The recent research voids the theory that Peking Man was the ancestor of the Chinese people and dispels the myth that the Chinese descended from the Yellow Emperor separately from other peoples.
However, even if fully aware of these research findings, China's authoritarian political leaders are unlikely to revise school textbooks to reflect what is becoming accepted theory. After all, the political legitimacy of the Communist government partly rests on its ability to uphold the nation's glorious past, perceived and real. Beijing would be shooting itself in the foot if it discarded the Yellow Emperor myth.
For their part, there is no reason for Taiwanese to retain the Yellow Emperor myth, a fable that the KMT party-state reinforced. After all, like free people elsewhere, Taiwanese need to be educated and not indoctrinated.
Chen Ching-chih is a research fellow at the Institute for Taiwanese Studies in Los Angeles.
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