Taiwan eyes editing China from textbooks

[Harold Schiffman]

 

 *Taiwan Eyes Editing China From Textbooks*


By ANNIE HUANG
The Associated Press
Monday, July 23, 2007; 2:24 AM

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwan plans to revise school textbooks to drop references
that recognize Chinese historical figures, places and artifacts as
"national," an official said Sunday. The announcement is the latest in a
series of moves by the island in the past few months to assert its
sovereignty as President Chen Shui-bian's final term in office winds down.
China<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/china.html?nav=el>claims
Taiwan as its own and has repeatedly threatened to attack should the
island formalize its de facto independence. Beijing opposes anything that
appears to give Taiwan the trappings of sovereignty. Pan Wen-chung, an
Education Ministry official, said authorities are considering dropping about
5,000 "inappropriate" references in Taiwanese textbooks to help "clear up
confusion" about the island's identity.

Pan did not elaborate on the proposed changes. However, local media said the
revisions would include changing "national opera" to "Chinese opera," "the
Ming Dynasty" to "China's Ming Dynasty," and "this nation's historical
figures" to "China's historical figures." The textbook changes are in line
with the current thinking of Chen's ruling Democratic Progressive Party,
which favors Taiwanese independence and opposes identification with China,
from which the island split amid civil war in 1949. The pro-DPP Liberty
Times newspaper praised the textbook initiative, saying it fit with Taiwan's
effective status as an independent state.

"China is my country? And Taiwan is located off my country's southeastern
coast?" it asks mockingly. "All those descriptions are obviously contrary to
the facts, belittling ourselves and confusing the national identity. Yet
they have long been everywhere in our textbooks." The main opposition
Nationalist party, which favors eventual unification with the mainland and
is seeking to curry favor with voters ahead of elections next year,
lambasted the announcement. The DPP is "seeking to impose thought control
... and distort the base of our national and cultural development," said
Nationalist presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou.

The move also could provoke a harsh reaction in China, which has long been
sensitive to its neighbors making changes to their history textbooks.
Massive protests erupted two years ago after
Japan<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/japan.html?nav=el>approved
a new textbook that critics say whitewashes the country's wartime
atrocities. A Chinese Foreign Ministry duty officer who would not give her
name in line with ministry policy referred questions about the proposed
Taiwanese textbook plan Sunday to the mainland's Taiwan Affairs Office,
where phones rang unanswered. However, Xu Baodong, the director of Institute
of Taiwan Affairs at Beijing's China Union University called the textbook
move "malicious" and said the Chinese government would monitor it closely.

"The DPP wants to create an atmosphere for Taiwan independence, and to let
Taiwanese youth forget that they are Chinese through revising the text
books," he said. Taiwan's school textbooks have traditionally given heavy
weight to China's 5,000 years of history and works of ancient Chinese poets
and philosophers, leaving little space for Taiwan's own history. The current
textbooks date back to the early 1950s, after Gen. Chiang Kai-shek and his
Nationalist forces fled the Chinese Communists' takeover of the mainland.
Chen has emphasized his desire in recent months to push the envelope on
Taiwanese independence before he leaves office in May 2008. In March,
Premier Su Tseng-chang said Taiwan was considering abandoning its
long-standing policy of recognizing Mandarin Chinese as the island's only
official language, saying it wanted to promote the use of local dialects and
prohibit linguistic discrimination.

Many of the Taiwanese-speaking descendants of Chinese immigrants who arrived
on the island in the 17th and 18th centuries favor Taiwanese independence,
while most Mandarin-speaking families who arrived when Taiwan split from
China in 1949 support eventual unification. Chen also has substituted
"Taiwan" for "China" at the post office and two large government-owned
companies, and his government has said it will proceed with a planned
referendum on rejoining the United Nations under its own name, despite
strong objections from China and the U.S. In addition, the DPP has scrapped
a government body charged with supervising eventual unification with the
mainland and attacked the legacy of Chiang, who was an avatar of the
unification doctrine.
(c) 2007 The Associated Press


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