Premier William Lai’s (賴清德) plan to make English an official language is sure to be controversial — and while it might be a good thing, how the government plans to carry it out should be watched closely.
The Ministry of Education is to present an official report to Lai with recommendations on how to proceed. With a government and populace prone to placing more importance on symbolism and grandiose-sounding ideas than practicalities, it is very important that this does not turn into an empty slogan, like the fabled “Green Silicon Valley.”
What will making English an official language really do? In a sense, the nation is already bilingual — Taiwanese are taught English at school from a young age, most road signs are in Chinese and English, Taipei’s MRT metropolitan rail system uses both and most museums have English signage.
However, everyone knows that the nation’s English-language education is horribly ineffective and that museum labels and government publications are often riddled with embarrassing errors. These problems would not be magically solved by making English an official language.
The government should make sure it has the talent to carry out the ideas: If government agencies continue cutting corners and do not hire English proofreaders for their documents and publications, the whole notion would simply become a joke. It would be ridiculous to make English an official language when general proficiency is still poor.
Perhaps the government should work on the practical aspects and wait to see some solid improvement and results first.
For example, the ministry could focus on ways of improving the way English is taught, including establishing bilingual schools or classes and emphasizing spoken English — something that is sorely needed regardless of whether English is an official language.
These are things that the government has been looking at and should carry out, regardless of whether a language is official.
What about the implications of such a move? While English is immensely important in today’s world, especially when Taiwan needs all the international recognition it can get, should a nation that has constantly faced identity issues and has a long history of colonial oppression make yet another foreign language official?
While everyone speaks Mandarin today, it was essentially forced upon the populace by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) after its retreat from China in 1949, while speakers of other languages were punished at school.
The government has been making efforts to save other languages such as Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), Hakka and the various Aboriginal tongues, but without practical use, these languages remain in grave danger of dying out, despite being taught in schools and being made national languages. The Taiwanese public already knows that English is important, as evidenced by the significant number of English-language cram schools nationwide.
International competitiveness is important, but native identity, culture and heritage are also essential to the dignity of a person and a nation — especially one that only a few decades ago freed itself from the shackles of cultural imperialism and authoritarian rule. More resources should be dedicated to fostering a meaningful environment for these languages, while the English-language education system has long been in place and just needs to be fixed.
There is no denying that English is important and should be learned by all, but perhaps the government should fix the myriad of existing problems before making it an official language.
A gap appears to be emerging between Washington’s foreign policy elites and the broader American public on how the United States should respond to China’s rise. From my vantage working at a think tank in Washington, DC, and through regular travel around the United States, I increasingly experience two distinct discussions. This divergence — between America’s elite hawkishness and public caution — may become one of the least appreciated and most consequential external factors influencing Taiwan’s security environment in the years ahead. Within the American policy community, the dominant view of China has grown unmistakably tough. Many members of Congress, as
The Hong Kong government on Monday gazetted sweeping amendments to the implementation rules of Article 43 of its National Security Law. There was no legislative debate, no public consultation and no transition period. By the time the ink dried on the gazette, the new powers were already in force. This move effectively bypassed Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. The rules were enacted by the Hong Kong chief executive, in conjunction with the Committee for Safeguarding National Security — a body shielded from judicial review and accountable only to Beijing. What is presented as “procedural refinement” is, in substance, a shift away from
The shifting geopolitical tectonic plates of this year have placed Beijing in a profound strategic dilemma. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) prepares for a high-stakes summit with US President Donald Trump, the traditional power dynamics of the China-Japan-US triangle have been destabilized by the diplomatic success of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Washington. For the Chinese leadership, the anxiety is two-fold: There is a visceral fear of being encircled by a hardened security alliance, and a secondary risk of being left in a vulnerable position by a transactional deal between Washington and Tokyo that might inadvertently empower Japan
After declaring Iran’s military “gone,” US President Donald Trump appealed to the UK, France, Japan and South Korea — as well as China, Iran’s strategic partner — to send minesweepers and naval forces to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. When allies balked, the request turned into a warning: NATO would face “a very bad” future if it refused. The prevailing wisdom is that Trump faces a credibility problem: having spent years insulting allies, he finds they would not rally when he needs them. That is true, but superficial, as though a structural collapse could be caused by wounded feelings. Something
RSS