Half a million or more at 1025 protest in Taiwan

Too numerous for some to properly estimate

A protest Saturday in Taipei against the harm brought upon the country by Ma "Don't Paint Me Red" Ying-jeou (馬英九) and China had a huge turnout.

At around 6 PM, the very blue Era News reported a turnout of "400,000" while FTV was saying "600,000" right up until 10 PM.

But when TVBS said that there were 500,000 people at an anti-Ma/anti-China rally, then you can be pretty sure that there were at least that many.


Talking Show (大話新聞) discusses Reuters' coverage
(Click to enlarge)
Even Reuters' Ralph Jennings -- of whom I've been extremely critical for getting the story very wrong when it comes to Taiwan -- tells us that "half a million" attended the protest:

Half a million march in Taiwan against China, president

Close to half a million people marched in Taiwan on Saturday to protest against the government's growing ties with China, where a tainted milk powder scandal has fueled fresh distrust toward Beijing among island citizens.

In the strongest display of opposition yet to President Ma Ying-jeou, demonstrators flooded central Taipei demanding that Ma step down over his friendly approach to Chinese officials.

I wasn't able to attend today's rally because I had to work, but Jerome Keating took part, and he replies to that report, saying, "I would concur with at least a half a million; perhaps more." Good to see a believable figure from Jennings this time around.

On the lower end of the crowd estimates, my wife heard on TV that the Taipei police claim that there were "200,000" participants, and in CNN's headline news segment, Rosemary Church says "tens of thousands" -- the same vague and inaccurate description used by the BBC.

What next?
As 10 PM approached and the event drew to a close, DPP chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) says to be prepared to take to the streets again if the planned visit by Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) happens. Despite how Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) spokespersons and surrogates tried to spin the news, this was more than just "the DPP base" out there today, and neither Ma nor China are doing anything to satisfy them.

Keep your eyes and ears open.

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Participants: Taiwan, 台灣, China, 中國, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, Chen Yunlin, 陳雲林, protest, 抗議, Ralph Jennings, 唐甯思, Reuters, 路透社

Cross-posted at It's Not Democracy, It's A Conspiracy!