Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Nowhere, other than Taiwan, would another nation be able to interfere with — or be allowed to interfere with — the contents of school materials that address the debate over national identity and history. Despite that, on June 13, the debate and controversy over Taiwanese history as portrayed in Taiwan’s senior-high school history books was discussed at a news conference held by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) with the office spokesperson making the absurd demand that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration put its house in order, without taking the care as to whether or not it gave people the impression that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) are cooperating with each other.

The grim spectacle of young monks, nuns and lay people setting themselves on fire to protest conditions in their homeland is a stark reminder of the gloom and despair that now prevails on the Tibetan Plateau. These acts of self-immolation — at least 36 since March last year — have been staged to protest the increasingly heavy controls that China’s government in Beijing has imposed on Buddhist religious practices. At the end of last month, a self-immolation occurred for the first time in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, which may be a powerful portent of new turmoil in Tibet.