and Tung Hsin Construction Co, the two
The navy’s new 10,600-tonne warship is on Tuesday to be christened the ROCN Yushan (玉山), as the nation’s indigenous shipbuilding program reaches a milestone, sources said yesterday. The vessel, previously referred to as the “new landing platform dock,” was at a shipyard with its name freshly painted on the hull with the number 1401, the Liberty Times (the sister paper of the Taipei Times) reported yesterday, citing an unnamed observer. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇), a member of the legislature’s National Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, confirmed the report in a Facebook post. The NT$4.635 billion (US$163 million) ship is designed
DIALOGUE SOUGHT: Washington said it was concerned about the pattern of ongoing attempts to intimidate Taiwan after the 10th day of PLA activity in the region The US on Monday urged Beijing to stop its multifaceted pressure campaign against Taiwan after China sent 25 military jets into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. “The United States notes with concern the pattern of ongoing PRC [People’s Republic of China] attempts to intimidate the region, including Taiwan,” a US Department of State spokesperson said in an e-mail response to questions. “We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic and economic pressure against Taiwan, and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan.” The Ministry of National Defense said that 25 Chinese military aircraft entered the zone on Monday. It was the 10th straight
‘NOT ENTHUSIASTIC’: People who have been approved by the CECC as special cases who need to travel, such as foreign diplomats, would be able to receive a vaccine The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday expanded the eligibility for COVID-19 vaccination to the fourth priority group — people who need to travel abroad for special reasons — adding that out-of-pocket vaccines would be available from Wednesday next week. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said although Taiwan’s COVID-19 vaccination program was on Monday expanded to include the top three groups in the priority list, people are still “not enthusiastic” about getting vaccinated. “Only 1,220 people received a vaccine shot on Tuesday, and a total of 27,113 people have received COVID-19 vaccination” so far, he