‘Minority’ is desinicizing Taiwan: former minister

By Su Fang-ho and Jake Chung  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

A “minority of people are pushing desinicization” in Taiwan, former minister of culture Hung Meng-chi (洪孟啟) said at Peking University’s Zhonghua Cultural Forum in November last year.

Hung, who served as culture minister under former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and became head of the Ministry of Culture-affiliated Cultural Taiwan Foundation after stepping down in May last year, said that “such acts will cause our children to be culturally rootless and lead to future Taiwanese being unable to write their own history.”

He also said Hong Kong’s Occupy Central protests were “stupid.”

Hung’s comments echoed those of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), who said at the forum that Taiwan’s desinicization was ignorant and turning its back on its ancestry.

Certain factions in Taiwan have attempted to promote desinicization to weaken and eventually break the continuation of the Zhonghua (Chinese) culture (中華文化) across the Taiwan Strait, Zhang said, adding that such acts would only harm Taiwanese.

There are those in Taiwan who think that Taiwanese culture is unique and not Zhonghua culture, but such thoughts are stupid, Hung was quoted as saying by the Chinese-language Chinese Review News.

The Zhonghua culture is like a great tree, and while the branches might have their own unique attributes, they are still part of the tree, he said.

Individuals espousing desinicization want to learn from Japanese culture, which has its roots in Chinese culture dating back to the Tang Dynasty, Hung said.

Desinicization would be equivalent to giving up their roots, and nothing can grow without roots, he said, adding that, in his mind, Taiwanese culture is certainly a part of the Zhonghua culture.