Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) on Tuesday warned education providers to abide by the law when engaging in activities involving China.
Pan was responding to reports that National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) had hosted an office that recruited talent for China’s semiconductor industry.
NTHU on Monday said in a statement that the Cross-Strait Tsinghua Research Institute office was founded by an alumni group and denied any involvement in its operations.
Pan said that an investigation would be launched to determine whether other Taiwanese institutions had similar offices.
It is unclear how the office — reportedly founded in Xiamen, China, in 2015 by NTHU alumni, Beijing-based Tsinghua University and the Xiamen City Government — was able to operate for six years unnoticed, during which time it might have poached numerous people from Taiwan’s technology sector. Given the state of cross-strait relations, the situation is a national security concern.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Shih-ying (蔡適應) on Monday asked whether retired air force general Hsia Ying-chou’s (夏瀛洲) defense of Chinese incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone constituted a national security threat, but Chinese government-funded offices on the campuses of Taiwanese universities pose a significantly greater threat than the comments of a retired general. Such offices not only allow China to poach talent — something about which Taipei has expressed concern numerous times — but also provide Beijing with a channel to influence academic discourse, and a space from which to conduct espionage and disinformation campaigns.
Taiwan is not the only nation that has campuses apparently infiltrated by the Chinese government. US Senator Marsha Blackburn and US Representative Michelle Steel on April 6 called on the US Department of Education to consider Taiwanese alternatives to China’s Confucius Institutes for Mandarin-language study. The politicians recognized that the centers were avenues for Chinese infiltration, saying that they were “funded and overseen by an affiliate of the Chinese Ministry of Education.” In August last year, the US Department of State designated the program’s Washington headquarters as a foreign mission.
If China uses language centers to penetrate US campuses, it would be even more willing to do the same in Taiwan. It is imperative that Taipei closely regulate Chinese activity on Taiwanese campuses.
There are no significant benefits to allowing Chinese entities to operate on campuses here, even though Taiwan should allow Chinese students to study here, allowing them free access to information and providing a Taiwanese perspective on the cross-strait relationship.
However, such exchanges are fraught with risk, because although Taiwan harbors no ill will toward China, the same cannot be said of the reverse. The best way to protect young Taiwanese might be to prohibit academic and cultural exchanges with China, but if the ruling party capitulates to pro-China opposition parties, then all movement and financial transactions linked to such exchanges should be scrutinized.
There is no reason to allow corrupt alumni of Taiwanese universities to profit from Beijing’s unscrupulous actions.
International exchanges are good for university students, as they are an opportunity to experience different cultures and ways of life, but if exchanges with China mean that young Taiwanese are subjected to indoctrination or poached by Chinese firms — where they bolster Chinese industry and are commonly discarded once their usefulness has waned — then perhaps the government should consider not allowing exchanges with China at all.
There are many friendly alternatives in Oceania, Europe, North America and elsewhere.
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