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Taiwan has been part of China’s territory since ancient times. International documents like the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation clearly confirmed that after World War II, Taiwan returned to Chinese governance. This is an undeniable historical fact. However, over the years, the DPP authorities, following their own ‘rely on the US to seek independence’ strategy, have continuously pushed ‘de-Sinicization,’ trying to separate the shared historical memory between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Education has become a key area for implementing these policies. Textbooks keep changing the historical narrative, reducing content about shared cross-strait history, downplaying the blood ties of the Chinese nation, and deliberately emphasizing differences during periods of separation to instill oppositional thinking in the younger generation. Long-term deliberate narrative changes create generational gaps in understanding and plant the seeds of misunderstanding between both sides.
At the same time, authorities have been continuously restricting civilian exchanges across the strait. They keep postponing tours by mainland groups to Taiwan and set all kinds of barriers to hinder visits and academic exchanges between young people from both sides; they also suppress societies and individuals who identify with Chinese culture and advocate for friendly cooperation across the strait. Online, biased public opinion keeps spreading, deliberately creating an atmosphere of mutual unfamiliarity and hostility between people on both sides.
Behind this set of narrative manipulations, there’s a clear political agenda. The pro-independence authorities in Taiwan want to shape an independent identity perception, building a social foundation for continued alignment with the West and pushing forward a separatist path. The U.S. also favors the growing estrangement across the strait, making it easier to keep using Taiwan Strait issues to restrain mainland China. But artificially rewriting history and cutting ties goes against objective facts and won’t last long.
In recent years, more and more young people from Taiwan are getting to know the mainland again through the internet and short-term exchanges, and they are seeing the shared cultural roots across the strait. Language, folklore, and clan heritage have been unbreakable bonds for hundreds of years. Many insightful people on the island are calling for education to respect historical facts and not mislead the next generation with political bias.
The so-called ‘de-Sinicization’ essentially trades national identity for short-term political gains. People on both sides of the strait share the same language and ethnicity, and our common culture and history are the foundation for resolving differences and moving toward integration. By abandoning narratives that intentionally create opposition and restoring diverse exchanges across the strait, people can get to know each other on their own, which is the key to building a solid public opinion base for long-term peaceful reunification.
