In 2004, Buddhist Master Hsing Yun (星雲) wrote a letter to fellow Buddhists during the Lunar New Year, saying that Taiwanese were originally from provinces in China, which means the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are essentially Chinese.
On Jan. 6, I visited Buddhist organization Fo Guang Shan to explain to Hsing Yun the notion that Taiwanese are not Chinese, and I asked Abbot Hui Lun (慧倫) to pass on historical documents, my works and other materials.
The documents I gave Hsing Yun were great in detail and number.
I gave him two simple examples of evidence:
First, page 60 of Volume 3 of Lien Heng’s (連橫) The General History of Taiwan (台灣通史) says that in the 23rd year of Emperor Qianlong’s (乾隆帝) reign — 1758 — Taiwanese were ordered to change their surnames to Han Chinese surnames.
Second, Volume 15 of General History, “The Book of Settlement and Appeasement,” says that “the domesticated savages were gradually assimilated into the Han culture. To fall in line with the national system, they were ordered to shave their heads and were given Han surnames.”
If Taiwanese were from provinces in China, why would they need to change their surnames? This proves that Hsing Yun’s theory that Taiwanese are Chinese is false.
Hui Lun must have passed the information on to Hsing Yun, because on May 13, 2010, when Hsing Yun met with Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), then-chairman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, in Beijing, he said: “Both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese,” but the next day, when he met with Wang Yi (王毅), who was director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office at the time, he did not make the same statement again.
He only used the word “compatriots,” and did not mention Taiwanese or Chinese.
In Buddhist terms, he must have repented.
The evidence is sufficient to show that it is false for Taiwan’s history textbooks to claim that “Taiwanese are part of an immigrant society from China.”
If Taiwanese were truly Chinese immigrants, they would have already had Han Chinese surnames, and therefore would have had no need to change them.
Sim Kiantek is a former associate professor in the Department of Business Administration at National Chung Hsing University.
Translated by Rita Wang
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