During former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration, former chairwoman of the Council on Cultural Affairs — now the Ministry of Culture — Tchen Yu-hsiu (陳郁秀) promoted Taiwan’s application for UNESCO’s World Heritage List as a way of leveraging culture to gain international recognition. Following a lengthy screening of 18 possible cultural sites, Alishan remains the only viable option.
For 10 years, Alishan Young Ambassadors — a student organization established by Chiayi County’s Jhuci Senior High School, which is at the foot of Alishan — has assisted the government in promoting the mountain to become a World Heritage Site. On Friday and Saturday last week, they convened the 2025 International Youth Conference of Alishan World Heritage Potential Site to discuss the value of Alishan as a World Heritage Site.
Taiwan, as its globalized self, has long existed on the international stage. Since the Age of Discovery, it has interacted with foreign cultures, converging with cultural traditions to form a unique cultural space. It possesses a global historical perspective and a deep, historical context rooted in the Age of Exploration.
Taiwan has been influenced by Han Chinese culture and Japanese culture, in addition to having inherited facets of the US’ new world order after World War II. All of these factors have shaped the nation’s unique identity.
Among Taiwan’s many cultural influences, the Japanese colonial period was one of the most vital to the country’s modernization. Through the development of the railway system, Taiwan became connected to the world, and the world, in turn, has grown closer to Taiwan. The railway is an emblem of civilization and a window to enlightenment.
In 2001, Japanese railway engineers Takai Mitsuru and Shirai Akira proposed to the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency the idea of promoting the Alishan Forest Railway as a World Heritage Site. In 2006, with Shirai’s assistance, Taiwanese representatives attended the Asia-Pacific Cultural Heritage Centre for UNESCO as observers.
In January that same year, the international railway heritage conference and symposium was held in Nara, Japan. During the conference, a statement was issued urging the international community to recognize the cultural heritage status of the Alishan Railway — the first of many steps toward allowing the international community to hear Taiwan’s voice and support Alishan’s bid to become a World Heritage Site.
In the past few years, the relationship between Taiwan and Japan has gradually improved. The effort to help Alishan Railway achieve World Heritage status has provided Taiwan with the opportunity to present its cultural identity on the UNESCO stage, boosting the nation’s visibility and showcasing its cultural competitiveness.
As this movement was originally proposed by two Japanese, Taiwan should strive to bolster its cooperation with the Japanese government and its citizens.
Japan’s influence in the UN — and throughout the international community — is growing steadily. Now is the perfect time for Taiwan and Japan to join hands in advocating for and securing the Alishan Railway’s status as a World Heritage Site. That should prove to be one of the most effective cultural strategies for increasing Taiwan’s visibility and advancing its place on the international stage.
Chen Chun-sheng is a writer.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
From the Iran war and nuclear weapons to tariffs and artificial intelligence, the agenda for this week’s Beijing summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is packed. Xi would almost certainly bring up Taiwan, if only to demonstrate his inflexibility on the matter. However, no one needs to meet with Xi face-to-face to understand his stance. A visit to the National Museum of China in Beijing — in particular, the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibition, which chronicles the rise and rule of the Chinese Communist Party — might be even more revealing. Xi took the members
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on Friday used their legislative majority to push their version of a special defense budget bill to fund the purchase of US military equipment, with the combined spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.78 billion). The bill, which fell short of the Executive Yuan’s NT$1.25 trillion request, was passed by a 59-0 margin with 48 abstentions in the 113-seat legislature. KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), who reportedly met with TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) for a private meeting before holding a joint post-vote news conference, was said to have mobilized her
Taiwan’s higher education system is facing an existential crisis. As the demographic drop-off continues to empty classrooms, universities across the island are locked in a desperate battle for survival, international student recruitment and crucial Ministry of Education funding. To win this battle, institutions have turned to what seems like an objective measure of quality: global university rankings. Unfortunately, this chase is a costly illusion, and taxpayers are footing the bill. In the past few years, the goalposts have shifted from pure research output to “sustainability” and “societal impact,” largely driven by commercial metrics such as the UK-based Times Higher Education (THE) Impact
The inter-Korean relationship, long defined by national division, offers the clearest mirror within East Asia for cross-strait relations. Yet even there, reunification language is breaking down. The South Korean government disclosed on Wednesday last week that North Korea’s constitutional revision in March had deleted references to reunification and added a territorial clause defining its border with South Korea. South Korea is also seriously debating whether national reunification with North Korea is still necessary. On April 27, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung marked the eighth anniversary of the Panmunjom Declaration, the 2018 inter-Korean agreement in which the two Koreas pledged to
RSS