An announcement on Friday by a National Chengchi University (NCCU) committee that changes to the school’s unpopular politically charged anthem would need to wait until September drew fire from student protesters.
The school was founded in 1927 in Nanjing as the then-Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Central School of Party Affairs to train party cadres, which is still reflected in its anthem lyrics. Protesters said that incoming students would refuse to sing the anthem until the lyrics have been changed.
Reflecting the political atmosphere in China at the time of the school’s founding, the lyrics play on themes such as revolution, shared party membership and the Three Principles of the People espoused by Republic of China founder Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙).
The lyrics have in past years frequently become the subject of discussion among teachers and students who question how they fit into the nation’s trend toward transitional justice.
Student advocate group NCCU Wild Fire last year formed a petition to have the lyrics changed, which the school responded to by forming a committee to discuss the issue.
The committee has released proposed changes including changing “revolution” to “country,” “Three Principles of the People” to “democracy and rule of law,” “our party” to “us,” and “establish the Republic of China” to “protect freedom and human rights.”
At Friday’s meeting the committee said it has collected input on the proposed changes over 62 days, adding that it suggests keeping both versions of the anthem so that students and faculty may sing whichever version they prefer.
Campus reporter Yvonne Wu (吳映璠) cited both students in favor of the changes and those against them.
National Chengchi University public administration alumna Ruth Chen (陳盈如) said she “would feel that the spirit of my home [the school] is gone” if the lyrics were changed.
Others, such as law senior Ting Yu-hsiang (丁友翔), said the anthem is no longer in touch with the school’s spirit.
“A school anthem should not be created to praise a specific political party,” Wu cited Ting as saying.
NCCU Wild Fire head Yang Tzu-hsien (楊子賢) accused the committee of delaying implementation of the revised lyrics.
Younger students in particular are averse to singing the current lyrics, he said, adding that the committee should speed up the changes.
Meanwhile, protests calling for the removal of two Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) statues would also need to await September’s meeting to be resolved, the committee handling that issue said, adding that both issues would be handled at the same time.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods