Youth-led protests about a revision to history textbooks that adds more China-friendly language is ultimately about youthful unease over closer ties to the mainland – and the rule of the KMT.

Christian Science Monitor/Yahoo News
Date: August 4, 2015
By Robert Marquand

Emotional protests in Taiwan over new history textbooks that students claim will “brainwash” them with “China-centric” views are actually more about the future than the past, analysts say.

For two weeks hundreds of Taiwanese citizens led by high school students have repeatedly taken to the streets and twice tried to storm the ministry of education to oppose a textbook revision they say is an ideological argument for Beijing’s “one-China” policy that seeks reunification.

The protests are the largest in Taiwan in more than a year and reflect a growing shift on the island from cultural identification with China to a more Taiwanese identity. They also reflect a new activism by younger generations first seen in Taiwan’s “Sunflower movement” in 2014 and more recently in Hong Kong’s “Occupy Central” movement that challenged Beijing’s rules on elections.     [FULL  STORY]