Welcome to the Daily Bloom! The Daily Bloom will be a daily shortform blog with updates on the day’s political going-ons. If something particularly exciting happening in Taiwan, we will be providing live updates on our Facebook page and Twitter account. At the end of the day, we will compile the live updates to provide a chronological timeline of the day’s events. If not, we will simply report on what happened that day, or what might be of note that happened. If you have news tips about what would be interesting to cover, send to [email protected]!
July 5 and 6, 2014
Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the suicide of a pharmacy owner, 張森文,in Dapu, near Miaoli, after his pharmacy was forcibly torn down. Miaoli has been the site of prominent anti-gentrification actions in regards to housing evictions for commercial develop in recent years, often involving high numbers of student participation.
A memorial concert for Chen Wen-cheng was held at Civil Service Development Institute in Taipei on Saturday evening. Chen Wen-cheng, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a democracy activist, was found dead in July 1981, his body dumped on the campus of NTU. Chen had been previously taken in for questioning by the police and no investigation of his death was ever resolved. Students recently proposed naming a square on campus after him, a request eventually agreed to by the university president.
In response to a proposal by China to be a sponsor in the “Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank” which China intends to establish this fall, Japan expresses reluctance to join. As of June 10, the number of participating countries is 22, but major powers in the region as Japan and South Korea have not joined. According to officials, the US has applied pressure on South Korea behind the scenes to prevent it from joining. India has also not joined. It is thought China is attempting to increase its economic influence in Asia in order to counter American influence.
The Control Yuan declines to investigate police violence surrounding the attempt by student activists to occupy the Executive Yuan on March 23rd. This comes despite the heavy media attention that the use of police violence drew at that point in time.