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.
The central bank and the US Department of the Treasury on Friday issued a joint statement that both sides agreed to avoid currency manipulation and the use of exchange rates to gain a competitive advantage, and would only intervene in foreign-exchange markets to combat excess volatility and disorderly movements. The central bank also agreed to disclose its foreign-exchange intervention amounts quarterly rather than every six months, starting from next month. It emphasized that the joint statement is unrelated to tariff negotiations between Taipei and Washington, and that the US never requested the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar during the
Since leaving office last year, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been journeying across continents. Her ability to connect with international audiences and foster goodwill toward her country continues to enhance understanding of Taiwan. It is possible because she can now walk through doors in Europe that are closed to President William Lai (賴清德). Tsai last week gave a speech at the Berlin Freedom Conference, where, standing in front of civil society leaders, human rights advocates and political and business figures, she highlighted Taiwan’s indispensable global role and shared its experience as a model for democratic resilience against cognitive warfare and
The diplomatic dispute between China and Japan over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments in the Japanese Diet continues to escalate. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong (傅聰) wrote that, “if Japan dares to attempt an armed intervention in the cross-Strait situation, it would be an act of aggression.” There was no indication that Fu was aware of the irony implicit in the complaint. Until this point, Beijing had limited its remonstrations to diplomatic summonses and weaponization of economic levers, such as banning Japanese seafood imports, discouraging Chinese from traveling to Japan or issuing
The diplomatic spat between China and Japan over comments Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made on Nov. 7 continues to worsen. Beijing is angry about Takaichi’s remarks that military force used against Taiwan by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” necessitating the involvement of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Rather than trying to reduce tensions, Beijing is looking to leverage the situation to its advantage in action and rhetoric. On Saturday last week, four armed China Coast Guard vessels sailed around the Japanese-controlled Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known to Japan as the Senkakus. On Friday, in what
RSS