Taiwan: Character debate ends up being nothing but hot air

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Character debate ends up being nothing but hot air
Traditional Chinese will always be used in education, minister says

2006-04-11 / taiwan news, STAFF REPORTER / Evelyn Chiang

The recent fuss over the United Nations' decision to abolish the usage of
traditional Chinese characters on its Web sites and official documents has
turned out to be much ado about nothing. A China-based media outlet
reported last month that Chinese linguistics expert Chen Zhangtai said in
a forum that the U.N. planned to replace its use of both traditional and
simplified Chinese characters with only simplified characters on its Web
sites and in its publications starting in 2008. The report circulated
widely among Chinese-speaking people worldwide. In less than three weeks,
some 63,000 visitors demonstrated their support for traditional Chinese
characters by signing an online petition.

Local media reported yesterday that most of the supporters were overseas
Chinese instead of local Taiwanese and attempted to dig into the issue. In
a survey sponsored by Taiwan's national radio station, Radio Taiwan
International, 65 percent of the respondents said abolishing the
traditional Chinese characters would lead to a disruption in Chinese
culture.

But a statement released yesterday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
poured cold water on the advocates' efforts by saying the U.N.'s Web sites
and publications were already limited to simplified Chinese characters.
When Taiwan's representative office in New York checked on the report with
the U.N., officials from the Department of the U.N. Secretariat said they
were not informed of the report and felt puzzled by it, the statement
said. Although the U.N. uses Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Arabic,
and Russian as its official languages, the decision has not deterred the
development of other languages, such as Japanese, German, or Portuguese,
the statement added.

The conservation of culture in countries using these languages was also
unaffected by the U.N.'s language policy, the statement said. Overseas
Chinese Affairs Commission Vice Minister Cheng Tong-hsing said yesterday
at the Legislature that the government has plans to call press conferences
and various publicity campaigns to boost public awareness of the
significance of using traditional Chinese characters among Taiwanese and
overseas Chinese. Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng  also said
that due to the language's historical and cultural significance, the MOE
is firm in its stance that traditional Chinese characters will continue to
be taught in local educational institutions regardless of the U.N.'s
decision.

Simplified Chinese characters were officially adopted by Beijing in 1949
in a bid to eradicate illiteracy in the country. They are also used in
Singapore and Malaysia, while traditional characters are used in Taiwan,
Hong Kong, and Macau.


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