Flag raisings and burnings in Taiwan as some mark China’s nationwide day By Reuters

By Ann Wang

TAINAN/TAIWAN STRAIT, Taiwan (Reuters) – Two small Taiwanese teams at far ends of the talk over relations with Beijing marked China’s nationwide day on Saturday with flag raisings and flag burnings, very reverse responses at a time of rising rigidity over the Taiwan Strait.

Oct. 1 marks when Mao Zedong proclaimed the Individuals’s Republic of China in 1949, with the defeated Republic of China authorities fleeing to Taiwan on the finish of that 12 months and the place it stays to today, neither recognising the opposite.

China’s nationwide day isn’t formally marked in any means in democratically-governed Taiwan, which celebrates its nationwide day, the founding of the Republic of China, on Oct. 10.

However some small teams in Taiwan do mark China’s nationwide day, with both delight at being Chinese language or fury at Beijing’s threats towards the island, particularly after China staged conflict video games close to Taiwan in August.

In a rural a part of Tainan within the south, the Taiwan Individuals’s Communist Celebration gathered about 200 folks, largely aged, to sing China’s nationwide anthem and lift the nation’s flag on what the celebration referred to in a information launch as “a sacred a part of China’s territory”.

Lin Te-wang, the chairman of the celebration which has no elected officers and could be very fringe, advised Reuters that China was no risk, regardless of the latest conflict video games which have been condemned by all of Taiwan’s mainstream events.

“Army workout routines are good for Taiwan as a result of they present the majesty of China’s army pressure internationally,” Lin, 67, stated.

On the different finish of the spectrum, the pro-independence Taiwan Statebuilding Celebration burned a Chinese language flag on Saturday on a ship off Taiwan’s south coast in an space of the ocean the place China staged its August drills, shouting slogans together with “shield Taiwan to the demise”.

Celebration Chairman Chen Yi-chi advised Reuters on the boat within the Taiwan Strait that burning the flag was not provocative.

“How can burning the flag be excessive? If you wish to present your resistance to defending Taiwan now, if burning the flag is excessive, what’s going to you do when the artillery hearth comes?”

The celebration misplaced its solely member of parliament final 12 months after he was voted out in a recall election.

China considers Taiwan to be a part of the Individuals’s Republic, over the strenuous objections of the federal government in Taipei, which says Beijing has no proper to say it or converse for the Taiwanese folks.