During a speech to businessmen in Hualien on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice presidential candidate Vincent Siew (
Not a week goes by without some pan-blue figure attacking the government's localization efforts and accusing it of driving a wedge between the nation's ethnic groups.
But just like the accusations of economic mismanagement constantly leveled at the administration, there is very little evidence to back up these absurd claims.
In the build-up to an election, such accusations make handy soundbites, but in the end, they are nothing more than part of the opposition's campaign to vilify everything the government does.
What these pan-blue individuals are really upset about is that someone is finally doing away with the unwelcome relics of the authoritarian era that have helped the KMT retain some of its relevance -- relics that should have been consigned to the dustbin of history long ago.
For example, how can giving schoolchildren lessons in their mother tongue be considered ethnically divisive?
The things that really upset the opposition, such as the move to eradicate pro-China bias from school textbooks, the "de-Chiangification" campaign and other recent government initiatives, are not about promoting conflict. They are about Taiwanese becoming their own masters.
The fact that the implementation of many of these policies contributed to real ethnic division in the first place doesn't seem to have crossed the pea-sized brains of many opposition members.
For examples of ethnically divisive policies, one need only turn to recent Taiwanese history: locals excluded from all important government positions; schoolchildren fined for speaking their native language; the mass renaming of streets, towns, villages and landmarks after places in another country and the erection of thousands of statues in honor of a man whose regime was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people.
These were the high-handed policies that promoted ethnic strife and filled people with resentment. But at the time all of this went on, no one was able or willing to complain, since doing so would have led to persecution or arrest.
Whether you can call it transitional justice -- as the government likes to -- is debatable, but the localization effort is simply aimed at putting right the wrongs that were committed during four decades of authoritarian rule, nothing more and nothing less.
If that upsets the sensitivities of the few pan-blue loyalists who still believe the Republic of China is the legitimate government of China, then so be it. It is these people who need to wake up and realize that they can no longer force their bogus view of the world on the population of this nation.
The opposition should be thankful that Taiwanese have been kind enough that it has never had to endure the kind of reprisals that took place in countries like Rwanda, Iraq, or the former Yugoslavia, where one ethnic or religious group that had long been downtrodden by another exacted violent retribution -- with disastrous consequences.
Real conflicts such as these highlight how ridiculous the opposition's accusations are and show that most Taiwanese -- unlike their elected representatives -- are practical people who are willing to forgive, if not forget, while quietly striving for the benefit of this nation's future.
Taiwanese pragmatism has long been praised when it comes to addressing Chinese attempts to erase Taiwan from the international stage. “Taipei” and the even more inaccurate and degrading “Chinese Taipei,” imposed titles required to participate in international events, are loathed by Taiwanese. That is why there was huge applause in Taiwan when Japanese public broadcaster NHK referred to the Taiwanese Olympic team as “Taiwan,” instead of “Chinese Taipei” during the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. What is standard protocol for most nations — calling a national team by the name their country is commonly known by — is impossible for
China’s supreme objective in a war across the Taiwan Strait is to incorporate Taiwan as a province of the People’s Republic. It follows, therefore, that international recognition of Taiwan’s de jure independence is a consummation that China’s leaders devoutly wish to avoid. By the same token, an American strategy to deny China that objective would complicate Beijing’s calculus and deter large-scale hostilities. For decades, China has cautioned “independence means war.” The opposite is also true: “war means independence.” A comprehensive strategy of denial would guarantee an outcome of de jure independence for Taiwan in the event of Chinese invasion or
A recent Taipei Times editorial (“A targeted bilingual policy,” March 12, page 8) questioned how the Ministry of Education can justify spending NT$151 million (US$4.74 million) when the spotlighted achievements are English speech competitions and campus tours. It is a fair question, but it focuses on the wrong issue. The problem is not last year’s outcomes failing to meet the bilingual education vision; the issue is that the ministry has abandoned the program that originally justified such a large expenditure. In the early years of Bilingual 2030, the ministry’s K-12 Administration promoted the Bilingual Instruction in Select Domains Program (部分領域課程雙語教學實施計畫).
Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry spoke at the Yushan Forum in Taipei on Monday, saying that while global conflicts were causing economic strife in the world, Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy (NSP) serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region and offers strategic opportunities for small island nations such as Fiji, as well as support in the fields of public health, education, renewable energy and agricultural technology. Taiwan does not have official diplomatic relations with Fiji, but it is one of the small island nations covered by the NSP. Chaudhry said that Fiji, as a sovereign nation, should support
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