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Letters | Why the Taiwan issue boils down to education
- Readers discuss history education and identity in Taiwan, why Hong Kong universities should go private, and whether another 24-hour checkpoint is necessary
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Following the Nationalist retreat to Taiwan in 1949, China became physically divided across the Taiwan Strait.
The Kuomintang (KMT) had reclaimed Taiwan in 1945, at the end of the second world war, from the defeated Japanese who had ruled Taiwan since 1895. Taiwan’s population had thus been under Japanese rule for 50 years by the time the KMT reclaimed the island.
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In 1945, the population was around six million; roughly 1.5 million would arrive from the mainland.
Under the leadership of the two Chiangs, Taiwan’s education system was anchored to Confucian tradition, preserved continuity with Chinese history and maintained the island’s Chinese identity, providing the cultural milieu in which the 1992 consensus was reached.
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Under the leadership of Lee Teng-hui, however, educational reform began to transform subsequent generations’ sense of identity. An alternate historical narrative, partly tied to the 50 years of Japanese occupation, has been used to shape a “new” Taiwanese identity.
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