Taiwan plans independence rally to defy Beijing

TaIpEI: Taiwan independence campaigners will take to the streets 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 this Saturday comes as China 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 China.

It is the first potentially largescale protest calling for an outright independence vote since Taiwan first became a democracy more than 20 years ago. Organisers say 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.

China 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.

Taiwan considers itself a sovereign state with its own currency, political and judicial systems, but has never declared formal independence from the mainland.