The de-Sinicization policy that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government carried out after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lost power in 2000 instilled a “wrong mode of thinking” in the younger generation that has turned them into people who spread distorted messages online or in newspapers that destabilize society, former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) said yesterday, before hurling a string of criticisms at independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
Lien made the remarks at the founding ceremony of a support group for his son, KMT Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文), whose main opponent in the Nov. 29 election is Ko.
“Ever since the KMT lost power in 2000, [then-president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration] started implementing a series of ‘de-Sinicization’ policies, forcing children at the age of 11 or 12 to receive non-Sinicized education,” Lien Chan said in his speech.
Photo: CNA
“We were saddened to see Chinese ethics, traditional morality and history being twisted to such an extent. As for those children who grew up being fed erroneous ideas, they are now in their 20s or 30s and may have different occupations, such as in the media or Internet sectors,” he added. “As you can all see, we [myself and my son] have fallen victim to distorted comments online and in the media that have unnerved our society.”
He then took aim at Ko, saying that as the third-generation descendant of a man who served the Japanese colonial government, Ko had received “imperialization” education and therefore dismisses everything pertaining to “Zhonghua culture” (中華文化), including its values and history.
“Also, the non-partisan alliance Ko has been pushing is simply an aggregation of Taiwanese independence advocates … who are in essence controlled and manipulated by the DPP,” Lien Chan said.
Lien Chan continued his attack on Ko at another event, a meeting held by the Alliance of Anti-Independence Chinese (中國人反獨護國大同盟).
“I absolutely cannot stand the thought of having someone whose grandfather changed his surname to a Japanese one during the Japanese colonial era as mayor of Taipei. He [Ko] calls himself a commoner and us the privileged few. What a bastard,” he said.
The former vice president then described Ko as a narrow-minded person filled with hatred, arrogance and discrimination, and he urged Taipei residents to use their ballots to hand the independent a “miserable” defeat.
Turning to the Sunflower movement that erupted in March against the government’s handling of the cross-strait service trade agreement, the 78-year-old said that while some of the nation’s youngsters are well-bred, socially connected and received a good education, others base their moral judgements solely on de-Sinicized textbooks, like those students who “caused troubles” during the movement.
“Because of the poorly revised textbooks, these students think they can publicly declare that they are not Chinese. They have the entire day to do nothing except surf the Internet and form something akin to an online army that propagates malicious rumors,” Lien Chan said. “It was all their [the Sunflower participants’] doing.”
Meanwhile, Ko expressed shock at Lien Chan’s remarks.
“He [Lien Chan] said I am the descendant of an official? My father was an elementary-school teacher,” Ko said, adding he was born in 1959 and “educated in the school system of the Republic of China, all the way from elementary school to university.”
DPP spokesperson Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎) said that the remarks about Sunflower protesters shows that the former vice president’s ideas go against the global tide of democracy, and are unlikely to benefit his son’s campaign.
The Taiwan Citizen Union’s youth volunteer group convener, Syu Wei-ting (許韋婷), dismissed Lien Chan’s comments about young people.
“People from older generations, not the younger ones, should be the ones taking responsibility for many of the problems [Lien Chan said are] causing ‘chaos’ in Taiwan right now,” Syu said.
“Young people’s use of media and Internet tools has only revealed existing problems, not created new ones,” Syu said. “In addition, when we were growing up, we still devoted some of our studies to the history and geography of China, learning a vast amount of information that is completely unrelated to our homeland.”
Additional reporting by Loa Iok-sin and Lii Wen
TAIWAN IS TAIWAN: US Representative Tom Tiffany said the amendment was not controversial, as ‘Taiwan is not — nor has it ever been — part of Communist China’ The US House of Representatives on Friday passed an amendment banning the US Department of Defense from creating, buying or displaying any map that shows Taiwan as part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The “Honest Maps” amendment was approved in a voice vote on Friday as part of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for the 2026 fiscal year. The amendment prohibits using any funds from the act to create, buy or display maps that show Taiwan, Kinmen, Matsu, Penghu, Wuciou (烏坵), Green Island (綠島) or Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) as part of the PRC. The act includes US$831.5 billion in
‘WORLD WAR III’: Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said the aid would inflame tensions, but her amendment was rejected 421 votes against six The US House of Representatives on Friday passed the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal 2026, which includes US$500 million for Taiwan. The bill, which totals US$831.5 billion in discretionary spending, passed in a 221-209 vote. According to the bill, the funds for Taiwan would be administered by the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency and would remain available through Sept. 30, 2027, for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative. The legislation authorizes the US Secretary of Defense, with the agreement of the US Secretary of State, to use the funds to assist Taiwan in procuring defense articles and services, and military training. Republican Representative
Taiwan is hosting the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL) for the first time, welcoming more than 400 young linguists from 43 nations to National Taiwan University (NTU). Deputy Minister of Education Chu Chun-chang (朱俊彰) said at the opening ceremony yesterday that language passes down knowledge and culture, and influences the way humankind thinks and understands the world. Taiwan is a multicultural and multilingual nation, with Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, Hakka, 16 indigenous languages and Taiwan Sign Language all used, Chu said. In addition, Taiwan promotes multilingual education, emphasizes the cultural significance of languages and supports the international mother language movement, he said. Taiwan has long participated
The paramount chief of a volcanic island in Vanuatu yesterday said that he was “very impressed” by a UN court’s declaration that countries must tackle climate change. Vanuatu spearheaded the legal case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, which on Wednesday ruled that countries have a duty to protect against the threat of a warming planet. “I’m very impressed,” George Bumseng, the top chief of the Pacific archipelago’s island of Ambrym, told reporters in the capital, Port Vila. “We have been waiting for this decision for a long time because we have been victims of this climate change for