Taiwan’s National Flag Forbidden by Visiting Communist Cadre

China’s top Taiwanese affairs negotiator, Chen Yulin, visited Taiwan and sparked mass protests.

In the morning of May 9, over six thousand Falun Gong practitioners gathered at the Puding Prairie in Kenting, Taiwan, and lined up to form the book Zhuan Falun. Wu Bohua/The Epoch Times

TAIPEI—China’s top Taiwanese affairs negotiator, Chen Yulin, visited Taiwan and sparked mass protests. The Taiwanese people there expressed strong resentment toward their own government because they removed protesters, cleared the streets where the envoy was located, and also expressed resentment for mobilizing 7,000 policemen to ensure the mainland Chinese envoy’s security.

Taiwan’s National Flag Not Allowed When Chen is Present

Yuan Hongbing was a renowned scholar from China and now is in exile. He said that while Chen was in Taiwan, he saw police use riot shields and barricades to violently deter the protesting crowd. He also saw Taiwanese police tear and destroy Taiwanese national flags on Taiwanese soil, whereas China’s red flags were allowed to fly freely.

According to Yuan, this has demonstrated that the Chinese communist regime has planned to belittle and then remove the Republic of China in Taiwan. He pointed out that Chen’s visit has turned Taipei into a city similar to Beijing under totalitarian rule.

Yuan said that he heard from a reliable source in Beijing, that Chinese officials had requested the removal of Taiwan’s national flags in places where the Chinese envoy would visit, including hotels, meeting rooms, and restaurants.

Yuan commented that the Taiwanese government had apparently agreed to grant the Chinese communist regime’s unreasonable request.

A Big Step Backward in Human Rights

Thus far, sixty Taiwanese organizations have co-signed a petition letter to protest their own government’s suppressing freedom of speech, making this an unprecedented human rights violation in Taiwanese history.