The European Association for Chinese Studies (EACS) has vowed to lodge a protest with China over what it said was a case of political interference in academia by a Chinese government-affiliated body against the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, an executive at the foundation said yesterday.
The incident in question took place on Tuesday last week at the opening ceremony of the EACS’ biennial conference at the Universidade do Minho in Braga, Portugal, when a page about the foundation was reportedly torn out of all brochures for the event to appease visiting Chinese officials.
Upon learning of the incident after the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) broke the news in its Monday edition, the foundation sent a letter to the Paris-based association to demand an explanation.
The executive, who wished to remain anonymous, said the foundation received a reply from EACS president Roger Greatrex later that day, but gave no further details.
The National Central Library, which hosted an exhibition displaying Taiwanese works on Chinese studies on the sidelines of the three-day event, confirmed later on Monday that staff from the Universidade do Minho ripped page 59 from all the brochures after Chinese officials expressed their displeasure at the page.
The staff did not consult with the EACS first, the library said.
Greatrex wrote in the letter that his association had not informed the foundation of the incident earlier because it needed to get the facts straight first, the executive said.
Beijing was represented at the conference by Xu Lin (許琳), director-general of the Hanban, the common name for the Chinese Ministry of Education’s Chinese National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language.
Universidade do Minho is one of several universities in Portugal that host a Confucius Institute in cooperation with the Hanban.
At a recent board meeting, the association made two decisions in response to the incident, she quoted Greatrex’s reply to the foundation as saying.
According the executive, Greatrex wrote in the letter that the association’s board will give the foundation a report on the matter after examining the circumstances surrounding the incident and if it determines that the Universidade do Minho received instructions from Xu to tear out the brochure pages, it will issue a formal letter of protest to Hanban against its political interference in academia.
She said that the foundation was displeased about the incident, but stressed that its complaint was directed at the Hanban, not the EACS.
The foundation has had a very good cooperative relationship with the Parisian association in promoting Chinese studies for more than 20 years, she added.
Established in 1975, the EACS is an international association representing European academics who specialize in Chinese studies. It has more than 700 members.
Seven of the 17 NT$10 million (US$311,604) winning receipts from the November-December uniform invoice lottery remain unclaimed as of today, the Ministry of Finance said, urging winners to redeem their prizes by May 5. The reminder comes ahead of the release of the winning numbers for the January-February lottery tomorrow. Among the unclaimed receipts was one for a NT$173 phone bill in Keelung, while others were for a NT$5,913 purchase at Costco in Taipei's Neihu District (內湖), a NT$49 purchase at a FamilyMart in New Taipei City's Tamsui District (淡水), and a NT$500 purchase at a tea shop in New Taipei City's
Taiwanese officials were shown the first of 66 F-16V fighter jets purchased by Taiwan from the United States, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday, adding the aircraft has completed an initial flight test and is expected to be delivered later this year. A delegation led by Deputy Minister of National Defense Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) visited Lockheed Martin’s F-16 C/D Block 70 (also known as F-16V) assembly line in South Carolina on March 16 to view the aircraft. The jet will undergo a final acceptance flight in the US before being delivered to Taiwan, the
Deliveries of delayed F-16V jets are expected to begin in September, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said today, after senior defense officials visited the US last week. The US in 2019 approved a US$8 billion sale of Lockheed Martin F-16 jets to Taiwan, a deal that would take the nation’s F-16 fleet to more than 200 jets, but the project has been hit by issues including software problems. Koo appeared today before a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which is discussing different versions of the special defense budget this week. The committee is questioning officials today,
TALENT SCOUTING: The university is investing substantial funds in its future to bring in the kind of researchers that would keep the college internationally competitive National Taiwan University (NTU) plans to invest NT$2 billion (US$62.6 million) to launch two programs aimed at attracting and retaining top research talent, university president Chen Wen-chang (陳文章) said yesterday. The funding would support the “Palm Grove Scholars Project,” which targets academics aged 40 to 55. Up to 20 scholars would be selected, each receiving as much as NT$10 million annually, Chen said. The initiative is designed to attract leading researchers to Taiwan and strengthen NTU’s global competitiveness by fostering a more research-friendly environment and expanding international collaboration, he said. NTU is also introducing a “Hong Hu” chair grant, which would provide Palm
RSS