The Ministry of Education’s curriculum review committee selected 15 articles to be included in senior-high school Chinese textbooks, including replacing “Preface to the General History of Taiwan (台灣通史)” with “Rafting in Lugang.”
Some have criticized the decision to remove the article as an attempt by the government to desinicize Taiwan, but that is not true. The problem with the article is not its “Chineseness,” but rather its colonial ideology.
The article claims that “Taiwan had no history before the Dutch came,” which suggests that attempts by outsiders to colonize Taiwan were not wrong and that developing areas previously inhabited by Aborigines and trying to subjugate them was necessary for the progress of civilization.
To criticize that approach is therefore mainly to reject the legitimacy of the colonization of Taiwan. If there was any degree of desinicization involved, it would have been because that was a necessary part of this process, a process that would also entail removing anything that suggests an ideology that is Koxinga (鄭成功), Spain, Netherlands, Qing or Japan-centric.
History reflects the reality of those who write it. Often, this includes prejudices commonly held in the past, but clearly problematic to people years later.
Lien Heng’s (連橫) General History of Taiwan was approved by the Japanese colonial government and was certainly not written from the point of view of Taiwanese. Its distorted views on Aborigines reflect a long-standing problem in Taiwan that has existed for many years under both foreign and local regimes.
The same criticism also extends to Taiwanese who hold the same views about Aborigines today. Those who sympathize with the misrepresented Aborigines do not need to overreact, and critics certainly do not need to blame any particular historian for the discrimination against Aborigines that has taken place in the past 300 to 400 years.
The lesson to be learned from this is that the nation’s history must be re-examined from a Taiwanese point of view and that Taiwanese must purge themselves of any outdated ideological prejudices. To create a better future, Taiwanese must continue to enlighten themselves and confront their own dark sides.
Another problem with the senior-high curriculum is that most history textbooks claim that Japan handed over Taiwan to the Republic of China (ROC) based on the Cairo Declaration.
Academics have questioned the assumption and expressed worries that the misunderstanding could be used by China as a “legal basis” for its “one China” principle. Therefore, the Tainan Bureau of Education has issued an article with the correct information about the handover to the city’s senior-high schools.
The Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration have, since the 1940s, been used as the legal basis for Taiwan’s handover to the ROC. The interpretation has been accepted as politically correct and written in textbooks.
As a result, many Taiwanese have been brainwashed into believing that to be true, when what really determined Taiwan’s fate at the end of World War II was the Treaty of San Francisco.
Unlike the declarations, which were unilateral statements from nations involved in the war, the Treaty of San Francisco was an agreement signed by Japan and the Allied nations.
According to the treaty, which took effect in 1952, Japan was to give up Taiwan, but it was not mentioned whether Taiwan was to become a part of the ROC or the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
This suggests that Taiwan belongs only to Taiwanese and was not supposed to become a part of any other nation. In addition, the US’ Taiwan Relations Act treats Taiwan like a quasi-nation, and China’s “Anti-Secession” Law has no control over Taiwan.
These facts are more telling about Taiwan’s status than any political discourse.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have continued to erroneously promote their views about Taiwan based on the Cairo and Potsdam declarations while ignoring the Treaty of San Francisco, thus creating many unnecessary problems for Taiwan.
To safeguard the nation’s sovereignty and to help it become a normal country, Taiwanese must know the truth about its sovereignty.
This means that everything from official government statements to elementary and high-school textbooks should all be corrected. If not, the older generation will continue to brainwash the younger generation and eventually Taiwanese will be deceived into giving away their sovereignty — which would be a terrible mistake.
That the Tainan City Government had to issue separate teaching materials to ensure that students receive the correct information about Taiwan shows that, even though the Democratic Progressive Party now controls both the presidency and the Legislative Yuan, it is still afraid to challenge old political discourse about the nation.
It is as if the CCP, the KMT and their supporters in education still control who can speak and what can be said about the nation’s sovereignty.
There is a saying that “the first step to conquering a nation is to erase its history.” When a nation is conquered, its history is often rewritten from the perspective of the conqueror.
The General History of Taiwan and discourses about Taiwan’s “return” to the ROC are all attempts by the Chinese conquerors to rewrite Taiwan’s history.
Now that academics have finally begun deconstructing the General History of Taiwan, why can Taiwanese not reconstruct the nation’s history based on the Treaty of San Francisco?
While the General History of Taiwan was published in 1920, the Treaty of San Francisco took effect in 1952. Although Taiwan has yet to regain its sovereignty, the PRC is working with the KMT, the foreign regime that occupied Taiwan before it could, to become the new foreign ruler of Taiwan.
Apparently, the KMT wants to make Taiwan one of its outlying islands, an extension to its “mainland.”
The KMT can choose to be the master of its own fate, but has decided to join the CCP in promoting unification. As a result, the KMT has become an obstacle for Taiwan, preventing it from becoming a normal country.
Since last year, Beijing has heavily criticized the Taiwanese government for promoting “cultural independence,” which reflects its deep fear of Taiwanese developing a sense of national identity and attempting to become a normal country.
The reason is simple: If Taiwanese develop a more complete sense of national identity in their democratic environment, they can purge themselves of the influences imposed on them by external powers and prevent more attempts by other powers to colonize Taiwan.
From that point on, no Chinese parties — whether the CCP or the KMT — would be able to make Taiwanese their second-class citizens, as Taiwanese would be able to see through them.
Translated by Tu Yu-an
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