A government document ordering schools’ procurement of teaching materials that mark Nanjing as the capital of the Republic of China (ROC) and Taipei as the current location of the central government indicated President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration’s persistent attempts to promote the links between Taiwan and China, as well as the administration’s misinterpretation of the Constitution, lawmakers and academics said yesterday.
A photograph posted by National Taipei University of Education professor Lee Hsiao-feng (李筱峰) on Facebook yesterday, which showed a Ministry of Education document issued on Monday to schools nationwide, went viral on the Internet.
“The document reflects the Ma administration’s ideology and its state of mind as a government-in-exile, which the majority of Taiwanese do not agree with. We should not be surprised because Ma has always tried to go against the trend,” Lee said.
Photo downloaded from Lee Hsiao-feng’s Facebook page
The professor said the photo was taken by one of his students, who is a teacher.
“Although Taiwan and mainland China have been marked with different colors in the textbook, Nanjing should be the ROC capital and Taipei is the current location of the central government, according to the ROC Constitution,” the document said.
Due to universal standards in map legends, Taipei would still be marked as the capital on the maps in teaching materials, but teachers are obligated to clearly explain the complexity of the situation to their students, the ministry said in the document, which was sent to high schools, vocational schools, junior-high schools and elementary schools across the country, except for those in Taipei, Greater Kaohsiung and New Taipei City (新北市).
Lee said that Ma has been trying to sinicize teaching materials, for example by insisting on referring to the period during which Taiwan was a Japanese colony as the “Japanese occupation period” in high-school textbooks.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) said the Constitution does not designate any city as the capital.
“Ma has been using the Constitution as a political tool to link Taiwan with China and to endorse his initiative of ‘one country, two regions.’ Everyone knows it’s nonsense and his interpretation of cross-strait relations is far from reality,” Lee Chun-yi said.
Under Ma’s leadership, government officials’ interpretation of the nation’s status has been “absurd,” he added, citing the example of Mongolian and Tibetan Commission Minister Tsai Yu-ling (蔡玉玲), who recently said that Mongolia remains ROC territory.
Ma has been inconsistent, DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said, as he said he wanted to “make Taipei a world-class capital city” when he served as Taipei mayor.
The DPP administration between 2000 and 2008 reiterated that Taipei is the ROC capital, Chen said.
“Judging by a series of policy changes during the Ma administration, it has been engaging in a ‘de-Taiwanization campaign’ in an attempt to brainwash students and to force Ma’s ‘one China’ ideology upon young people,” Chen said.
Later yesterday, the ministry official in charge of the matter said he would take full administrative responsibility for not making the ministry’s intent clear in the document.
The head of the ministry’s K-12 Education Administration Division, Chiu Chien-kuo (邱乾國), said that during the Period of Political Tutelage (訓政時期), it had been mentioned that the capital of the nation was Nanjing, but there was no such mention in the Constitution after its ratification.
Since the implementation of the Act Governing Principles for Editing Geographical Educational Texts (地理教科書編審原則) in 1997, the guiding principle for all maps in geographical textbooks was that Taipei was to be marked as the capital with a label stating: “Location of Central Government,” Chiu said.
The part in the ministry’s document mentioning Nanjing did not provide a detailed explanation, for which he extended his apology, saying he was willing to assume responsibility for any administrative lapse, he added.
Additional reporting by staff writer
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS