Taiwan independence in class

I assigned my students to present on a social/political issue in Taiwan. One group did Taiwan independence, which I thought was kind of cool. The ready way they selected this, with its suggestion that they did not feel anyone would be offended, shows how things have changed. After READ MORE are the PPTs they made, reproduced with their permission. On the "system of value" when I asked for an example of different values, they said Taiwanese treat each other with more respect than the way Chinese treat each other. The comment about women represents better women's rights in Taiwan. They laid it out in advantages vs disadvantages format, and concluded about what you'd expect for this generation...

Typhoon Short Shorts

Staying dry here... tiny gusts of wind and blowing rain, but nothing serious. Typhoons just nod at Taichung. We feel a terrible sympathy for the people in the mountains, however. Tim maddog passed around this map from Weather Underground for the typhoon.

CURRICULUM PROTESTS
Before we get started, New Bloom made a handy graphic guide for the revisions to the history curriculum, both what they are, and understanding why they were made. The modern history graphic is here, the pre-modern one is here.

Two things to keep in mind: (1) the pro-China revisions are only half the problem. The other half of the problem was (2) the Ministry of Education's violations of process. Democracy is commitment to democratic processes. The students understand that -- the Ministry of Education? Not so much... to compare, Tu Sheng-cheng, the Minister of Education in the Chen Administration, compares the two revision processes in an interview.

The students wound up their protest, the typhoon giving them an excuse to leave. They claimed success, having forced the government to send the curriculum back to a "review committee" which will no doubt return it unchanged. New Bloom, which has been writing lyrically on the Occuption, observed:

Though this, of course, marks the end of the occupation itself, certainly, the movement is far from finished. However, what we might beware of at this time is that charges may be filed against student occupiers for defacing the courtyard of the Ministry of Education and for property damage, much as charges were filed against Sunflower Movement occupiers last year for damages caused to the Legislative Yuan. And what remains to be seen is what the next step of the movement will be.

The movement needs to spread to every school with walkouts, sit-ins, and teach-ins. It ain't over yet....

One thing that people have not been commenting on is that the revisions, by making the history of Taiwan totally Han-centric, eliminate the aborigines. The Taipei Times had some reporting on that. Let's hope the aboriginal communities stop voting for the KMT, which so obviously despises them...

The best moment this week was the comical affair of alleged gangsters dressing up in Imperial Japanese Army uniforms and marching to DPP HQ to protest the DPP being brainwashed by Japan. No seriously:

“We want to thank the DPP for educating the children in Taiwan to love our Empire of Japan. This is something that our own Japanese kids would not do, and something we could not force the Taiwanese to do in our 50 years of Japanizing education,” a man dressed up as a Japanese Imperial Army commander said through a loudspeaker, with a Japanese accent. “Therefore, we are here to present our certificate of gratitude to the DPP today.”

The journalist J Michael Cole has some excellent pics, here's one from Twitter. This comedy combined two great loves of locals, gangsters and skits. But recall that Chang An-le, the famed gangster known as White Wolf, spent many years in China. This may cause gales of laughter in Taiwan, but it might play better across the Strait, which may have been where it was really aimed. It does give us a glimpse of the bubble world in which these people live...

Speaking of pics, Frozen Garlic got out to take a few pics at the protests.

ELECTION
James Soong video ad: reclaim Taiwan pride. Soong's ad of himself covered with mud, symbolizing that he has been reborn from his sins, is brilliant, but appears lifted from a local artist's work. Unfortunately, he then  made a joke about having people shot as in the good old martial law days. This resulted in many vocal complaints about his joking. The arrogance of the mainlander ruling class at work... and note, though "restitution" has been made to families of the victims, no one has ever been punished.

Feeling the creeping ghost of irrelevancy, KMTers panned Soong's entry into the race, claiming he had wandered from the Holy Principles of Sun Yat-sen and (more importantly) Chiang Ching-kuo. They called for Pan-Blue unity.

Like Hung, Soong has a heavily documented past. Maddog has been reminding us of this video of Soong saying that he would lead a mob to attack and kill Chen Shui-bian if the then-president didn't respond to the demands of the nationalist protest against him. If you read Chinese, this PPT post on Soong is popular at the moment.

MEDIA
Love this FocusTaiwan (gov't website!) headline: Latest Poll Puts James Soong Ahead of KMT Candidate. What? They couldn't remember her name?

The latest poll gives Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party, the lead at 36 percent in a three-way race, compared with Soong's 24 percent and Hung's 17 percent.

Taiwan Today spun that one really hard: Taiwan Readies for Tight Presidential Race. How tight? The government rag reported:

Hung, who garnered 17 percent support in the poll, is led by Soong at 24 percent and Tsai at 36 percent. A total of 23 percent remain undecided. Regarding the eventual winner, Hung was picked by 7 percent, Soong 8 percent and Tsai 59 percent. A total of 26 percent stated that they did not know.

Why does that paragraph strike you as awkward? Because logic dictates the leading figure goes first. Unless you have KMT logic guiding you: across the entire article, every time the candidates are mentioned, Hung's name is mentioned first. Note also that the article talks about Hung a lot, Soong a bit, and Tsai... not at all. The pettiness of KMT supporters knows no limits. It's easy to see why no one takes that magazine seriously.

Liberty Times has Tsai at 35, Soong at 24, and Hung at 29. It's going to be a long election.

Hey, whatever happened to all those "whatever happens, a woman will be president" articles in the media?

The Economist logged a piece on the curriculum protests:

Above all, the new guidelines recast Japan’s colonial rule from 1895-1945. Unlike many who came to Taiwan with the KMT, Taiwanese with deeper roots on the island often emphasise the Japanese contribution to Taiwan’s modernisation. And even when they acknowledge Japanese colonial cruelty, the violence of Chiang’s regime after Japan’s surrender often overshadows it. The new guidelines insist that what was known as “Japanese rule” be referred to as “Japanese colonial rule”; Taiwanese women forced to serve in military brothels should be properly acknowledged. That is only right. But what sticks in the craw of native Taiwanese, given the brutality of Chiang’s dictatorship, is that the KMT’s occupation of Taiwan should be described as a “glorious retrocession”.

This article is more sympathetic to the pro-Taiwan side than I had thought when I first read it; the Economist has been drearily pro-KMT in recent years. But note that although it focuses on the curriculum revisions, it omits, as Ben at Letters from Taiwan pointed out on Twitter, any mention of the other half of the problem: the black box process by which the revisions were made.

Alas, I must refer to Dennis Hickey's crazed piece in The Diplomat. Hickey writes:

Many predict that Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will return to power in 2016. The party has sought to “rebrand” itself as a “responsible” alternative to the ruling Kuomintang (KMT). But U.S. defense planners cannot help but wonder if the DPP will seek to entrap the U.S. in a cross-strait crisis in an effort to achieve its dreams of independence from China. Tsai Ing-wen, the DPP presidential candidate, has done little to assuage such fears. The candidate’s positions on many of the most important issues of the day remain opaque and unclear, especially her plans for handling relations with Beijing. And despite its lead in the polls, there are concerns that the DPP has given up on democracy. For example, it is reportedly embracing a Middle Eastern practice known as “rent a mob” and subsidizing extremists who attack Taiwan’s government ministries. This makes it increasingly difficult for Americans to sensibly argue that Taiwan is a “model of democracy.”

 Note that Hickey's citation for support of Tsai's weaknesses are two articles in the Diplomat by the KMT international spokesman Eric Huang. Hardly a neutral assessment.

But the latter half of the paragraph, in brown?

Sadly, I've lost all respect for Hickey as a commentator, analyst, and above all, human being.
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Daily Links:

• Don't miss: Solidarity with excellent detailed piece on the future of the mainlanders: demographics is killing their rule in Taiwan
• Taiwan uses fake horror film festival to raise conservation awareness.
• FDA inspector charged in probe. As maddog observed, it's that clean and capable Ma Administration at work again...
• A one-stop service center for foreign talent.
• Yeesh. Every year some yammerhead out to play at the beach during the typhoon gets killed. This time children too.
• The latest Ketagalan Media Week in Review
• Frozen Garlic with excellent post on the Control Yuan's impeachment of Mayor Lai of Tainan.
• TOTALLY USEFUL: Michal Thim scanned and put online all Taiwan defense documents going back to the early 1990s.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Rounding up the Student Protests

Small roads through the tea farms in Nantou: a pleasure.

