As soon as Minister without Portfolio Chen Chi-nan (陳其南) was appointed as Chairman of the Council for Cultural Affairs, he pledged to implement the idea of "establishing the nation with culture" and to advance the Council to Ministry of Cultural Affairs.
"Cultural policies do not only deal with the issues of how to allot budgets and resources but to find out a guiding principle to establish platforms for diverse ethnic groups' development," Chen said when he started in his new position on Thursday.
"It is also urgent to reconcile the social confrontations caused by the election with stressing civic, community and ethnic consciousness," Chen said.
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
Perhaps no one was more proficient in the administrative affairs and practices of the council than Chen, who served as its vice chairman from 1994 to 1997.
Since 1994, Chen has been noted for his efforts to promote the policy of "Holistic Community Building," a policy dedicated to creating unique local community cultures around the nation by arousing the residents' communal and civic consciousness. It also seeks to create a new society and culture that contains the different cultures of diverse ethnic groups in Taiwan.
He has promoted the idea of "decentralization," stressing that to reshape the images of Taiwan's cultures, quality of life must be raised and environmental transformation must be based on the autonomy of local communities and grassroots groups.
"What is most lacking in Taiwan society is a common consensus about the basic-level structure of the land," Chen said.
"If we establish a common consciousness from the level of community, then whether to unify with China or be independent from China will not be a problem for Taiwan."
Chen's ideas were highly valued by then president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), who later interpreted Chen's discourse into the so-called "life community," an idea that called on the people of Taiwan to build a strong sense of common destiny and identity, as everyone has roots here.
Chen also contributed many ideas in the Creativity and Culture Industry Development Project and New Homeland Movement carried out by outgoing Council chairwoman Tchen Yu-chiou (
It is said that Chen's appointment also breaks the unwritten rule that a woman should head the council, as in the past 10 years. Since 1993, the heads were Sheng Hsueh-yung (申學庸); Cheng Su-ming (鄭淑敏), now chairwoman of the China Television Company; Helen Lin (林澄枝), vice chairwoman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT); and outgoing council chairwoman Tchen Yu-chiou.
With a master's degree in anthropology from the National Taiwan University and a doctorate of anthropology from Yale, Chen first devoted himself to academic research at Academia Sinica's Institute of Ethnology and has taught anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of Virginia in the US and the college of humanities and social sciences at National Chiao-tung University (
Chen later held offices in governmental departments and was praised by the public for his "outstanding" performances. He worked as a consultant to Premier Yu Shyi-kun on cultural affairs when Yu served as Ilan County Commissioner in 1997 and 1998.
He was appointed as a national policy advisor in 1999 by President Chen Shui-bian (
Hu Tai-li (
"Chen could often carve out many refreshing ideas and terms that affect and stimulated people." Hu said.
"I expect him to contribute his creativity and energy to his new job and find a balance between practice and theory by fine-tuning his measures."
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