Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Office criticizes Chinese trade ruling

Taipei Times

Beijing is using trade to manipulate Taiwan’s politics, the Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday after China announced that a ban on imports of more than 2,455 categories of Chinese goods constituted a “trade barrier.”

The Executive Yuan office said in a statement that a Chinese probe contravened WTO rules and Taiwan did not accept it.

The investigation was politically motivated and China should immediately cease its political manipulation of Taiwan, it said, without elaborating.

Ancient texts unrelated to morality

Taipei Times Editorial

Ever since the Ministry of Education promulgated the 2019 curriculum guidelines, critics have always complained about the “mass reduction” of classical Chinese content. They say it is part of government efforts to “de-Sinicize” education, which has led to moral depravity and degeneracy in society.

With the recent controversy surrounding the omission of the Ming Dynasty academic Gu Yanwu’s (顧炎武) work Honesty and Morality (廉恥) in mind, the issue seems to never age as a hot election topic. However, perhaps it is worth thinking about whether classical Chinese still retains as much significance or importance in modern life as academics claim and what kind of impact it has on the public’s linguistic skills in the long run.

Education with no indoctrination

Chen Chi-nung 陳啟濃

Alice Ou (區桂芝), who teaches Chinese language and literature at Taipei First Girls’ High School, stirred up controversy over remarks she made at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan on Monday last week, in which she criticized the 2019 curriculum guidelines for de-emphasizing classical Chinese.

Subsequently, Ou sought to rationalize her remarks by citing President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) advocacy of respect for freedom of identity.

However, Ou is responsible for teaching high-school students who are under 18 years old, in this case at the prestigious Taipei First Girls’ High School, where she is said to often spout off about her political leanings in the classroom.

Curriculum changes appropriate

Linus Chiou 邱士哲

Taipei First Girls’ High School literature teacher Alice Ou’s (區桂芝) criticism of the move to de-emphasize classical Chinese in the 2019 curriculum guidelines opened the door for heated discourse on education policy and culture.

Ou’s position as an educator at one of Taiwan’s best high schools lends credence to her relatively reactionary argument that the cut in the number of classical Chinese texts was “a crime deserving more than 10,000 deaths.”

Classical content still averages about 35 to 45 percent of high-school Chinese literature textbooks, as opposed to 45 to 65 percent under the previous curriculum.

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