A company providing access to an online database of academic theses and dissertations has been accused of cooperating with Chinese political censorship and content revisions.
Media reports said that master’s theses and doctoral dissertations by students at local universities, including National Taiwan University (NTU), had all instances of “my country” changed to “Taiwan.”
Not a single word should be changed in papers authorized by students and professors, NTU president Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) said yesterday on the sidelines of an NTU event.
Photo: Wu Po-hsuan, Taipei Times
No one is allowed to revise papers that have been authorized, he said, adding that it was a fundamental rule in academia.
For example, it would be unreasonable if automated translation software changed every mention of “New Taiwan dollar” in a paper to “New Chinese Taipei dollar,” he said.
The university would ask businesses not to make changes, he said.
The Ministry of Education said that the nation’s sovereignty should not be belittled.
The ministry would instruct universities and colleges to evaluate their database vendors, it said.
If improper actions are found, universities should immediately demand that the vendors make improvements, it said, adding that the universities should terminate their contracts if no improvements are made.
Airiti (華藝) — the vendor in question — said in a statement on Wednesday that when it exports Taiwanese academic content, the content is in its original form.
The Chinese market has certain particularities, so the metadata can be tweaked to increase the possibility of the content being discovered in an online search, but the body of a work would not be touched, Airiti said.
NTU sociology professor Ho Ming-sho (何明修) wrote on Facebook on Wednesday that a keyword search of his full name resulted in 23 hits on Airitilibrary.cn and 57 results on Airitilibrary.com, despite the databases belonging to the same company.
Not all of the 57 search results on the second platform were his articles, but articles of his that were missing could be considered “sensitive,” including a 2017 article titled “The Third Force and Umbrella Soldiers: Comparing the Elections of Taiwan after the Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong after the Umbrella Movement,” Ho said.
An Airiti representative said that it is inevitable that different countries and regions have different regulations.
The company can only respect that a database subscriber chooses the content they need, the representative said.
The Ministry of the Interior (MOI) is to tighten rules for candidates running for public office, requiring them to declare that they do not hold a Chinese household registration or passport, and that they possess no other foreign citizenship. The requirement was set out in a draft amendment to the Enforcement Rules of the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法 ) released by the ministry on Thursday. Under the proposal, candidates would need to make the declaration when submitting their registration forms, which would be published in the official election bulletin. The move follows the removal of several elected officials who were
The Republic of China (ROC) is celebrating its 114th Double Ten National Day today, featuring military parades and a variety of performances and speeches in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei. The Taiwan Taiko Association opened the celebrations with a 100-drummer performance, including young percussionists. As per tradition, an air force Mirage 2000 fighter jet flew over the Presidential Office as a part of the performance. The Honor Guards of the ROC and its marching band also heralded in a military parade. Students from Taichung's Shin Min High School then followed with a colorful performance using floral imagery to represent Taiwan's alternate name
FOUR DESIGNATED AREAS: Notices were issued for live-fire exercises in waters south and northwest of Penghu, northeast of Keelung and west of Kaohsiung, they said The military is planning three major annual exercises across the army, navy and air force this month, with the navy’s “Hai Chiang” (海強, “Sea Strong”) drills running from today through Thursday, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday. The Hai Chiang exercise, which is to take place in waters surrounding Taiwan, would feature P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft and S-70C anti-submarine helicopters, the ministry said, adding that the drills aim to bolster the nation’s offshore defensive capabilities. China has intensified military and psychological pressure against Taiwan, repeatedly sending warplanes and vessels into areas near the nation’s air defense identification zone and across
A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would severely threaten the national security of the US, Japan, the Philippines and other nations, while global economic losses could reach US$10 trillion, National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) wrote in an article published yesterday in Foreign Affairs. “The future of Taiwan is not merely a regional concern; it is a test of whether the international order can withstand the pressure of authoritarian expansionism,” Lin wrote in the article titled “Taiwan’s Plan for Peace Through Strength — How Investments in Resilience Can Deter Beijing.” Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) intent to take Taiwan by force
RSS