Taiwan to hold independence rally in challenge to Beijing
Organisers hope to attract 100,000 people to call for an outright independence vote since island became a democracy more than 20 years ago
Taiwan independence campaigners will take to the streets on Saturday for what they hope will be a major rally in a rebuke to Beijing and a challenge to the island’s already embattled government.
The protest in central Taipei comes as Beijing increasingly pushes its claims to the self-ruling democratic island and President Tsai Ing-wen struggles to appease Beijing and independence factions.
Organised by new group Formosa Alliance, which is backed by two pro-independence former Taiwan presidents, Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian, the rally will call for a public vote on whether the island should formally declare independence from mainland China.
It is the first potentially large-scale protest calling for an outright independence vote since Taiwan first became a democracy more than 20 years ago. Its organisers said they aim to draw 100,000 people.
“Every Taiwanese should get to choose Taiwan’s future. It should be a decision by the 23.57 million Taiwanese people, not by China or Xi Jinping,” said veteran independence activist Kuo Pei-horng, head of the alliance.
Beijing still sees Taiwan as part of its territory to be reunified, despite the two sides being ruled separately since the end of a civil war on the mainland in 1949.