The big confrontation occurred yesterday afternoon. TT reported:

Talks between Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) and students over the curriculum controversy fell apart yesterday, with students storming out of a Ministry of Education (MOE)-sponsored forum in tears.

“What in the world are these talks supposed to be?” Northern Taiwan Anti-Curriculum Changes Alliance convener Chu Chen (朱震) said. “What I see is a failure of education and a policy that has gradually moved away from the masses.

The KMT had been split on whether to hold special legislative session on curriculum guidelines, but then voted unanimously not to hold a special session. Chairman Chu, always positioning himself as a moderate, said he'd have to respect the will of the KMT. Note that Hung is on the side that doesn't want a session, and affirms control of executive over education. One can only imagine what her educational changes are going to look like. Solidarity wrote of the "unanimous vote":

Do the math. KMT legislators do not actually unanimously support this bold decision. The KMT caucus has 64 members (usually 65 but Chi Kuo-tung 紀國棟 was expelled for criticizing the party and his replacement hasn’t arrived yet). One of these 64 has openly called for abolishing the new curriculum. Another, the speaker, used political capital to try to get this session called. The party chairman himself wants such a session to be held, but with other bills included. The 15+ sitting legislators who absented themselves from this meeting (a quarter of the caucus) did so intentionally, having seen what was coming. I’d bet they are Wang, the representatives in swing districts, and the rest of Wang Jin-pyng’s 王金平 Taiwanese faction. Anyway, this goes to show that Ma and his acolyte Hung are running this party now.

Solidarity pointed out on Twitter that the KMT legislators leading the "no special session" push are from deep Blue districts. His excellent piece at Ketagalan, which summarized the protester-Minister Wu dialogue, observed:

From the beginning, this felt like the Taiwanese reincarnation of the dialogue between the Umbrella Movement students and the pro-Beijing government of Hong Kong. The fundamental problem with both discussions was that the government negotiators had no authority to compromise, and they couldn’t admit it. For Chinese nationalists like President Ma, this round of textbook revisions is a matter of long-term political life and death, as they believe the Taiwan-centered history taught since President Lee’s time is the root cause of the strong opposition the current generation of youth have against them. They feel they can’t afford to give in. In a way, the Sunflowers had it easier: They just had to block something that hadn’t happened yet, but these high schoolers need an actual reversal, and one that would lose the KMT face and quite possibly the votes of their strongest supporters.

That's basically it. The function of the Ministers, as Solidarity observed, is to hand down Party decisions. Recall that the KMT regards the government as both an extension of itself, and subordinate to itself. Since the Party is always right, the rules are for governing others. Hence the Minister's repeated bizarre claim that the process is not important since the outcome is acceptable (to the Party). For people raised on democratic ideas of rule of law and democratic process, like these students, such claims are incredible.

Indeed, the KMT news organ carried the KMT Chairman Eric Chu's assertion that the Executive was a higher power than the Legislature:

In response, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) stated yesterday that the power to adjust textbook guidelines belonged to the executive branch rather than legislative branch, so any extraordinary Legislative session should not solely deal with the textbook revisions, adding that bread and butter bills should also be discussed. KMT Presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-Chu (洪秀柱) pointed out that she supported the KMT caucus's decision. The Presidential Office and the Cabinet reiterated the support for Minister Wu's decision, adding that the bottomline was that the legislative power should not be higher than executive power.

The KMT Chairman pronounces, then everyone follows suit. The Word actually came down from Ma, but it is interesting that the leader who pronounces is not the Executive, but a Party head, who has nothing to with the balance of powers in the government.

Brian Hoie of New Bloom, who was with the students in the Occupation, wrote a summary of Day Five:

During the press conference students did not press that one of their demands had been for Wu to resign but Wu, for his part, stressed that textbook revisions were legal even if perhaps flawed. Wu has become an object of popularly mockery on the Internet since the meeting, however, because of a piece of footage from the meeting in which rolled his eyes in response to being questioned by a teacher, then attempting to quickly mask this through quickly smiling. We might also note that Wu was unwilling to reveal the names of those who were in the textbook revision committee. Nevertheless, the meeting ultimately came to nothing.

