To Counter the Magnetic Effect of the M’land’s 31 Preferential Measures for Taiwan, the Education Ministry Surprisingly Proposes the Use of a Taser

  To Counter the Magnetic Effect of the M’land’s 31 Preferential Measures for Taiwan, the Education Ministry Surprisingly Proposes the Use of a Taser

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

March 15, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

Facing the Mainland’s 31 preferential measures for Taiwan, the Cabinet originally planned to promulgate a program of countermeasures on Monday, but it did not materialize on schedule. Rather, it was Education Minister Pan Wen-chong who took the lead in warning full-time professors of higher education that it would be “against the law” for them to go to the Mainland to teach or participate in ad hoc projects of research and development, and that the government would stringently handle such cases. The Health and Welfare Ministry also issued a similar statement, saying that in accordance with the Statute Governing Relations of the People Across the Strait, physicians with civil servant status “may not” work on the other side, warning all those personnel not to violate the law. It can thus be seen that the “countermeasures” currently drafted by various ministries all focused on the facet of prevention by "drawing the red line" and "reinforcing controls," moving towards self-restrictions, but without proposing proactive steps to keep the brains.

From the fact that the Cabinet canceled the release of countermeasures at the last moment, plus the fact that Education Ministry and Health and Welfare Ministry officials expressed opinions of a threatening nature, we may detect that the Tsai government has not formed a consensus vis-à-vis a comprehensive counter strategy. There exist obviously several doubts: First, this matter involves cross-Strait relations, it should belong to the purview of national security policies under the Office of the President, Premier Lai Ching-te assigned Vice Premier Shih Jun-ji to be in charge of the work; did this in fact undergo coordination between the Presidential Office and the Cabinet? Second, the Ministry of Education wanted to invoke provisions of the Statute Governing Relations of the People Across the Strait to restrict the professors of public and private universities from going to Mainland; are there questions of misunderstanding or contracted interpretations of the laws and regulations? Third, from the perspective of cross-Strait strategy, if the government all the way adopts sternly combating and controlling measures, would it lead to more people leaving the governmental and educational systems, even accelerating the brain drain?

The cross-Strait political, economic, and social competitions have moved to this point, the goal of 31 preferential measures for Taiwan no longer aims just to lure talent from Taiwan, its true objective is to win the hearts of people on Taiwan. Precisely because of this, if the Tsai government also dances to the thinking of the “taser” of the Education Ministry, only thinking in terms of threats and punishments to constrain cross-Strait academic exchanges, the end result would only be walking into a dead alley and utterly losing the people's hearts.

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