Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

A Ministry of Education circular describing Nanjing as the Republic of China’s capital and Taipei as the current seat of its central government is shown in a photo posted on Facebook yesterday by National Taipei University of Education professor Lee Hsiao-feng.
Photo downloaded from Lee Hsiao-feng’s Facebook page

A government document ordering schools’ procurement of teaching materials that mark Nanjing as the capital of the Republic of China (ROC) and Taipei as the current location of the central government indicated President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration’s persistent attempts to promote the links between Taiwan and China, as well as the administration’s misinterpretation of the Constitution, lawmakers and academics said yesterday.

A photograph posted by National Taipei University of Education professor Lee Hsiao-feng (李筱峰) on Facebook yesterday, which showed a Ministry of Education document issued on Monday to schools nationwide, went viral on the Internet.

Former Examination Yuan president Yao Chia-wen, center, and Taiwan Society chairman Chang Yen-hsien, right, listen as Sim Kiantek speaks yesterday at a press conference in Taipei on interpreting the Cairo Declaration.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times

President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) interpretation of the Cairo Declaration, issued on Dec. 1, 1943, as the legal basis of Taiwan’s “return” to the Republic of China (ROC) after World War II was not only incorrect, but also dangerous because his rhetoric was exactly the same as that of Beijing, pro-independence advocates said yesterday.

“[Ma’s interpretation] fits right in with the ‘one China’ framework, which would be interpreted by the international community as saying Taiwan is part of China because hardly anyone would recognize the China in ‘one China’ framework as referring to the ROC,” Taiwan Society President Chang Yen-hsien (張炎憲), a former president of the Academia Historica, told a press conference.