Tuesday, March 18th, 2014 Resinicizing Taiwan? The Rewriting of School Books in Taiwan Under Ma Ying-jeou

Description

The Kuomintang (KMT) administration of Taiwan has been battling public opinion for years over the issue of reform of senior high school curriculum – in particular on the subjects of Chinese language, Confucian Classics, and History. The current batch of reform, presented by the government as “a minor adjustment,” is considered by opponents as a new attempt at the re-sinicization of Taiwan. This is the fourth wave of reform since the 1990s. What are the objective facts and political/ideological contexts of this wave of reform, knowing that they concern highly sensitive textbooks in a country with a divided national identity and memory? This talk will proceed in five steps: (1) a presentation of the factual elements of the 2013-4 reform; (2) the current political and ideological context of Taiwan identity politics; (3) the history of the four successive reforms undergone since democratization; (4) an analysis of the current debate, including its supporters and opponents; and (5) some conclusions about the KMT’s strategy regarding the issue of national identification and its strategy for future relations between Taiwan and China.

Dr. Stéphane Corcuff, Associate Professor of Political Science at Lyons Institute of Political Studies and of East Asia, is also Director of the Taipei office of the French Center for the Study of Contemporary China. Specializing in identity politics and the geopolitics of Taiwan, his interests also include interpreting nearly 400 years of Taiwan-China relations in terms of geopolitical liminality, a vast concept that includes geopolitics, history, ethnicity politics, and national identity issues. He is the author of two Chinese-language books published in Taiwan, including a best-seller on Taiwan Mainlanders’ national identification schemes (風和日暖。臺灣外省人與國家認同的轉變, 2004). His second book examines the notion of Taiwan’s liminality vis-à-vis China (中華鄰國。臺灣閾境性, 2011).