The Ministry of Education (MOE) released more details yesterday on its plan to allow Chinese students to study at the nation’s higher education establishments, saying it would impose a series of restrictions and conditions on Chinese students to avoid jeopardizing the education and employment opportunities of Taiwanese students.
Under the plan, Chinese students from universities and colleges with “distinguished academic reputations” would be allowed to study in the country, with numbers limited to between 0.5 percent and 1 percent of total nationwide enrollment at colleges, four-year technology institutions and two-year junior technological and vocational education colleges.
The estimated number of Chinese students coming to Taiwan to study each year would be between 1,000 and 2,000, based on the 200,000 vacancies at 170 institutions nationwide, Vice Minister of Education Lu Mu-lin (呂木琳) told the press conference.
Lu said the policy would require amendments to the University Law (大學法), College School Law (專科學校法) and the Statute Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例).
If the amendments pass the legislature, the first group of Chinese students could be expected in September at the earliest, Lu said.
Lu said that nine measures to be enacted upon the arrival of the first Chinese students would ensure that the education system, job sector and national security would not be threatened.
The government would not grant Chinese students the “special status” that helps students receive extra credits on their application, as it does with nationals living overseas, Aboriginal students, veterans and others. In addition, the government would not provide scholarships, Lu said.
Lu said, however, that the government would not bar schools from attracting Chinese students with scholarships financed by themselves or other sources.
Chinese students would not take up vacancies for local students, as Chinese students allowed to study in Taiwan would be outside each school’s enrollment quota, he said.
The students would not be allowed to work part-time during their studies, nor would they be allowed to work in the country after graduation. They would also be barred from taking national certificate examinations or public service examinations unless they hold Taiwanese citizenship, Lu said.
Lu said the government would not recognize Chinese medical credentials for the time being as hospital resources for medical students are limited, Lu said.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS