Amid local media reports that Beijing has banned Chinese students from studying in Taiwan, the Ministry of Education yesterday said that it was not aware of a decision.
It said it would ask the China-based University Entrance Committee for Mainland Students to clarify whether China was planning to issue a ban — or to restrict the number of students allowed to travel to Taiwan each year for study.
The Chinese-language Apple Daily yesterday reported that China is planning to restrict students who wanted to study in Taiwan because the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was now in power.
The newspaper said it had received a tip from a reader, surnamed Chen (陳), who said a Chinese student seeking permission to study in Taiwan had been told by his school in Jilin Province to “be prepared not to go to Taiwan this semester.”
“Due to changing circumstances across the [Taiwan] Strait, [China’s] Taiwan Affairs Office has issued an order for schools to stop processing all applications for study in Taiwan pending further notification by the office,” the paper said.
The newspaper also printed a screenshot of a text message from the Chinese student to a compatriot in Taiwan, saying that he “cannot come to Taiwan.”
If the report is confirmed, it would be another significant change in China’s cross-strait policy since the DPP won the Jan. 16 presidential and legislative elections, following the 31 percent year on year drop in Chinese tourist arrivals last month.
A China-based Taiwanese businessman operating an educational information exchange platform was cited in the report as saying that since the election of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Chinese education authorities at all levels have been asked to stop exchanges with Taiwan.
The Apple Daily said that the Taiwan Affairs Office has ordered a suspension of all cross-strait educational exchanges over the next four years, adding that when such exchanges would resume depended on the DPP government’s cross-strait policy.
The head of the Association of Private Universities and Colleges said he has sent a text message to member universities asking them to try to verify the matter with their Chinese counterparts in terms of educational exchanges.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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