Media reports say former education minister Cheng Jei-cheng (鄭瑞城) was replaced because he was not doing enough to open up Taiwan’s education system to Chinese students. Regardless of the veracity of the reports, accepting Chinese students and recognizing Chinese education credentials is part of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) strategy for opening up to China. The policy, however, has caused some concern and an uneasy atmosphere is spreading.
With Ma’s policies, cross-strait relations seem more relaxed, but they are also very unpredictable. Each time the government makes a move, it must anticipate China’s reaction.
China’s attitude toward Taiwan can change at any time because of factors like the Dalai Lama and Uighur rights activist Rebiya Kadeer. China also has yet to renounce the use of force against Taiwan. We must assess whether this rapid opening up will sacrifice the interests of the average Taiwanese as the government continues to focus its attention on the interests of certain businesses and individuals.
The Ministry of Education has proposed “three restrictions” and “six noes” in an attempt to alleviate public concern. But how will the government attract Chinese students if they honor promises not to give them preferential entrance opportunities, not offer scholarships, not allow them to work in Taiwan or take civil service exams while ensuring that the number of Chinese admissions does not affect the quota for Taiwanese students or exacerbate unemployment?
What are these “complimentary measures”? We don’t know.
All we have seen are revisions of the University Act (大學法), the Junior College Act (專科學校法) and the Act Governing Relations Between Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), which were sent to the legislature for review not long ago.
The revisions will amount to little more than empty promises if passed. The “three restrictions” and the “six noes” and any other complementary measures will be mere administrative orders without legal authority that can be changed at any time. Will the government give in to Chinese pressure to dump these restrictions?
The government tells us not to worry because it will establish a strict mechanism for checking credentials. However, in a world where forged documents are easily purchased, how will the government convince people that it has the ability to carry out such checks?
The education ministry has said it will not recognize qualifications for Chinese medical practitioners. But when there was a controversy over the recognition of medical qualifications gained in Poland, the regulations in that case were quickly changed after pressure was applied. When the government says it will open up gradually, how can we be sure that it won’t open up fully in a year’s time?
There are countless examples of similar problems awaiting further exploration and clarification.
There are always pros and cons in the implementation of a policy, as well as potential risk. The government has the responsibility to devise ways of minimizing policy downsides and risk.
However, what everyone is concerned about is the lack of transparency in cross-strait policy, a lack of public dialogue and a complete absence of detailed assessment. In addition, many of the people previously involved in negotiations on opening up Taiwanese education to China have had a considerable vested interest. Under these circumstances, how will the rights of Taiwanese be protected?
The Taipei Society, Citizen Congress Watch and academics will be holding a forum today on the issue. All are welcome to participate.
Hawang Shiow-duan is a professor of political science at Soochow University.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
Taiwan’s higher education system is facing an existential crisis. As the demographic drop-off continues to empty classrooms, universities across the island are locked in a desperate battle for survival, international student recruitment and crucial Ministry of Education funding. To win this battle, institutions have turned to what seems like an objective measure of quality: global university rankings. Unfortunately, this chase is a costly illusion, and taxpayers are footing the bill. In the past few years, the goalposts have shifted from pure research output to “sustainability” and “societal impact,” largely driven by commercial metrics such as the UK-based Times Higher Education (THE) Impact
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent the vast Asian chemicals industry into a tailspin. Deprived of the likes of Qatari natural gas and Saudi Arabian oil, the region’s fertilizer and plastics plants are slowing production or even shutting down. Everywhere except China, that is. In petrochemicals, China is unique. As well as a traditional industry that uses oil and gas as feedstock, it has parallel output that relies on its abundant domestic coal. Unsurprisingly, India and other regional powers want to copy and paste the Chinese method. This would not be easy — or climate friendly. The
History might remember 2026, not 2022, as the year artificial intelligence (AI) truly changed everything. ChatGPT’s launch was a product moment. What is happening now is an anthropological moment: AI is no longer merely answering questions. It is now taking initiative and learning from others to get things done, behaving less like software and more like a colleague. The economic consequence is the rise of the one-person company — a structure anticipated in the 2024 book The Choices Amid Great Changes, which I coauthored. The real target of AI is not labor. It is hierarchy. When AI sharply reduces the cost
US President Donald Trump recently repeated his claim that “Taiwan stole America’s chip industry,” reigniting public debate on the issue. As a former Taiwanese minister of economic affairs and an entrepreneur deeply involved in semiconductor supply chain development, I feel a responsibility to clarify this misunderstanding. From the perspective of global industrial evolution and the economic principle of comparative advantage, such a statement appears overly simplistic and risks obscuring the essence of the issue. The rise of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry was not built on “replacing America,” but rather emerged as a result of countries pursuing different development paths within the
RSS