Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) yesterday urged Taiwanese academics and students to be cautious before going on trips to China, after a National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) professor was criticized for taking a group of students to China in an “academic exchange.”
Jou Jwo-huei (周卓煇), a material sciences professor, led a group of 28 students from NTHU and Shu Guang Senior Girls’ High School in Hsinchu City on a five-day trip to Tianjin, China.
The visit, which started on March 29, was advertised as an academic exchange on “light and health,” a person posting online as “Little Woman of Silicon Valley” (矽谷小婦人) wrote.
Photo from Facebook
The poster said that a friend, whose daughter attends Shu Guang High School, forwarded her a notice from the school that said students would only have to pay for airfare, while accommodation, meals, transportation and other tour expenses were paid for.
The commenter said the trip appeared to be the kind of “united front” event the Chinese government would fund and disguise as an “academic exchange” to influence Taiwanese academics and students.
“My friend’s daughter is young, yet she went on a trip to China that was likely to brainwash her, by showing the nice parts of China” to make her more susceptible to Chinese political influence, the commenter said.
Jou on Monday defended the trip, saying that students visited tourist sites in Tianjin and that schools did not provide funding for the trip, nor did they in a 2023 academic exchange.
“My research has focused on light and its effects on health for many years,” Jou said.
“This time, the exchange was with an optometry hospital in Tianjin, during which we presented papers at a forum. The high schoolers were all willing to pay their own expenses to join this trip, so they could participate in the forum to present their research,” he said.
Speaking on the sidelines of a Legislative Yuan session yesterday, Chiu said that China’s past friendliness to Taiwan does not apply to the present, and that academics and students should be cautious about trips to China.
People involved in exchanges with China should be mindful to preserve their dignity, maintain healthy and orderly cross-strait relations, and be aware of the image their event would project at home and abroad, he said.
Universities should register academic exchanges or events abroad on the Ministry of Education’s platform to protect the safety of students and faculty, he said.
Additional reporting by Lin Che-yuan
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