Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators yesterday paralyzed the budget review of the legislature's Education and Culture Committee in protest against the Ministry of Education's (MOE) China policy.
Although the DPP only accounted for three seats in the committee, all of the party's 27 legislators attended the meeting, holding up banners and posters to show their dissatisfaction with the ministry's plan to allow Chinese students to enroll in universities in Taiwan.
“We oppose [the acceptance of] Chinese credentials and do not welcome [Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman] Chen Yunlin (陳雲林),” they chanted.
The DPP caucus proposed that Minister of Education Cheng Jei-cheng (鄭瑞城) report on the ministry's China policy and its impact to the committee, despite the fact the committee was scheduled to review the ministry's budget requests for the next fiscal year.
“The MOE reached many major resolutions regarding the nation's education policy without special reports to the legislature,” DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. “The changes include allowing students from China to attend universities in Taiwan and allowing universities to offer continuing education programs in China. [The MOE also resolved to adopt] Hanyu pinyin as our nation's major Romanization system, even though the adoption remains controversial.”
The ministry was conducting “under-the-table deals,” Kuan said, adding that recent opinion polls showed that as many as 60 percent of respondents had reservations about recognizing Chinese credentials.
The ministry had submitted its proposed amendment to the University Law (大學法) to the Executive Yuan to seek to legalize Chinese students' enrollment in universities in Taiwan.
The proposal will be referred to the legislature for review next week.
In a bid to smooth the path for the review of the ministry's budget requests, People First Party Legislator Lin Cheng-er (林正二), head of the committee, invited pan-blue and pan-green lawmakers to discuss the meeting's agenda.
But during the negotiation, a heated exchange broke out between Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus deputy secretary-general Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and DPP legislators Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) and Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃).
Yang accused the DPP lawmakers of giving the legislature's secretariat a hard time, while Lin and Chen accused the KMT-dominated committee of being too easy on the ministry's proposals.
The meeting was later adjourned as both sides failed to reach any agreement.
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