Education Ministry Sets Guidelines for Use of “Republic of China” in Textbooks

Education Ministry Sets Guidelines for Use of “Republic of China” in Textbooks

Source: Taipei newspapers     June 12, 2012

 
The Education Ministry said yesterday that with regard to the cross-Strait designations used in elementary and high school textbooks in the field of social studies, if the subject in the passage involved state sovereignty, state-to-state relations, or comparison between countries, or the signing of agreements with other countries, the designation of “The Republic of China,” instead of “Taiwan” shall be used in the textbooks. For example, if an article discusses issues such as a country’s population growth, when the designations of the US, Japan, and Korea are used, “The Republic of China,” instead of “Taiwan” will be used in the passage for that purpose. On the other hand, when a subject in the textbooks involves social, economic, cultural and other related issues, “Taiwan” and “Mainland China” will be used in the contexts.   
 
At the end of last February, in an newspaper article titled “Look Squarely at High School History and Geography Textbooks,” former Premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) pointed out that the contents of the current elementary and high school textbooks had misled students with regard to the national identity of the Republic of China and infused the concept of “One State on Either Side”【i.e., the so-called “the State of Taiwan” and “China”】into the textbooks.

A meeting was convened by the Education Ministry’s National Academy for Education Research （NAER國家教育研究院） to review the terms used in textbooks and discuss guidelines for terms to be used in textbooks after some people wrote to the Ministry regarding the issue.  
       
Yang Kuo-yang (楊國揚), director of the NAER’s Textbook Development Center, said yesterday that in a March meeting, a consensus was reached that the terms used in the textbooks should revert to the spirit of the ROC Constitution, the Statute Governing Relations between People across the Taiwan Strait（兩岸人民關係條例）, and course guidelines in order to avoid unnecessary controversies.  
 
However, the Education Ministry’s move to establish guidelines for writing and editing textbooks with regard to the national title has drawn criticisms from the DPP. DPP legislator Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) yesterday criticized the Education Ministry for giving Chang Yia-chung (張亞中), a political science professor from the National Taiwan University, a seat on the Education Ministry’s committee in charge of reviewing the writing and editing of high school history textbooks in order to conduct “de-Taiwanization.” She accused Chang of being pro-unification. In response, an official from the Education Ministry said that the committee was made up of 13 members and given the fact that the committee adopted decisions by consensus, so it was impossible for a single committee member to sway the results.

Chang Yia-chung said yesterday, “If what I said during the committee meeting didn’t make any sense, it would have been impossible for my suggestion to become a consensus during the meeting.”    
 
Chang Yia-chung, who has been doing research in international relations, cross-Strait relations, and modern Chinese history, joined last May the Education Ministry’s committee in charge of reviewing the writing and editing of senior high school history textbooks.  

Chang Yia-chung told the media yesterday, “Under the framework of the Republic of China Constitution, our national title is the Republic of China, and Taiwan is only a geographical term. In foreign relations, of course, we have to use the Republic of China to avoid downgrading our national status. Take ‘West Germany’ as an example. Before the unification of the two Germanys, in West Germany’s official documents, they always used the ‘Federal Republic of Germany’ or FRG. There had been no other designations. Therefore, we should use ‘The Republic of China,’ not ‘Taiwan,’ in our textbooks if it involves issues related to state sovereignty.”
 

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