The so-called “letters of commitment” and “statements” signed by public and private universities are all one and the same. There is no difference between the two: They are extensions of the so-called “1992 consensus.”
The unwritten agreement that exists between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Beijing is that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to “one China.” During its latest eight years in government, the KMT relied on this ambiguous agreement as it developed cross-strait trade and tourism, which also led to exchanges between institutions of higher learning.
Public and private universities in Taiwan have gradually begun to accept the so-called “letters of commitment” that have all been directed in accordance with the “1992 consensus.” The possibility to interact with educational institutions in China should be welcomed, but that these exchanges should also come with the requirement that schools sign a letter of commitment or a statement is just outrageous.
Beijing knows only too well that education at Taiwanese universities is open and that there will be no interference with the freedom of expression in the classroom. A letter of commitment or an agreement is just a piece of paper, and it is impossible that signing such a document would have any effect on teaching.
During my many years of teaching at National Chengchi University, there was certain to be Chinese students in the classroom. When they heard me criticizing Beijing, they did not protest or try to refute me.
Prior to the recent revelations about the letters, lecturers did not know that such agreements existed, so it must have been after the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took over government that legislators discovered that the Ministry of Education had struck such dirty deals with China during former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration.
Surely it is a scandal that such covert educational exchanges have been going on for so long.
Since Beijing knows that these letters of commitment will not be able to shake freedom of expression in schools, why is it forcing schools to sign them?
The answer is simple: It intends to reinforce the “1992 consensus.”
The “consensus” might not mean anything, but when China feels that it is necessary, it can still be used to rein in Taiwan. It is the same thing with the “one China, different interpretations” phrase that the KMT keeps bringing up: Beijing is unhappy about it, but it will not burst the bubble.
Since there is no concrete document that specifies what the “1992 consensus” really means, the KMT is repeatedly being forced to accept the “one China” view.
No one in China, from former president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) to incumbant President Xi Jinping (習近平), has ever publicly recognized the “one China, different interpretations” view.
However, because of Beijing’s control of the KMT, Taiwan’s government has always done what Beijing wants.
During Ma’s eight-year presidency, he never stopped following Beijing’s hints. Even the meeting with Xi in Singapore seemed to be all about Ma.
The Singapore meeting was proof that the KMT degrades itself in its dealings with Beijing. There is no such thing as “one China, different interpretations,” but it continues to be used by China to get its hands on Taiwan.
An understanding of this clever trick also shows how clever it is to require Taiwanese schools to sign these letters of commitment and statements.
These documents cannot be used to control university education in Taiwan, but by signing them, these schools accept the “one China” principle.
Many university presidents feel that education at their school is not affected and that it allows them to enroll large numbers of Chinese students to help deal with a shortage of funds.
Yet the universities are endorsing the “one China” condition inherent in the “1992 consensus” by signing these documents. Imperceptibly, this is also raising the credibility of the KMT and the legitimacy of the “1992 consensus.”
When legislators revealed this vile practice, it angered many professors. The reason they were angry was that Taiwan has experienced yet another transition of power and the KMT was resoundingly rejected by voters, which also amounted to a rejection of the “1992 consensus.”
It was the intense dislike of the “1992 consensus” that caused voters to reject the KMT. They thought that this would result in the empty “1992 consensus” being abandoned and had not expected that the demonic letters of commitment would exist in schools.
In short, Beijing has been using the “1992 consensus” as an excuse to indirectly influence Taiwan’s university presidents, while professors had no idea what was going on.
This is a matter of publicly deceiving all Taiwanese and an insult to the transition of power.
It is common knowledge that university budgets are strained and that enrolling Chinese students is the only way to increase funds. In any case, some might say, the government is blocking the “1992 consensus” and democracy in schools is not affected.
If that is what you think, then you are indirectly accepting Beijing’s influence over higher education in Taiwan.
Academics are infuriated because they feel that all this means that the change in government was for nothing, and that universities are selling their soul.
Academia should be about academic issues, so how can people let it be invaded by political forces, and Beijing at that?
If this is not infuriating, is there anything that would be?
The explanations now being offered by one university president after another are not helpful in the least, because Beijing has long been interfering with academic freedom in Taiwan.
Chen Fang-ming is a professor in the Graduate Institute of Taiwanese Literature at National Chengchi University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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