| 100th anniversary of the Republic of China | |
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100th anniversary celebration |
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| Other names | 中華民國100年國慶 |
| Date | 10 October 2011 |
| Website | ROC Centenary Foundation |
The 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China began on October 10, 2011 on the 100th anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution. It was celebrated in Taiwan and mainland China, but the meaning of the celebration varies differently by region.
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On 10 October 1911 the Wuchang Uprising was launched as part of the Xinhai Revolution to overthrow the Qing, the last imperial dynasty in China. This ended imperial rule that lasted more than 2,000 years.[1] The Republic of China would be established in 1912. Since then, the revolution has been celebrated on Double Ten Day. After the Chinese Civil war the nationalist Kuomintang would be relocated to Taiwan island, and the Communist Party of China would establish the People's Republic of China in 1949 on mainland. In the PRC October 10 is not formally considered the National Day, as it usually celebrate its own National day on 1 October.[2]
On December 31, 2010, the New Year's Eve of 2011, a large celebration already took place at Keelung River.[3] About 850,000 people celebrated at Xinyi District including NT$60 million worth of fireworks.[4]
The Double Ten day official ceremony began in the morning of October 10, 2011 where a flag raising ceremony was held. Subsequent activities were followed including a military parade involving more than 1,000 military personnel, 71 aircraft and 168 vehicles.[5] The personnel number is however much smaller than celebrations in the past. The slogan of the ceremony is "Republic of China, Splendid 100" (中華民國，精彩一百).[6]
President Ma Ying-jeou made a national day address speech.[5] He urged Beijing to pursue democracy and "face the existence of the Republic of China".[7] Over 50 delegations and 1,500 distinguished guests representing ROC diplomatic allies visited Taiwan during the celebration.[8] Many notables including US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus were in attendance.[8] Japan sent a delegation with record setting numbers.[8]
There were also 5634 people who married exactly on the 100th anniversary, at October 10th, 10 minutes of 10 am.[9] This is two times more than 2010 and 18 times more than the average.[9]
The 100th anniversary ceremony was held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.[10] The event was attended by all nine members of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Central Committee. The event was attended by president Hu Jintao as well as Jiang Zemin.[10] Hu gave a 20 minute speech that emphasized Chinese reunification. The ceremony then lasted 40 minutes featuring a giant portrait of Sun Yat-sen supported by 10 PRC flags.[10]
In Wuhan the government officials spent 43 million yuan in restoring three 1911 heritage sites.[11] But they were careful in not letting the celebration outshine the 90th anniversary of the Communist party that took place in July.[11] In addition from August 27 to October 10 Wuhan was reinforced with thousands of officers including 100 paramilitary police and 200 special police armed with submachine guns on street duty with 250,000 surveillance cameras.[12] The celebration is generally referred to as "100th anniversary of Xinhai Revolution".[13] Since January 2011 Guangzhou held its own celebrations to commemorate the Guangzhou uprisings.[14] At the Guangdong museum of revolutionary history separate celebrations were held in October 2011.[14] In the PRC, the event is not referred to as the "100th anniversary of the Republic of China", but the "100th anniversary of Xinhai Revolution".
In 2010 one of the main anniversary event was to make a film on the life of Sun Yat-sen shot in places where he lived and worked, including Britain, Singapore, Japan and Hawaii. The government provided NT$20 million for the film.[3] Movies such as 1911 were also made for the 100th anniversary. The discovery channel and the Taiwan government also aligned for a three part special show.[15] In Macau a tour of Dr Sun revolutionary trail was launched for the 100th anniversary.[16] Hong Kong Post also launched Centenary Xinhai Revolution stamps.[17]
Keynotes made by Hu Jintao were interpreted by Taiwan Independence forces as exploiting Sun Yat-sen to intensify measures against independence forces.[18] Taiwan aboriginal rights activists of the Sediq National Assembly who represent the Atayal people announced a headhunt against the ROC government.[6] The headhunts usually get rid of evil spirits.[19] The activists mainly said the ROC government is like the Japanese Colonial Government that preceded it who took their land and resources. The Indigeonous People's Coalition said there is nothing to celebrate as the aboriginals have suffered under the government.[6] They performed their own mgaya ceremony.[6] Some have said the ROC government is a "Chinese government in exile" and should be out of Taiwan.[5] But Pan-green DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen said "The ROC is Taiwan, Taiwan is the ROC" for the first time in her career.[20]
In April 2011 an inter-university debate related to Sun Yat-sen was supposed to be hosted by the Beijing Institute of Technology.[21] But it was banned by the Communist Youth League.[21] The Dr. Sun opera about a love story between Soong Ching-ling and Sun was supposed to have a world premiere at the National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing on September 30.[21] It was canceled for "logistics reasons".[21]
Despite celebrating the anniversary, of the Three Principles of the People of Sun Yat-sen involving nationalism, livelihood and democracy, only nationalism is emphasized in the PRC. There have been criticism that the PRC need to spend more money on its poor, sick and elderly.[21] As 90% of the wealth in the PRC belong to Communist party members according to the 2011 Chinese forbes billionaires list.[22] Activist Wang Dan criticized the PRC government to be celebrating democracy is ironic.[1]
During the PRC ceremony in the Great hall of the people, only the national anthem of the People's Republic of China was played.[10] The song was founded 38 years after the 1911 revolution and has nothing to do with the event.[10] A similar case occurred in Hong Kong during TVB's "Variety show Commemorating the Centenary of the 1911 revolution" (百年辛亥 中華總商會111週年文藝匯演), where the PRC national anthem is played, and the ROC anthem never played.
For the preparation of the anniversary, new songs were made and chosen to commemorate the founding of the ROC. One of the requirement is that the composer be an ROC citizen.[23] But according to legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) the songs available for voting may not have been from ROC citizens as the evaluation was sloppy.[23]
The original slogan for the Pan-blue camp was "Republic of China, Founded 100 Years" (中華民國，建國一百), but was later changed to "Republic of China, Splendid 100" (中華民國，精彩一百). The words meaning "building country" (建國) were replaced with "splendid" (精彩).[24][6]
In 2009 Beijing, who was also planning to commemorate the Xinhai revolution, suggested that the mainland and Taiwan hold a joint centennial celebrations in 2011 together. However Beijing demanded the term "Republic of China" not be used. President Ma Ying-jeou rejected the idea.[25]