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Confusing language and identity

Although the dispute over Hanyu and Tongyong seems to be a dispute over different language systems, everybody knows that it is actually a fight between unification and independence.

The concept of the "rotation of political parties" (政黨輪替) must not only encompass a rotation of political power, but also a rotation of certain policies. The idea of rotation is meaningless if the new government simply continues doing things in the same way as its predecessor. It is also meaningless if the successor just "opposes for the sake of opposing" to highlight the differences between the old and the new powers. Even in those countries where two-party systems prevail, the rotation, or change, of major policies is only partial, never total.

Since coming to power, the DPP seems to have adopted similar diplomatic, cross-strait, financial and economic policies to those promoted by the former KMT government. There are only two major differences: the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant and the new Mandarin Romanization system.

The cancellation of the controversial nuclear plant appears inevitable since the ruling party is anti-nuclear. The change of Romanization systems, however, obviously amounts to "opposing for the sake of opposing," and is doomed to worsen the current situation.

The dispute over Taiwan's official Romanization system has been going on for a long time. Countless research papers, questionnaires, and conferences have been held on the advantages and disadvantages of the Wade-Giles system , the Hanyu Pinyin system (漢語拼音), and the Tongyong Pinyin system (通用拼音).

The KMT government, after hearing all the different arguments from the experts, finally made the decision to adopt the Hanyu system as the official Romanization system in Taiwan. The reason was simple: the Hanyu system has been widely accepted by the international community. This is part of an international trend that Taiwanese people should not, and cannot, stop.

Surprisingly, only a few months after the new government took office, officials at the Ministry of Education quickly decided to replace the Hanyu system with the Tongyong system. Their reasoning was also simple: the Hanyu system does not facilitate the promotion of Taiwanese Hokkien education.

Although the dispute over Hanyu and Tongyong seems to be a dispute over different language systems, everybody knows that it is actually a fight between unification and independence. Since the Hanyu system has already been adopted by China, the DPP has therefore decided that the new government must go against the current of international opinion and object to Hanyu to differentiate Taiwan from China.

I believe the DPP's logic for wanting to separately identify Taiwan and China is like the KMT's logic many years ago in condemning those who wrote Chinese from left to right, a practice promoted in China.

The officials seem to forget, however, the key issue: why does Taiwan need an official Romanization system at all?

The people of Taiwan, just like the speakers of any other language, need to accept an official Romanization system so that people who speak other languages can understand Chinese. Why would we want to create a system purely for self-gratification which would be used only on Taiwan and not accepted worldwide? Why would anyone bother to learn such a useless system?

Both the DPP and the KMT have lofty aspirations and ideals to "let Taiwan embrace the world; let the world embrace Taiwan" (讓台灣走出去, 讓世界走進來). Government officials often claim that they want to make Taiwan an international center. How can this happen when the Tongyong system is not accepted by the international community? Such ignorant boastfulness is unrealistic. Taiwan is lucky not to have been relegated to the fringes of the international community by advocating such an inept method of Romanizing Chinese.

It would simply be ridiculous to adopt the Tongyong system, which is not accepted by the rest of the world. I suggest government officials always remember this: don't turn simple things into complex things. Otherwise, you are just asking for trouble.

Wang Chien-chuang is the president of The Journalist magazine.

Translated by Eddy Chang
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