Page 1 of
2 China chokes on Taiwan's history
lesson By Ting-I Tsai
TAIPEI - Political tensions across the
Taiwan Strait intensified recently with Taiwan's
adoption of revised high school history textbooks
which separate the history of the island from that
of China. This has prompted Beijing to slam
Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
for trying to promote independence among youths.
Taiwan's major opposition Kuomintang (KMT)
party has also
denounced the move, saying it
will seek a constitutional interpretation on the
issue.
The adoption of the new history
textbooks is part of an ongoing campaign that
includes such things as substituting the world
"Taiwan" for "China" on postage stamps and
state-owned enterprises, advocated and led by the
independence-minded DPP to de-emphasized the
island's Chineseness.
The KMT ruled China
until late 1949 when it was defeated by the
communists in a civil war on the mainland. It then
fled to Taiwan to continue its rule under the
title of Republic of China (ROC), claiming its
sovereign territory covered both the mainland and
Taiwan. Consequently, high school geography
textbooks have included mainland China and even
Mongolia as part of the ROC's territory. And
Taiwan's history has been included into Chinese
history.
But things began to change after
the DPP came to power in 2000. How to describe
China and its relationship with Taiwan in the
textbooks became not only difficult in practice
but also controversial, always sparking fiery
political conflicts on the island.
As the
incumbent Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian's
term will expire in May, 2008, the DPP
administration has been gearing up to drop "China"
from the names of state-owned enterprises in favor
of "Taiwan" as a way of boosting local identity.
The history textbook issue could be seen as a part
of this aggressive campaign.
Taiwan's
renaming state-owned enterprises has caused
Washington concern. In a statement issued last
Friday, the Department of State said the United
States does not support administrative steps by
Taiwan that appear to change Taiwan's status
unilaterally or move toward independence,
including changes in terminology for entities
administered by Taiwan authorities.
In
reaction, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(MOFA) said on Tuesday that the government's
recent move to rename state-owned enterprises is
an internal matter which does not involve changes
to the cross-Taiwan Strait status quo.
Asserting that any country has the right
to change the names of its state-owned
enterprises, MOFA spokesman Wang Chien-yeh said
the scenario that the United States is worried
about has not occurred.
At home, the issue
of textbook revision has also been politicized.
Supporters argue that Taiwan and China are
separate states and the textbook revision will
help the island progress into a normal society,
while critics say it is simply aimed at promoting
Taiwan independence.
In fact, this is not
the first time Taiwan has revised its high school
history textbooks. Last summer, history textbooks
for first-grade high school students were
officially separated into Taiwan history and China
history. Before then, Taiwan history was contained
in a two-volume textbook of Chinese history.
The newly revised textbooks now explicitly
distinguish Taiwan from China by using terms like
"our country" to denote Taiwan and "China" to
denote the mainland, whereas in the unrevised
version, China was referred as "the Mainland".
The 1911 Wuhan Uprising led by Sun Yat-sen
that toppled the Qing Dynasty now is described as
a "disturbance or riot" instead of the original
"righteous uprising", and the term "Japanese
colonization [of Taiwan]" has been replaced by
"Japanese governance".
In last summer's
revision, Sun Yat-sen had already ceased to be
called "the founding father of the nation" as
Taiwan history was separated from Chinese history.
But this has also become an issue in the current
debate as the new revisions increasingly draw
controversy.
For the KMT and mainland
China, these changes are not tolerable, even
though some of the changes had already been made
in the last textbook revision in 1999.
China's Taiwan Affairs Office complained
that the changes were in conjunction with the
DPP's "Taiwan independence" movement, which are
polluting the minds of young Taiwanese. KMT
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
