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 (
"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.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods