Taiwan Academy () are non-profit public institutes with a stated aim of promoting

Mandarin language Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...

(known in Taiwan as Guóyǔ (國語)),

Traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the clerical change and mostly remained in the same structure they took ...

, and research on

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

-related topics. The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of China (ROC) established the Taiwan Academy in 2011.

History

Although the ROC has operated Chinese schools and cultural centers in foreign countries for years, the Taiwan Academy represent more centralized control over cultural diplomacy with the Executive Yuan's Council for Cultural Affairs (CCA) joining the

Overseas Community Affairs Council The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC; ; Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: ''Khièu-vu Vî-yèn-fi'') is a cabinet-level council of the Executive Yuan of the Republic of China (Taiwan). The council was founded in 1926 in Canton (Guangzhou) in Kwangtung (Gu ...

, which had traditionally concerned itself only with Overseas Chinese. As a candidate, President

Ma Ying-jeou Ma Ying-jeou ( zh, 馬英九, born 13 July 1950) is a Hong Kong-born Taiwanese politician who served as president of the Republic of China from 2008 to 2016. Previously, he served as justice minister from 1993 to 1996 and mayor of Taipei fro ...

proposed the creation of Taiwan Academy during the

2008 Republic of China presidential election Presidential elections were held in Taiwan on 22 March 2008. Kuomintang (KMT) nominee Ma Ying-jeou won with 58% of the vote, ending eight years of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) rule. Along with the 2008 legislative election, Ma's landslide ...

, along with a $150 million fund to create a Nobel Prize in Literature-like award for Chinese people. The

Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), also known as Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO), Taipei Representative Office (TRO) or Taipei Mission, is an alternative diplomatic institution serving as a ''de facto'' e ...

opened the first Academies in New York, Los Angeles, and Houston on 14 October 2011. Immediately, the name "Taiwan Academy" was criticized by legislators from the ruling

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

party as "degrading" and "signifying self-localization", as opposed to a name like "Zhonghua Academy" (), which would emphasize a broader representation of

Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctiv ...

culture. The ROC's Minister of Culture

Lung Ying-tai Lung Ying-tai (; born 13 February 1952 in Kaohsiung) is a Taiwanese essayist and cultural critic. She occasionally writes under the pen name 'Hu Meili' (). Lung's poignant and critical essays contributed to the democratization of Taiwan and as t ...

said the Taiwan Academies will neither compete with nor cooperate with

mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...

Confucius Institute Confucius Institutes (CI; ) are public educational and cultural promotion programs funded and arranged currently by the , a government-organized non-governmental organization (GONGO) under the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic o ...

s for the time being.The CCA cited the Taiwan Academy as a way of exerting the government's soft power and to provide "insights into Chinese culture with Taiwanese features". In addition to the three Taiwan Academy established in the United States, the Ministry of Culture has also set up Taiwan Academy contact points in 64 countries as of September 2013. The contact points represent long-term agreements with collaborating educational institutions to assist in the dissemination of information related to the Taiwan Academy and promote programs offered by the academy.

Activities

Taiwan Academy have a budget of $21.1 million per year to fund

scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholars ...

s for

Sinology Sinology, or Chinese studies, is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of China primarily through Chinese philosophy, language, literature, culture and history and often refers to Western scholarship. Its origin "may be traced to th ...

and

Taiwan studies Taiwan studies, or Taiwanese studies, is a multi-disciplinary academic division of area studies (a part of East Asian studies) focused on studying Taiwan and the people on/in/of Taiwan both on its own and in comparison with other world areas. Academ ...

, and will also promote academic exchange with foreigners.Taiwan Academy are involved with screening movies from and distributing the Culture Ministry's "Taiwan Cinema Toolkit", which features subtitled films from Taiwan-origin directors like

Ang Lee Ang Lee (; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese filmmaker. Born in Pingtung County of southern Taiwan, Lee was educated in Taiwan and later in the United States. During his filmmaking career, he has received international critical and popula ...

and

Edward Yang Edward Yang (; November 6, 1947 – June 29, 2007) was a Taiwanese filmmaker. Yang, along with fellow auteurs Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang, was one of the leading film-makers of the Taiwanese New Wave and Taiwanese cinema. He won the B ...

. Plans for their digital library include a highlight on the island's "non-Chinese" culture.

References

External links

Ministry of Culture Overseas Offices
{{International cultural promotion organizations 2011 establishments in Taiwan Organizations established in 2011 Schools of Chinese as a second or foreign language Mandarin Chinese Research institutes of Sinology Taiwanese culture Taiwanese studies Cultural promotion organizations Foreign relations of Taiwan Language advocacy organizations Non-profit organizations based in Taiwan