Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

If the past few years of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) term in office were to be set to music, it would be an opus in four parts entitled “illegal abuses of power,” “making trouble,” “fomenting conflict” and “refusing to correct past errors,” with a clear musical motif running through the piece, as it does his record in office.

It runs through the political storm he whipped up in September 2013; it runs through the infamous attempt to rush through the review of the cross-strait service trade agreement; and the strain can still be heard in the present controversy over the adjustments to social studies high-school curriculum guidelines, again devised behind closed doors.

The government’s attempt to implement changes to high-school curriculum guidelines is an outrage based on a colonial mindset and the party-state’s fear of losing power. At a time when their Republic of China (ROC) is no longer in China, the evolution of the national epistemology that has resulted from the party-state’s constant reinterpretation of itself during the democratization process — going from the view that there is the ROC on Taiwan to the idea that the ROC is Taiwan — has in effect exposed the party-state’s lies and revealed that the emperor is wearing no clothes.