Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

War memory off-kilter for KMT

Taipei Times Editorial

Yesterday marked the 70th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II, but it was surprisingly quiet in the former Japanese colony of Taiwan — which might have been the result of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government’s failed attempt to connect Taiwan to China through the nation’s colonial past.

Approval process still opaque: teachers

Taipei Times

Chang Hsu-cheng, president of the National Federation of Teachers’ Unions, right, speaks at a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times

The approval process for a new 12-year education plan continues to use the same opaque procedures behind earlier controversial adjustments to high-school curriculum guidelines, a teachers’ union alleged yesterday, calling for the process to be “rebooted.”

Abe voices ‘utmost grief’ for war

Taipei Times

People in Tokyo yesterday watch Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on a screen as he gives a statement marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Photo: Reuters

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yesterday expressed “utmost grief” for the suffering Japan inflicted in World War II and vowed that Japan would never again use force to settle international disputes, but he said that future generations of Japanese should not have to keep apologizing for the mistakes of the past.

Taiwanese is the new ‘status quo’

Michael Hsiao 蕭新煌

During his visit to Japan last month, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) gave a speech to Japanese lawmakers in Tokyo. The main thrust of Lee’s speech, entitled “The Paradigm Shift of Taiwan,” was to inform Japanese lawmakers that Taiwanese identity has undergone a significant transformation following the nation’s democratic reform. National identity has changed from a vaguely China-centric, ethnically Chinese concept to a localized, Taiwanese identity, Lee said.

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