National Chengchi University (NCCU) student group the “Wild Fire Alliance” on Friday handed in 1,378 signatures to school authorities, asking the university to abolish its anthem, which they said contained “party-state ideology.”
Pointing to lyrics to the anthem such as “implementing the Three Principles of the People is our party’s mission/building the Republic of China is our party’s responsibility,” student group spokesperson Yang Tsu-hsien (楊子賢) said that the university’s insistence that students sing the anthem in the annual choir competition “makes it difficult for people to tell whether NCCU is a national university or a university established by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).”
Students said that the phrases “the responsibility of our party” echoed party-state ideologies, adding that it sounded more like brainwashing rather than arousing within the students a sense of pride in their school.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The NCCU was established in 1927 in Nanjing, China, by the KMT as a party university providing training for party members. It was re-established in Taiwan in 1954 under its current name, with Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) serving as the university’s president.
Hsu Tsu-wei (徐子為), another student representative, said the university has been sidestepping and boycotting the students’ call through administrative processes, but added that the university should base their considerations on students in the modern age.
“We should be looking to the future, instead of praising the past,” Hsu said, adding that the alliance is not ruling out action both within and outside the school’s administrative system to abolish the anthem.
“We should seek to retain the dynamism of plurality of values and liberties within modern national universities,” Hsu said.
The student’s actions were supported by NCCU professor Chen Fang-ming (陳芳明), who called on the university to address the issue.
“The school anthem is the product of an authoritarian government, and should not exist within a modern and open-minded university,” Chen said.
In response, university authorities said they respected the students’ proposal and would adopt an open-minded attitude toward any issue that is brought to the university’s consideration under the proper channels.
University chief secretary Kou Chien-wen (寇健文) said the university is not affiliated with any political party and its selection of staff is based strictly on capabilities and academic merit.
The anthem has seen decades of years of history and is an important link between alumni and the university, Kou said, but added that the university would be open to suggestions from student groups.
Additional reporting by CNA
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS