The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday that the UN had used simplified Chinese characters in its documents since China joined the organization in 1971, and that it was strange that a Chinese linguist had decided to comment on the issue now.
The Beijing-based Morning Post reported on March 23 that Chen Zhangtai (陳章太), chief of the Chinese Academy of Practical Linguistics, revealed that the UN had decided to ensure that all documents that were translated into Chinese appeared only in simplified characters from 2008. Since then, various media outlets have run similar reports.
Simplified Chinese characters are used in China and Singapore, while traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Malaysia.
Ministry Spokesperson Michel Lu (
"Officials from the Department of General Assembly Affairs and Conference Management told us that the UN has used simplified characters since China joined the organization in 1971. In other words, simplified characters and full-form characters have never been in use at the same time in the UN," he said.
"The media reports based on the information provided by that Chinese scholar were groundless," Lu told reporters.
The ministry official made the comments after receiving verification from Taiwan's representative office in New York.
He said it was strange for the Chinese linguist to comment on the use of simplified characters in the UN when it was a non-issue.
"It is necessary to understand the intention behind Chen's comments," Lu said.
Lu said China had demanded the UN use only simplified characters for its official Chinese documentation since it entered the UN. Documents that had been produced before 1971 were not subject to the rule, he said.
Meanwhile, in response to Hsinchu Mayor Lin Jung-tzer's (林政則) proposal yesterday to introduce classes teaching Chinese simplified characters to Hsinchu's junior high school students in order to increase their global competitiveness, Lu said that there was no need to worry unduly that traditional characters would be marginalized.
"The UN has five official languages -- English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Russian -- but this does not affect the survival of other languages such as Japanese, German and Portuguese. The culture and history of these countries still endure.
Similarly, although the UN has not used full-form Chinese characters for years, this hasn't resulted in the characters ceasing to exist," Lu said.
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