[EDLING:1380] MAC supports traditional Chinese despite U.N. plan

[Francis M. Hult]

Taiwan News

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MAC supports traditional Chinese despite U.N. plan

2006-03-25 / Taiwan News, Staff Reporter / Evelyn Chiang 

Traditional Chinese characters are symbols of the Chinese arts and culture and 
should be respected by the world regardless of whether the United Nations 
adopts the system or not, Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chairman Liu Te-hsun 
said yesterday.
Liu's remark was made in response to a China-based media report that Chinese 
linguistics expert Chen Zhangtai said in a forum hosted by the Chinese 
education ministry that the U.N. plans to only use simplified Chinese 
characters for its Web sites and documents starting 2008.

The U.N. currently has a system where it uses both sets of characters, the 
Chinese media report said.

Liu said that since many countries see China rising as a potential superpower, 
the country has learned to "package" its growing power to include promoting 
Chinese culture and language.

He said China allocated US$200 million over the past two years to promote 
its "Confucius Institute" around the world, a Chinese teaching organization 
named after the famous thinker, educator and philosopher.

Promoting Chinese language and culture has been used by China as a means to 
mend the fences with the international community, according to Liu.

"Although more people use simplified Chinese characters, they are incomparable 
to the traditional Chinese characters because the traditional ones truly 
demonstrate the beauty and the essence of Chinese culture," Liu said.

Simplified Chinese characters are used in China, Singapore, and Malaysia, 
while traditional Chinese characters are used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Hong 
Kong slowly began to adopt the simplified system after it became a Chinese 
special administration district in 1997.

In relation to the report, Ministry of Education said that Taiwan would 
maintain its teaching of traditional Chinese characters, which would also be 
used for the island's official documents in the foreseeable future.

Numerous attempts have been made over the years to simplify the Chinese system 
of writing, with the biggest plan initiated by the People's Republic of China 
in 1955 aiming to simplify more than half of the most commonly used Chinese 
characters.

Chinese has also been an official language of the U.N. since the founding of 
the organization in 1945.