The Ministry of Education is coming under fire from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers for helping facilitate summer exchange programs between Chinese and Taiwanese schools, which they claim are part of China’s “united front” tactics.
The ministry on Thursday promoted the exchanges in its online newsletter, and the National Museum of Natural Science is among the institutions involved in the exchanges, but the ministry should be worried about China “infiltrating schools” across the nation, DPP legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) and Huang Kuo-shu (黃國書) said on Monday.
National Taiwan Normal University, National Chengchi University and National Tsing Hua University are among the public schools that have been promoting summer camps on their Web sites since March, the legislators said.
Soochow University has a list of 28 activities and Chinese Culture University lists 33 on their Web sites, among other private schools, the legislators said.
Chinese Culture University is even using the slogan “Hearts connected and hands joined, both sides of the Strait feel like compatriots” to promote its programs, they said.
The China Youth Corps is participating in a program organized by the China Youth Culture Foundation for Mainland Studies, which would see 50 Taiwanese enrolled in film and television study programs visiting China for eight days for just NT$5,000 per person, including airfare, they said.
A summer science camp for high-school students sponsored by China’s Association for Science and Technology and the Chinese Ministry of Education would be attended by 220 students and teachers from 40 Taiwanese schools, they said.
Several top schools, such as Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School, Taipei First Girls’ High School and Taichung Municipal Taichung First Senior High School, were asked by China to help choose students for the camp, the legislators said.
A “nature exploration” camp that has become an annual cross-strait event, which was held last year at the Museum of Natural History in Zhejiang, China, is scheduled to be held at the National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung, with the Chinese government subsidizing the airfare for Chinese students, the legislators said.
The director of the museum in Zhejiang, Yan Hongming (嚴洪明), was quoted by Chinese media last year as saying: “The people of both sides of the Taiwan Strait are of a common origin, and the blood of youth is thicker than water. I hope to see increased acknowledgment of [both sides’ shared] ethnicity,” the lawmakers said.
The camp event at the Taichung museum has been organized by the museum’s cultural and educational foundation, which will also decide the activities, the ministry said, adding that the government has no involvement.
The “nature exploration” camp program has been run for 10 years and allows Chinese students visiting Taiwan to experience freedom and democracy, and Taiwanese students visiting China to see archeological sites and artifacts, the ministry said.
It was a “normal cross-strait cultural and educational exchange,” the ministry said.
However, Wang said that the eight years of former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration caused education administrators to lose awareness of national security concerns.
Correcting this lapse would be one of the most important tasks of future education ministers, he said.
Huang said that China’s subsidization of travel expenses for Taiwanese students and Chinese officials meeting with the students from the moment they arrive in China are clear proof that such exchanges are being used for “united front” aims.
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
As eight basketball-playing international students appealed to the Taiwanese basketball industry after they were excluded from the draft of an upcoming new league merging the P.League+ and the T1 League, the new league’s preparatory committee spokesperson Chang Shu-jen (張樹人) yesterday said the committee would tomorrow discuss the supplementary measures and whether the international students can join the draft. The students on Tuesday called for support on their right to play in the upcoming new league, after a merger involving the two leagues impacted their eligibility for the draft. The international players from the University Basketball Association (UBA), led by first pick prospect
WARNING: China has stepped up harassment of foreign vessels after its new regulation took effect last month, an official said, citing an incident in the Diaoyutai Islands The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday linked China’s seizure of a Taiwanese fishing vessel illegally operating in its territorial waters to Beijing’s new regulation authorizing the China Coast Guard to seize boats in waters it claims. Chinese officials boarded and then seized a Taiwanese fishing vessel operating near China’s coast close to Kinmen County late on Tuesday and took it to a Chinese port, the CGA said. The Penghu-registered squid fishing vessel Da Jin Man No. 88 (大進滿88) was boarded and seized by China Coast Guard east-northeast of Liaoluo Bay (料羅灣), 17.5 nautical miles (32.4km) from Taiwan’s restricted waters off Kinmen,
Some foreign companies are considering moving Taiwanese employees out of China after Beijing said it could impose the death penalty on “die-hard” Taiwanese independence advocates, four people familiar with the matter said. The new guidelines have caused some Taiwanese expatriates and foreign multinationals operating in China to scramble to assess their legal risks and exposure, said the people, who include a lawyer and two executives with direct knowledge of the discussions. “Several companies have come to us to assess the risks to their personnel,” said the lawyer, James Zimmerman, a Beijing-based partner at the Perkins Coie law firm. He declined to identify