Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) yesterday said he is an “elegant Taiwanese,” adding that he is not afraid of being labeled by China as a “diehard Taiwan independence advocate,” after Beijing targeted him last week.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office on Wednesday last week said it had designated Cheng, along with Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) and High Prosecutors’ Office prosecutor Chen Shu-yi (陳舒怡), as “diehard Taiwan independence advocates,” and would pursue punitive measures against them.
Asked for a response in an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times), Chen said the label by Taiwan’s “bad neighbor” would not affect his commitment to educational professionalism or not shake his stance on governing according to the law.
Photo: Rachel Lin, Taipei Times
Cheng said he would continue to fulfill the responsibilities stipulated by the Fundamental Act of Education (教育基本法) to cultivate “a new generation with a strong sense of national identity, love for Taiwan and appreciation for the Republic of China [ROC], while also being deeply rooted locally and globally minded.”
“The ROC is a sovereign and independent country, different from the ROC that retreated to Taiwan under [former president] Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) regime in 1949, and it has absolutely no relation to China,” he said.
If elementary and junior-high school students were still taught of the “begonia-shaped” territorial map of the ROC — which includes China and Mongolia — it would cause confusion among students, he said.
He said that when today’s elementary and junior-high school students are asked: “Where are you from?” They answer: “I am Taiwanese.”
He added that when they are asked: “Where do you live?” They say: “I live in Taipei, Taichung, Kaohsiung or Hualien.”
This reflects their everyday experience and represents the most natural form of identity, he said.
While some people’s ancestors came from China, they are ROC citizens, Cheng said.
“In daily life and in the international community, we are usually referred to as Taiwanese. These distinctions should be clearly explained to children through historical and international perspectives, rather than being conflated,” he said. “What we aim for is a democratic and law-governed society, and education should help children develop a clear, stable and noncontradictory understanding.”
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
Snow this morning fell on Alishan for the first time in seven years, as a strong continental cold air mass sent temperatures plunging across Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The Alishan weather station, located at an elevation of about 2,200m in central Taiwan, recorded snowfall from 8:55am to 9:15am, when the temperature dropped to about 1°C, the CWA said. With increased moisture and low temperatures in the high-altitude Alishan area, the conditions were favorable for snow, CWA forecaster Tsai Yi-chi (蔡伊其) said. The last time snow fell at the Alishan weather station was on Jan. 10, 2018, while graupel fell there
RSS