Pro-independence Free Taiwan Party launched

By Jason Pan  /  Staff reporter

Sat, Apr 18, 2015 - Page 3

Civic group leaders and members yesterday joined students and Sunflower movement activists in launching the nation’s newest political party, which its chief organizer, Tsay Ting-kuei (蔡丁貴), said would be named the Free Taiwan Party (自由台灣黨).

Tsay said the party’s platform is to advocate Taiwanese independence and to establish Taiwan as a sovereign nation, by terminating the rule of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime, with what Tsay called its “fraudulent Republic of China” (ROC).

“The Free Taiwan Party will consolidate the forces of pro-Taiwan groups to power the engine at the forefront of the Taiwanese liberation and independence movement,” Tsay said at the party’s launch ceremony in Taipei yesterday. “We aim to establish a sovereign nation of Taiwan, which will not be absent from the international community, and to join the UN.”

Tsay, convener for the Alliance of Referendum for Taiwan, said the KMT is a colonial regime from China that exploited the peoples and resources of Taiwan through autocratic rule, while enriching its own circles of business conglomerates.

Therefore, the name of the party espouses the overthrow of the KMT regime, so people can be “free of poverty” and “free from injustice,” as well as “free from invasion” from China, he said.

Tsay outlined the party’s principal goals: to help the pan-green camp defeat the KMT in next year’s election and garner enough votes to have at least three legislators-at-large to enable the formation of a party caucus in the legislature.

“We also aim to have enough popular support by 2020 to mobilize civic organizations to besiege the Presidential Office Building to demand the abolition of the ROC Constitution through a referendum vote,” he added.

Former Taiwan Association of University Professors chairman Cheng Chin-jen (鄭欽仁) was among the academics, civic group members and campaigners who attended.

Cheng said that it has been 70 years since the end of the World War II, but Taiwan remains under colonial rule, unlike many third-world countries that overthrew their colonial overlords to become independent nations.

“It is time for action to end the seven decades of slavery under the KMT. This is also to declare to the US, Japan and other countries our aspiration for real independence, and seek their support for establishing the sovereign nation of Taiwan,” he said.

The Free Taiwan Party has a Formosan black bear as its mascot, and a mock-up character was present at the launch.

Tsay also named the classic pro-independence song Ocean Taiwan (海洋的國家) as the party’s official anthem. The song’s composer, the singer Wang Ming-jer (王明哲), was on hand with his guitar to belt out a rousing rendition, joined by the audience, to wrap up the event.

Also attending the launch to lend support were Restoration of Taiwan Social Justice (台左維新) convener Lin Yu-lun (林于倫), historian Lee Yeng-chyh (李永熾), Formoshock Society (福爾摩鯊社) head Yoshi Liu (劉敬文), political commentator Paul Lin (林保華) and law professor Huang Zong-le (黃宗樂).