Minister Wu's eye-rolling quickly went viral; he said he was exercising his eyes because they were tired (h/t Solidarity). View the gif here.

The KMT attacks on the students basically involve claiming that they are DPP tools. When your ideology says you are the Party of Right, all opposition can only stem from a conspiracy of Satan, AKA the DPP. Frozen Garlic, the cynical political scientist at Academia Sinica, rebuts:

[This] charge can be dismissed relatively straightforwardly. After all, almost all accounts of Taiwan’s current student movement (except for those coming from the KMT) indicate that the students are acting on their own initiative. This has been true of all the recent protest movements, from the Wild Strawberries to the Dapu protests to the Sunflower movement. In all cases, the youth have been thoroughly disappointed by the tepid DPP opposition and have sought to take matters into their own hands. The DPP has generally voiced support more in an effort to avoid appearing totally out of touch with activists’ concerns than in an effort to guide them in any particular direction. The notion that the DPP is the guiding hand behind the students is simply at odds with almost all accounts of the factual events.

Dai Lin, whose suicide riveted the nation and inspired the young activists, is portrayed in KMT propaganda as troubled and depressed, and his suicide is explained as having nothing to do with the protests. If you can stomach it, see this CNN iReport on the Student Protests, with KMT-slanted reporting. It's vile.

These protesting students have grown up entirely within the curriculum changes since the post Lee Teng-hui era. Liu and Hung (2002) describe the changes of that era:

In the 1993 Social Studies syllabus, the historical content was outlined in a concentric pattern: Taiwan-China-world. The scope of ‘the native place’ (xiangtu) was confined to county, town, and city. Taiwan itself was no longer defined as a mere ‘local community’. The affiliated islands, Kinmen and Matsu, were also included in the textbooks. The coverage of Taiwanese history was expanded to a whole book. Chinese identity and Taiwanese identity coexisted in the curriculum, and the distinction between the two was made clearer than it had previously been. For example, the title ‘the Chinese living environment’ was replaced by ‘the living environment in Mainland China’, thus distinguishing political China from geographical China—or ‘mainland China’ from Taiwan.

In addition, as already mentioned, the rise of Taiwanese identity has led to the establishment of two new subjects. One is ‘Native Place Teaching Activities’ for Grade 3, and the other is ‘Understanding Taiwan’ (Renshi Taiwan) for junior high level, both subjects focusing on the history, geography, and society of Taiwan. The goals of ‘Understanding Taiwan—Society’ are defined as ‘reinforcing the understanding of the social environment of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu’, ‘cultivating the sentiment of love for the community and the nation,’ and ‘developing a consciousness of the ‘living community’ (sheng ming gong tong ti).’3 The goals of ‘Understanding Taiwan—History’ include ‘understanding the history of the ancestors of each of the ethnic groups in Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu’, although the teaching materials studiously avoid references to past conflicts between Han settlers and aboriginal tribes, instead painting a highly misleading picture of harmonious and peaceful co-existence. In the appendix to the syllabus, the significance of this new subject is emphasized: this is the first time that Taiwanese history has ever been taught as a formal subject at junior high school level.

Note that the rise of the Taiwanese identity was already in place prior to the new curriculum. As an acquaintance observed, when he returned to Taiwan in 1991 there were already bookstores dedicated to Taiwanese history and culture. When I was studying Chinese that same year in Taipei, I purchased the old Shifan University texts, which still used phrases like "communist bandits" and "retake the mainland". But I bought them off the junk pile for 10 NT each; new texts more locally centered were already taking their place.

Chris Hughes tabulated some of the changes that took place as the Chen Administration assumed power in 2000 (link):

The appointment of Professor Tu Cheng-sheng (Du Zhengsheng), an LSE alumnus as head of the National Palace Museum in May 2000, has been even more controversial. Tu had in fact been singled out as one of the chief architects of ‘de-sinification’ well before the Chen administration came to power because he had been influential in steering a re-orientation of the school curriculum and teaching materials to learning more about Taiwan and less about China in the late 1990s.6 Having stewardship over the museum that was once used by the KMT as a kind of cultural umbilical chord linking Taiwan to China’s grand tradition, Tu incurred the wrath of many critics when he proceeded to label the Chinese artefacts as ‘Chinese’ and established a gallery devoted to Taiwanese culture.

The reorientation of education that Tu had begun under Lee Teng-hui also continued under the Chen administration. Already in March 2001 the Ministry of Education had produced a policy on ‘Nativisation of Education’ (bentu hua jiaoyu), according to which junior and middle school pupils have to select to learn a ‘native language’ (xiangtu yuyan) from Hokkien, Hakka and an aboriginal language. The controversial Know Taiwan (renshi Taiwan) textbooks became teaching material for history, geography and social studies from the academic year beginning in August. A Native Education committee (bentu jiaoyu weiyuan hui) began to revise the Know Taiwan curriculum in 2002 and the following year published a draft outline for a new high school history curriculum in which Chinese history since the mid-Ming Dynasty became part of ‘World History’. An increasing emphasis on native culture can also be seen in the way that the Ministry of Education has actively promoted and funded the establishment of departments of Taiwan Literature in national universities since 2000. When Tu Cheng-sheng was appointed Minister of Education at the start of Chen’s second term in May 2004, accusations of ‘de-sinification’ reached a new height of intensity.

The "Getting to know Taiwan" of the Lee era was removed from the curriculum under the Chen Administration, which instead spread Taiwan across the entire curriculum (link). Hughes also notes that the Chen Shui-bian Administration put a halt to the military indoctrination of young males in KMT ideology, an important source of KMT control. Taiwanese history was added to the civil service exam, and the government made great efforts to push Taiwan Studies at home and abroad. Chen's changes drew protests from Beijing.

Another change in the educational system is that there are now new outlets and new ways for people to enter college, getting around the old testing system. The function of the old testing system was powerfully authoritarian. By creating intense competition for coveted places, it prevented the students from building bridges to each other (and if they did, the Party maintained political officers in the schools to monitor the students' political beliefs). The massive homework loads reduce time for young people to learn and act on politics, while the parents reinforced the System's control by forcing the kids to do the home and shoving them in cram schools seven days a week. All of this is slowly changing...

The Chen Administration made subtle but powerful changes in Taiwanese life that have shaped the way these students rooted their identity in Taiwan. It vastly expanded cultural programs and also focused on the environment in its sloganeering, fostering a sense of shared place and culture. It also engaged in "Branding Taiwan" (link):

Believing that culture is economically beneficial, the CCA joined forces with the Industrial Development Bureau (Ministry of Economic Affairs) to encourage the development of creative industries, funding modern designs to present Taiwanese culture. In a speech about future CCA policy, then chairwoman Tchen Yu-chiou openly asserted that “using branding techniques to build and introduce an image of contemporary Taiwan to the world, cultural and creative industries will be the most important force.

Don't laugh; people identify with brands, sometimes very strongly. The branding created an awareness of Taiwan as distinct that made a foothold in minds abroad, which was also reflected back to Taiwan as validation by outsiders, a virtuous cycle of Taiwan identity building.

DPP policy thus was a multifront attack on the monolithic, faux, totalizing, authoritarian version of Chinese culture offered by the KMT and CCP. It was highly successful.

The new leisure culture, made possible by shrinking the work/school week from 6 days to 5, has also helped grow Taiwaneseness. "Being Taiwanese" for the 45 and under generation now includes the physical actions of climbing Jade Mountain, swimming Sun Moon Lake, and biking around the island. This involves inscribing oneself physically on the terrain while immersed in it: grounding local identity in a relationship to the land. Many of these kids will go on to do all these things.

They are the most active, socially aware, and involved generation in Taiwan, ever. I bless them every day.

REF:
2002. M. Liu, L C. Hung. "Identity issues in Taiwan’s history curriculum". Int. J. Educ. Res. 37 (2002) 567–586
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Daily Links:

• Great piece on paleo-tsunamis in Taiwan
• WSJ on Lee Teng-hui's "controversial" remarks about the Senkakus.
• Suhua Highway project on schedule
• Typhoon hitting the area starting on Thursday.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Student Protests Rivet Nation

Via New Bloom: video history of student protest at MoE

Keeping up: New Bloom's facebook page is constantly updated. They put together and posted the video above. There's a live feed here. Note that New Bloom has posted that there is a water cannon vehicle present, presumably because it will be used.

