Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have called for an inquiry after retired army general Chen Ting-chung (陳廷寵) on Tuesday said that “Taiwan’s military combat capabilities are close to none, and it has no chance in a war against the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.”
“I am a Chinese, which is a symbol of pride ... but our Chinese race has a lot of scum who are willing to become running dogs of the US and Japan,” the former commander-in-chief of the army said in a speech at the Republic of China Military Academy in Kaohsiung.
After he also said that the nation’s leaders are “ignorant” people with “no intelligence” who have “distorted and misrepresented history, leading the descendants of the Chinese Yellow Emperor to be downtrodden in their current impoverished state of despair,” DPP lawmakers on Thursday urged the Ministry of Education to review an annual NT$60 million (US$2.06 million) subsidy paid to Chen’s Huadong Taiwan Businessman’s School in China’s Kunshan.
Photo: Chang Li-hua, Taipei Times
Chen opened the school in 2001 and the ministry agreed to provide a subsidy so that children of the Taiwanese business community would receive a similar education as in Taiwan.
“Let’s terminate the subsidy to Chen’s school... As the school’s founder, he insulted people ... and the government should not provide him with further financial subsidies,” DPP Legislator Chaung Jui-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said.
“The ministry must re-enforce its scrutiny of the school’s curriculum and conduct its checks on the strictest terms,” DPP Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said.
Ministry officials said that while Chen’s words were inappropriate, there is no direct relationship between the speech and the subsidy, adding that they would confer with the Mainland Affairs Council and other agencies on how to handle the matter.
The council in a statement expressed its regret about Chen’s remarks, saying that his speech hurt the feelings of the public.
“Operating a school for the Taiwanese business community in China is no easy task. To guarantee the right to education for Taiwanese students in China, we should not link the education subsidy to Chen’s personal remarks, as there is no direct connection,” the statement said.
Additional reporting by Chung Li-hua
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