President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday called on academics not to be “narrow-minded” and “stingy” on the issue of including Chinese students under Taiwan’s National Health Insurance (NHI) program.
Not including them in the program is “bad” and “not the way of a civilized country,” Ma said at a meeting of the presidents of Taiwanese universities at National Chi Nan University in Nantou County.
Ma said that when he served as Taipei mayor (1998 to 2006), he wanted Chinese students to come to Taiwan because “exchanges of students are an important means to promote peace.”
Taiwan opened its doors to Chinese students in 2011, and the first have already graduated, but Chinese students are still not covered by the NHI, Ma said.
Ma said the program stands to lose nothing.
“Taiwan must not be too stingy on this, but should be magnanimous and take the high road,” Ma said.
Ma said that some worry Chinese students could dilute the nation’s medical resources, but he argued that Chinese students are young people and seldom make use of healthcare facilities.
He also said Taiwan needs students from outside the nation because of Taiwan’s declining birth rate and lower local university enrollment, and he described the peace dividend brought by recruiting more Chinese students to Taiwan as “unimaginable.”
Ma said he still has three months in office and will work toward having Chinese students covered under the program.
“Chinese students who come to Taiwan will come to cherish its democratic system, or would at least come to think that it would not be such a bad thing for Taiwan to exist beside [China],” Ma said, adding there are many benefits to be gained from increased interaction on both sides.
Upon meeting Ma at the forum, a number of university presidents raised various issues, including a National Chengchi University request to set up a class for Chinese chief executive officers, National Taipei University of Technology’s unequal funding claims and I-Shou University wanting to allow more Chinese students to study in Taiwan.
Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) said Taiwan must enter negotiations with China if it is to increase the number of Chinese students applying to study in Taiwan, adding that the Ministry of Education is to mark the issue as important.
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