Cross-strait politics entered the world of science recently after a Chinese neurobiologist insisted that Taiwanese co-authors identify their university as being located in “Taiwan, China.”
News of the spat were first reported by ScienceInsider, a blog of the Science journal, on Friday, which said that cross-strait cooperation on scientific research had accelerated in the past decade. Usually, collaborators from both sides stayed clear of politics by avoiding references to “Republic of China” and “People’s Republic of China” and simply using “Taiwan” and China” respectively, it said.
However, the growing sense of nationalism in China appears to have entered the lab, with neurobiologist Rao Yi (饒毅) of Peking University insisting that a Taiwanese team led by neurobiologist Chiang Ann-shyn (江安世) of National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) in Hsinchu, which collaborated with Rao’s group on research, identify the university as being located in “Taiwan, China.”
Following back-and-forth visits and “exchanges of ideas,” one of Chiang’s students assisted Rao’s research team with scientific experiments seeking to understand the role of octopamine, a biomolecule, in the brain of Drosophila, a genus of small flies commonly known as “fruit flies.”
Rao drafted a paper on the findings and included Chiang and the student as co-authors. However, references to NTHU located it in “Taiwan, China.”
“It was unexpected,” Chiang is quoted as saying in the story, adding that projects funded by the National Science Council give scientists the right to state their address as “Taiwan” or “Taiwan, Republic of China.”
Rao, ScienceInsider said, also requested that the Taiwanese scientific community endorse such designation for universities in Taiwan.
In a letter to National Science Council Minister Lee Lou-chuang (李羅權) last week, in which the editor-in-chief of Science magazine was copied, Rao said a reasonable compromise was for the two sides to drop the “PR” and the “RO,” while retaining the word “China.” He said his group was willing to drop the PRC designation from its address and simply use “Beijing, China,” adding that Taiwan should reciprocate.
In a follow-up e-mail to ScienceInsider, Rao explained the rationale behind his decision.
“On the mainland [sic] side, the major concern is about Taiwan independence. When a paper lists ‘Taipei, Taiwan’ together with ‘Beijing, China,’ it equates Taiwan with China, not as a part of it,” he wrote.
If the council does not change the rule, it would be “extremely difficult for mainland Chinese scientists to co-author papers explicitly or implicitly endorsing a Taiwan that is not a part of China,” he said.
Rao’s contention goes in the face of nearly 15 years of scientific collaboration across the Taiwan Strait, which started with joint efforts between Academia Sinica’s Institute of Physics and the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of High Energy Physics.
“We have been using the ‘Taipei, Taiwan’ and ‘Beijing, China’ affiliation format in our publications since the birth of the [collaboration] in 1997,” says Henry Wong, who handles collaboration on Taiwan’s side, was quoted as saying.
According to National Science Council Deputy Minister Chen Cheng-hong (陳正宏), the number of papers with co-authors from Taiwan and China grew from 1,035 in 2009 to 1,207 last year.
For his part, Chiang took the incident in stride.
“Personally, I believe that China and Taiwan are heading [in] a friendly direction. With more patience, I hope we can all contribute to promoting scientific collaboration between the two sides,” he said.
Taiwan does not exclude the possibility of having formal diplomatic relations with countries that also have formal ties with China, regardless of Beijing’s stance, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Sunday. There was speculation in 2012 that Honduras was attempting to have simultaneous diplomatic relations with Taiwan and China, an idea that then-minister of foreign affairs David Lin (林永樂) rejected. Honduras severed formal ties with Taiwan on Sunday morning after establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing. President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration has taken a more practical approach to relations with like-minded countries since assuming government in 2016. Previous administrations took the
Seven senior faculty members, including the principal, of a high school in Taichung were temporarily suspended from their jobs on Friday, pending an investigation by the Taichung Education Bureau into alleged bullying and abuse that led to the suicide of a student last month. The city’s education officials were too slow to suspend those involved, the student’s father told a news conference on Wednesday, at which Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chang Liao Wan-chien (張廖萬堅) and members of the Humanistic Education Foundation were also present. The boy had been a good student and a high achiever during elementary and junior-high, and had
ORIGIN UNKNOWN: The Leofoo Village Theme Park and Taipei Zoo have accounted for their baboons, as authorities continue a 12-day capture attempt Authorities in Taoyuan are searching for a non-native baboon, possibly of the chacma species, that has been spotted several times in the city’s Pingjhen District (平鎮) over the past 12 days, and was most recently seen in coastal Sinwu District (新屋). The baboon was first spotted near a local factory on March 10 in central Taoyuan, Jhensing Borough Warden Huang Chih-chieh (黃志杰) said. Huang said he requested the Leofoo Village Theme Park’s help after a second sighting on Saturday. In other sightings, the baboon raided fruit and vegetable gardens on private property, and has evaded one capture attempt via a tranquilizer dart. Media reported
Taiwan would have established formal relations with Argentina long ago if not for China’s interference, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Yui told US-based Spanish-language online news outlet Infobae in an interview published on Tuesday. Beijing has left behind a string of unfulfilled promises in Latin America, including pledges to build the Grand Nicaragua Canal and airports, docks, ports and industrial zones in El Salvador, he said. Meanwhile, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and other countries enjoy pragmatic and improving relations with Taiwan based on cooperation on the economy, culture, technology and science, he said. While Taiwan is “happy to live and let live,”
RSS