Rocked first by the suicide of Dai Lin, Taiwan was then shocked by the open letter from his mother. Solidarity has the translation, which you should read. I can't read it without crying at the naked realization at the end...

The one who’s sick is this society. It’s the adults. It’s the parents who were brainwashed, like me. You were a little prince who always had pure thoughts. You completed your mission. You made public opinion boil over all right. You’ve made us brainwashed adults rethink things.

She's saying what so many of us have been saying for ages: the over 45 group is the most timid, brainwashed, strawberry generation of them all. It's not a coincidence that support for KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu is strongest in that group. She also wrote an open letter angrily denying KMT claims that the DPP was operating the students. Remember, in the KMT ideological bubble, only conspiracy by the evil enemies of Chineseness can explain anti-KMT stances, because the KMT is always right.

The convener of the curriculum committee that made the changes was on a political talk show. See why the changes were made (Taipei Times):

Asked what kind of impact the curriculum adjustments had on the KMT’s campaign for next year’s presidential and legislative elections, Wang said they had created a strong cohesive force among pan-blue supporters.

“A lack of ‘national goals’ is a critical problem facing the KMT. The party requires more convincing rhetoric to persuade the public and that was exactly what we aimed to achieve through the curriculum changes,” Wang said in the article.

Were the changes made for educational purposes, or to bring the curriculum in line with the Constitution, as KMT presidential candidate Hung has claimed? Nope: according to the leader of the changes, they were purely political and overtly pro-KMT. What's scary is that these people are so deep in their bubble that they thought asserting that the capital was Nanjing was "convincing rhetoric."

My man maddog was having a good laugh on Twitter about the changes, putting up this image:

Don Rodgers put his finger directly on the fundamental issue at Thinking Taiwan:

The Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) government is once again facing off against a group of young protesters who oppose the government’s policies and procedures. The current protest is directed at the government’s efforts to change the content of history textbooks. This is another in a long series of protests that addressed a wide range of issues including property rights, freedom of the press, labor rights, environmental issues, and most famously opposition to the Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement (CSSTA) that led to the Sunflower occupation of Taiwan’s legislature last year.

The young protesters in Taiwan are frequently described as being “anti-China” and driven by their strong sense of Taiwanese identity. This is partially accurate. The young people in Taiwan are definitely strongly Taiwanese identified, but they are not necessarily “anti-China.” To understand these protests it is essential to understand that the young are strongly democratic. They were born into and fully believe in democracy in their country. Thus, it is not surprising that one thing that the protests have in common is anger over the government’s lack of transparency and respect for democratic procedure. It is therefore more accurate to describe the students as “pro-democracy” or “anti-authoritarian” than “anti-China.” It is also important to note that a significant percentage of the population in Taiwan supports the student protesters.

Since Ma took office in 2008, his administration has demonstrated neither a strong interest nor any level of competence in managing domestic politics. Ma’s government has been insular and arrogant, frequently responding to criticisms with a condescending attitude. Decisions are made behind closed doors with little if any effort to consider the preferences of the voters. The decisions are then foisted upon the people with the message that the government knows best and the people must agree.

It is not surprising, then, that the young protesters have consistently criticized the government for its “black box” decision-making procedures. For example, in an April 2014 interview, Wei Yang (魏揚), a leader of the Sunflower movement stated, “The government and the civil society had no communication. There were no comprehensive impact assessments. There were no deliberations about the trade pact. We called it a black-box operation, and this is outrageous to the people.”

I've written several times about how the Taiwanese have incorporated democracy into their identity, and among the young, this incorporation is a fusion. This generation, I would always add, is also the first in the modern era to grow up with poorer economic prospects than the previous one. These ideas of democracy are butting up against a school system designed for authoritarian control from start to finish.This protest is only the beginning of the long struggle against it, one in which many parents are engaged as well, attempting to find or construct democratic, human-centered alternatives.

Wuer Kaixi, the Tiananmen dissident who is now running for office in Taichung, published a great piece at Thinking Taiwan this week saying that it is time for Taiwanese to take things into their own hands. It observes:

Actively changing the constitution and the laws to recognize the PRC will come at a small price and will also give a voice to the people, challenging China and the West to release Taiwan from its shackles, while also fundamentally changing the way we think about cross-strait policy. Compromise is not the way forward, and patience is simply a delay tactic. Only by taking the initiative can the people of Taiwan take control of their fate.

It seems that, that when the KMT die-hards hype the pro-China changes to the curriculum as "according to the Constitution", they are just setting up "the Constitution" as the target for the next great youth movement.

This is only the beginning...
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Daily Links:

• Everyone was LMAO at this really stooopid article: blames women for not wanting to have kids: single women are a national security threat. Hello, anyone ever heard of immigration?
• Disgraced New Taipei Deputy Mayor was responsible for 71 projects
• Solidarity's news roundup -- there was apparently bribery involved in the water park disaster. Soong may declare as early as Aug 6. 
• Peter Enav at Thinking Taiwan thinks about what Xi might do when the Chinese realize their Taiwan policy has failed, something I've been pointing out here for months now. When the KMT goes, so goes China's Taiwan strategy. 
• Anonymous attacks the government's websites over the curriculum changes
• Tsai promises official apology to the aboriginal peoples of Taiwan if elected.
• Drifting towards crisis: as Eric Hundman noted on Twitter when he posted this, US conservatives are making noise about Taiwan's situation. 
• J Michael on the use of the word "rational" deployed by the KMT against the protesters.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Student history curriculum protester commits suicide

Taiwan was rocked yesterday with the news that a student protester, facing likely prosecution, committed suicide, allegedly after an abusive, pressuring visit from the principal of his school and zero support for his actions from his parents. In traditional style, he killed himself via carbon monoxide poisoning by burning charcoal, a favorite suicide method in Asia since it does not mar the body and is supposed to be painless (2007 post). Just the souls of those who learn of these senseless tragedies.

The dead student had intended his suicide to drive action, and sure enough, protesters reached new heights of fury, and they stormed the MOE last night. Cole writes:

The occupation—one of several direct actions in the past two years—occurs after months of snowballing protests over efforts by the government to make “minor” changes to curriculum guidelines. Critics say the process lacked transparency and that the new Sino-centric content imposed by the guidelines distorts history and whitewashes the authoritarian period in the nation’s history. The dissidents also maintain that members of the 10-person committee in charge of the “minor” adjustments, set up by then-minister of education Chiang Wei-ling in January 2014, are not suited to handle the matter. Chief among them is convener Wang Hsiao-po, a vice chairman of the Alliance for the Reunification of China.

Occupation is probably a good idea for now, but come the fall the students will have to stage walkouts and sit-ins, and teach-ins. Cole points out that this social activist movement, like preceding ones, is not being orchestrated by the DPP. The KMT accuses the DPP of being behind all these movements, a charge that is completely hilarious to anyone who has ever dealt with DPP Administration. It seems sometimes that they can barely orchestrate coffee for the staff, never mind a major social protest. Instead, the students use social media to organize themselves. The LINE messages of the dead student were posted online, in fact, showing not only that he likely meant to make a statement, but that LINE is a major medium for this kind of communication. Back to Cole...

Lin, who had dropped out of a trade school in June, told a TV talk show that school officials visited his home, pressured his parents, and warned him that if he didn’t cease and desist, his criminal record risked compromising his future job prospects. School officials pointed out that Lin had been a troubled student and that the visit to his home had nothing to do with his suicide.

UDN posted a video of a parent trying to take his kid home and being refused (Solidarity with the description). Such scenes were commonplace during the Sunflower movement. The generation of people in their 40s and 50s is timid and fearful, the true Strawberries of Taiwan.

Although the Ministry of Education has said the students are engaged in illegal activities, ironic since back in February the Taipei Court ruled against the changes...

The Taiwan Association for Human Rights challenged the changes in court. Although the Taipei High Administrative Court in February ruled against the ministry’s decision to implement the adjustments, the ministry went ahead with them.

To get the changes in, the Ministry has promised that questions about the material will not be on the exam, and also threatened textbook publishers, implicitly, with revocation of permits if the new material is not included.

