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KMT says language policy stirring up ethnic strife

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday accused the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of "provoking ethnic conflicts" through recent announcements on language policy.

"Inciting ethnic conflict can get certain people excited but it can be lethal if the dosage is excessive," KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) told the party's weekly Central Standing Committee meeting yesterday afternoon.

Lien said the DPP government has been manipulating ethnic groups since it came to power in May 2000 as a means to divert attention from its gloomy governance.

"These shameful maneuvers are just the beginning. I believe there will be more to come if the DPP continues to stay in power," he said.

Lien said two examples prove his argument: the Examination Yuan's inclusion of Hokkien-language questions on this year's civil-servant examination, and the Ministry of Education's drafting of guidelines for history textbooks.

"It's ridiculous to classify Chinese history after the 16th century as part of world history instead of national history," Lien said. "I can understand the DPP government's intention to increase the percentage of Taiwan's history in textbooks but it's outrageous to twist the nation's history in such a hideous way."

The Ministry of Education plans to enact a draft on history guidelines for high school textbooks by early November.

Under the new rules, senior high school students would study Taiwanese history, from the prehistoric history age to modern times, in the first semester and Chinese history from ancient times to the early Ming Dynasty in the second semester.

Sophomore senior high school students would study the history of the modern world from the Age of Discovery to the modern day and the Republic of China's history would be classified as world history.

Speaking in Hakka, KMT Deputy Chairman Wu Po-hsiung (吳伯雄) and former deputy speaker of the legislature Yao Eng-chi (饒穎奇) echoed Lien and criticized the controversial questions on this year's national exams for civil servants.

"It's discrimination against Hakka people," Wu said.

On the promotion exam for customs officials and the admittance exams for police this year, there were questions on the reading-comprehension portion written in the Hokkien language. Although these passages were written in Chinese characters, they make sense only to speakers of Hokkien.

In a bid to put the language controversy to rest, Yao proposed drawing up an ethnic culture and religion equality law.
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