Amid dire challenges, PCT lives out the Great Commission in Taiwan through creation care

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

Taiwan Church News

June 20-26, 2011

Headline News

Amid dire challenges, PCT lives out the Great Commission in Taiwan through 
creation care

Reported by Sam Lee, Chen Wei-chien

Written by Lydia Ma

“Stop Provincial Highway 26! Save Taiwan’s remaining natural coastline!” was 
the cry of Pingtung Environmental Protection Union (PEPU) members during their 
presentation on June 22, 2011 as they raised awareness on the plight to 
preserve Alangyi Trail in Pingtung County. 

This 8km long ancient trail was established in the 1870s for Indigenous tribes 
to travel along the coast and is Taiwan’s remaining natural coastline. But this 
will soon change if government plans to finish a highway network that traverses 
southern Taiwan aren’t halted. Stopping this highway network from entering 
Alangyi Trail – also dubbed “Nuclear Wastes Expressway” because of two nuclear 
waste facilities built just off of it – is essential to preserving this unique 
world-class ecological corridor, with abundant and diverse species found within 
it.

For PEPU, this presentation was also aimed at educating the public and 
spreading the word that they needed more signatures for their petition. At 
least 100,000 signatures must be gathered before July 24, 2011 to preserve the 
Alangyi Ancient Trail – the deadline for being designated a “temporary nature 
reserve” by the Pingtung County Government according to the Cultural Heritage 
Preservation Act. 

So far, only 38,000 people have signed the petition, PEPU said, aware of the 
great tasks ahead in the remaining days before the deadline. To raise awareness 
on the urgency of this issue and what is at stake, PCT East Paiwan and Paiwan 
presbyteries have spearheaded anti-nuclear power and anti-nuclear waste rallies 
in the past few weeks

PCT celebrates the halt of construction for Kuokuang petrochemical plant in 
Changhua

Just as PCT members in southern Taiwan hoped for a miracle breakthrough in 
awakening government authorities and the public on the repercussions of 
national environmental policies, residents in Changhua celebrated and thanked 
God for hearing their prayers and protecting them from harm and from an 
unwanted naphtha cracker complex.

A prayer meeting called “Lift my eyes to the mountain prayer movement in 
Wangkung” was hosted by Changhua Presbytery to gather Christians to thank God 
for President Ma’s announcement opposing construction of the proposed Kuokuang 
Petrochemical naphtha cracker complex. 

PCT Associate General Secretary Lyim Hong-tiong said creation care had always 
been a part of the Christian faith. “Opposing Kuokuang complex was an important 
issue that local churches, presbyteries, and the General Assembly took 
seriously and worked together to raise awareness,” he said, adding that it’s 
citizens’ responsibility to point out the government policy errors and national 
leaders ought to repent when their mistakes are pointed out.

“The emphasis of this “Lift my eyes to the mountain prayer movement” is 
repentance. The government has repented of its agreement to build a naphtha 
cracker complex, but much work remains on this road to repentance, including 
changes in policies such as East Coast Development Bill, Aboriginal Basic Law, 
and the rebuilding of Nuclear Power Plant No.4,” said Lyim.

Though this controversial proposal involving Kuokuang Petrochemical has been 
shelved for now, there is concern that the President didn’t elaborate on how 
the government would safeguard the domestic petrochemical industry without this 
complex and whether there is a replacement plan, giving rise to speculations 
that President Ma’s announcement was made due to re-election considerations.

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