Taiwanese high school students could soon be rather confused by the island’s authorities’ draft outline of history courses for 2006, which proposes dramatic alterations to the way the subject is taught.

The document, published on Tuesday, detaches the province from Chinese history, separating events after the Revolution of 1911 from the history of the island.

The province’s education minister said that the period of the Republic of China belongs to Chinese history and has nothing to do with Taiwan.

Some in the island’s media have asked whether, using this logic, Dr Sun Yat-sen, leader of the revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) to end a 2,000-year-old feudal system and respected as “Father of the Nation” by many, has now become a foreigner.

That Taiwan’s education minister has denied its status as a province of China in this way is widely seen as further evidence of the Democratic Progressive Party’s growing distaste for the island’s Chinese identity.

The draft could be read as a continuation of pro-independence supporters’ desire for “desinification” to distance Taiwan from the motherland.

Since Chen Shui-bian took office in 2000, promoting “desinification” and “name rectification” policies, separatist forces have been engaged in an attempt to remove everything from Taiwan that conveys a connection to the mainland.

Of course, the long-standing legal reality is that Taiwan is not an independent state but has been and still is a part of China.

The island came under the jurisdiction of Fujian Province as early as the 12th century, and the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 only changed the country’s government, not its scope of sovereignty – a fact recognized by the international community.

To sever Taiwan’s history from China’s is an attempt by separatists to blur recognition of one nation among the people, in particular schoolchildren, and gradually dilute their sense of being Chinese.

This can only work against the interests of people on both sides of the straits who want peace and stability as well as prosperity.

(China Daily November 11, 2004)