The Ministry of Education's curriculum guidelines for senior high history textbook have recently been released -- to the delight of some and the chagrin of others. No matter what, the seeds of Taiwanese consciousness have been sown in the education system.
As the Chinese saying goes, "It takes 10 years to grow a tree, and 100 years before a sound education program takes root." This is where it begins.
In the larger scheme of things, the new text places Taiwan's history alongside Chinese and world history. No longer will Taiwan's history be regarded as being a subsidiary of Chinese history.
From a more local perspective, we see Taiwan's history escaping from the confines of "party-state history," breaking away from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-endorsed myths and finally bringing out the truth of events like the White Terror and the misfortune that Taiwan suffered due to the battle between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The most interesting aspect, which has the appeal of being a false accusation being overturned, has to do with the Cairo Declaration. In 1945, Chiang Kai-shek (
Why didn't the Cairo conference produce any official conclusion? This was mainly because British foreign minister Antony Eden was against returning Taiwan to China, and the document given to Chiang by the official representing China, Wang Chunghui (王寵惠), made this plain. (This document can be found in Important Historical Records of the Republic of China edited by Chin Hsiao-yi [秦孝儀]).
This is why the meeting in Cairo produced nothing more than a communique (even though it is often referred to as a "declaration"). It was not a signed treaty and simply stated the matters discussed. The KMT twisted history and tampered with evidence, creating a "Cairo Declaration" that fitted their purposes with the aim of making the statement that "Japan relinquishes sovereignty over Taiwan" into "Taiwan's sovereignty reverts to China."
The new high school text books will do nothing more than tell the truth. And this hasn't come easily. It has taken constant calls from concerned people to finally penetrate the lies of the KMT and the "two Chiangs."
It is interesting to note that Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英久) has not made any statement on his position regarding the Cairo Declaration. He has taken aim elsewhere, using the Shanghai Communique and some other documents as his weapons to deflect the argument that Taiwan's status is still unclear.
The problem is that once you accept the three Sino-US Joint Communiques, this is tantamount to accepting that the Republic of China (ROC) no longer exists. Ma, who has sworn to defend the ROC to the death, has basically denied the existence of this entity.
Former president Lee Teng-hui's (
Taiwan is Taiwan, China is China. There is one country on either side of the Taiwan Strait. This is the fact, and it should not surprise anybody.
Chin Heng-wei is editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine.
Translated by Ian Bartholomew
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Ursula K. le Guin in The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas proposed a thought experiment of a utopian city whose existence depended on one child held captive in a dungeon. When taken to extremes, Le Guin suggests, utilitarian logic violates some of our deepest moral intuitions. Even the greatest social goods — peace, harmony and prosperity — are not worth the sacrifice of an innocent person. Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), since leaving office, has lived an odyssey that has brought him to lows like Le Guin’s dungeon. From late 2008 to 2015 he was imprisoned, much of this