2015-08-03
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Taiwan citizens protest changes favoring China in history textbooks, Aug. 2, 2015.
RFA
Taiwan government officials on Monday rejected student objections to controversial changes to the island’s textbooks following days of protests and a suspected suicide, amid accusations that the ruling Kuomintang nationalist party is cozying up to Beijing.
Talks between student protesters and education officials broke down after the island’s education minister Wu Se-hwa refused to retract the controversial changes, which critics say are “China-centric” and deny the island its own perspective.
The meeting came after student protesters stormed the ministry compound in the early hours of Friday morning after student protester Lin Kuan-hua committed suicide, and some continued to occupy the area outside the ministry on Monday.
Lin was among a group of 30 students arrested last month for breaking into the ministry in anger at the changes to the curriculum.
Students slammed Wu’s perceived intransigence over the textbook changes, which critics say were made behind closed doors and with no public consultation, while the government has said teachers may opt to use older editions in class.
“We came here today with the intention to compromise, because we are tired,” activist Chen Chien-hsun told reporters after the talks broke down. “But the needle didn’t move at all.”
Wu claimed the changes are widely supported by at least 50 percent of Taiwan residents.
“When they saw the changes, they thought they were right, so I think we need to face that fact courageously here today,” he said.
“Some people support them, while others oppose them. Perhaps we should find a resolution between them,” he said.
Governed separately
Democratic Taiwan has been governed separately from the mainland since the defeated Kuomintang army and government retreated there after being routed by Mao Zedong’s communist forces on the mainland, and the government regards itself as the last bastion of the Republic of China created by the 1911 revolution that toppled the Qing Dynasty.
But Beijing still regards the island as a renegade province awaiting reunification, and has said it won’t rule out the use of military force should the island ever seek formal independence as Taiwan.
The newly edited texts refer to Taiwan being “recovered by China” at the end of half a century of Japanese rule in 1945, while the old edition said the island was “given to China,” a narrative which sits more comfortably with Taiwanese pro-independence thinking.
The recently edited textbooks have also been changed to refer to the Japanese as “occupying” rather than “governing” Taiwan.
“It’s not just the fact that they have done this behind closed doors; what’s harder to accept is their historical deconstruction project,” Ping told RFA in a recent interview.
“Little by little, they are seeking to wash away the vivid impressions of the past.”