The curriculum revisions also take place against other sources of student anger: the revised 12 year curriculum is widely despised by students... (Brookings)

Nine-year compulsory education was implemented in Taiwan in 1968. As society and the economy have changed, a 12-year compulsory curriculum was developed and in 2010 the Ministry of Education announced that its development was completed and ready to implement. In 2011, the “Project of the Implementation of 12-year Basic Education [十二年國民基本教育實施計畫]” was audited and set to commence in 2014 – though as noted above the new curriculum itself is not yet being taught. The new curriculum aims to lead instruction in schools, give directions to students, clarify values, and prescribe certain actions (馮朝霖 et al., 2011). A reform of national curriculum concerns must not only attempt to envision the future, but also involves a dialogue on varieties of educational values and the choices amongst them (范信賢, 2010). In other words, a common understanding among a wide range of stakeholders is necessary.

...and the terrible job market that students are graduating into. The history curriculum with its pro-China changes is an easily identified and obviously abusive "reform", but there's an underlying anger here that student activists could probably find a way to harness.

The KMT of course blamed the DPP for the student's death. *sigh* The KMT news organ reported on Presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu's determination to amend the history curriculum once she is in power:

The controversy surrounding adjustments to the high school history textbook guidelines continues to heat up. Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), Deputy Legislative Speaker and the KMT’s 2016 Presidential candidate, yesterday said on a TVBS political talkshow that if she should be elected President, she would definitely amend the textbook guidelines in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of China.

Hung stressed that when the DPP came to power in 2000, the Chen Shui-bian administration had altered, to a great degree, the history textbook guidelines based on a Taiwan-independence movement perspective, and what the Education Ministry was currently doing was to re-adjust the existing history textbook guidelines to conform to the ROC Constitution.

Hung went on to remind the opposition parties that they should not incite young people to violate the law by breaking into government buildings just because the opposition had obtained political gains from last year’s student movement, during which student protesters broke into the Legislative Yuan compound to occupy the legislative chamber for nearly a month in a show of opposition to the cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement.

One of the little successes of the protesters is to compel Hung to constantly re-affirm her far-right Chineseness in public. This will be important in creating her image among local voters.
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Taiwan's brewing academic scandals?

Turn out the lights, the party's over for Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling whose "I didn't know" excuses are crumbling in the widening scandal of the 60 papers retracted from a scientific journal... (TT)

Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) has ordered the Ministry of Science and Technology to look into an academic publishing scandal involving Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧), Executive Yuan spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) said yesterday.

The directive came in the wake of accusations that National Pingtung University associate professor Chen Chen-yuan (陳震遠) committed academic fraud after 60 articles submitted by Chen were withdrawn from the Journal of Vibration and Control over allegations of falsified peer reviews.

The MOE had these paper's listed for Chiang on its website.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. If someone were to peel back the shiny linoleum of Taiwan academia and shine a light on the rot underneath, there are a lot of people in titled positions in a lot of colleges having their names put on papers they had nothing to do with. This unethical and unconscionable practice, stealing the hard work and credit of others, is yet another example of the way Taiwan's society is organized on the mafia principle where everyone kicks up to the Big Man at the top.
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FEPZs on the march into education

Are those egg cases on its back?

The Free Economic Pilot Zone initiative continues to advance, as Taiwan Today observes. Apparently one area to be liberalized is education, foreign institutions will be permitted to set up schools in the zones:

The eye-catching new plan firmly demonstrates the government’s determination to liberalize. For example, in recent years elite educational institutions from Australia, Europe and the U.S. have established branches in Asia, precipitating educational innovation; Singapore, South Korea and even Malaysia have become important bases for international education. Due to restrictions on campuses and classes in the law governing private schools, not one foreign institution has yet set up a branch or joint venture in Taiwan.* Yet changing the law on private schools is well nigh impossible.

This is a very interesting end-run around the rules. The system is designed so students are forced to attend public schools or the private schools that ape them. But if foreign institutions offered alternatives, many people would pull their kids out of the local system, especially people with money.

*Yes, there is at least one foreign university offering accredited courses here.
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Daily Links:

• Taiwan acquires Harpoon II anti-ship missiles for its two Dutch-built submarines
• New news site for Taiwan to be an independent news source?
• AP: All-volunteer military not a success in Taiwan

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!