The Ministry of Education (MOE) has caused a stir with its recent directive that elementary and junior high schools teach that the disputed Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) “have been a part of China since ancient times,” and consequently belong to the Republic of China (ROC).
Critics called it “brain-washing under the guise of education.”
Huang Chi-teng (黃子騰), head of the ministry’s Department of Elementary Education, said the directive was sent after an interministerial meeting convened by the National Security Council (NSC), in which it was decided that the ministry would give schools a paper for use as reference in teaching “the relations between the Diaoyutai Islands and Taiwan.”
The paper, which includes comments such as “Japan stole the Diaoyutai Islands,” places China and Taiwan on the same side opposing Japan, using the claim that “the Diaoyutai Islands have belonged to China in the past” to argue that sovereignty over the Diaoyutais belongs to the ROC.
Huang said the paper was prepared by the council and that he had not looked closely at the content. He said the council could legally require that the ministry participate in the process, as the decision was reached during an interministerial meeting.
The council wrote the paper in May. In June, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a seminar on “the proper use of data concerning our claims on the Diaoyutai Islands” and sent a record of the meeting to all concerned government agencies.
Yang Kuo-tung (楊國棟), director-general of the ministry’s Department of Treaty and Legal Affairs, said the meeting was held primarily to discuss how to promote awareness of the Diaoyutai issue among elementary and junior-high school students.
The issue concerns whether “our national territory is intact,” Yang said, adding that it was a matter that concerns the public and one that it must face.
The Ministry of Education issued a decree on July 18 directing all elementary and junior-high schools to incorporate the NSC paper and teach students that the Daioyutai Islands has, since ancient times, been a part of China. It also directed schools to hold events to promote awareness of the issue and report their progress to the council.
Commenting on the matter, National Teachers’ Union secretary-general Wu Chung-tai (吳忠泰) said that any government paper relating to course material or course scheduling should first be submitted to the course syllabus committee and educational organizations should be invited to take part in negotiations and discussions.
The NSC should not have handled the matter in a top-down manner, giving the information to the education ministry and telling it to incorporate it into the curriculum, Wu said.
He said that as sovereignty over the Diaoyutais remains a sensitive issue — both domestically and internationally — the timing of the government’s announcement of such a policy gives educational organizations reason to doubt the motives of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration.
There are varied views in the nation concerning the Diaoyutai issue, National Alliance of Parents Organization head Gordon Hsieh (謝國清) said, adding that education should not become a tool for government propaganda.
Chiang Huang-chih (姜皇池), a professor of international law at National Taiwan University’s College of Law, also expressed doubts about the decision, saying the NSC paper presents a great risk in terms of international law, because it places Taiwan’s claims under the scope of it being a part of China.
The council’s proposition would relegate both Taiwan and the Diaoyutai Islands to being parts of China, Chiang said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) accused the Ministry of Education of employing Martial Law-era tactics by putting education under political control, with the NSC bypassing normal educational channels to teach students its own pre-customized ideologies.
Taiwan Solidarity Union Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) accused the council of being the force behind a government though-control scheme and propaganda machine.
“Whether the Diaoyutais are the territory of Taiwan, China or Japan is a question for historians to solve. The security council cannot decide the final outcome on its own,” Huang said.
Huang urged the Ma administration to respect the independence of the education system and to stop interfering with the school curriculum.
DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the council had gotten their priorities wrong.
Instead of trying to expand the nation’s international relations, they were conducting “united front” (統戰) propaganda aimed at Taiwanese elementary and junior-high school children, Tsai said.
Additional reporting by Chris Wang and Hu Ching-hui
Translated by Jake Chung, Staff Writer
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
FORCED LABOR: A US court listed three Taiwanese and nine firms based in Taiwan in its indictment, with eight of the companies registered at the same address Nine companies registered in Taiwan, as well as three Taiwanese, on Tuesday were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) as a result of a US federal court indictment. The indictment unsealed at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said that Chen Zhi (陳志), a dual Cambodian-British national, is being indicted for fraud conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding Group’s forced-labor scam camps in Cambodia. At its peak, the company allegedly made US$30 million per day, court documents showed. The US government has seized Chen’s noncustodial wallet, which contains
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
RSS