Chinese customs seizes Taiwanese textbooks over 'incorrect maps'

Taipei, Nov. 26 (CNA) Customs officials in China recently seized three Taiwanese textbooks shipped to Fuzhou for "incorrectly labeling the province Taiwan as a country."

In a WeChat post on Sunday, the General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China (PRC) said the textbooks contained "incorrect maps" and had been transferred to the relevant authorities for follow-up.

Responding to the incident on Tuesday, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), a semi-official organization in Taiwan that handles technical matters involving China, said China was increasing censorship of printed material imported into the country.

This is especially true of materials that touch on sovereignty and territorial issues and, as a result, Taiwanese middle school textbooks sent by post to China are often seized or destroyed, the SEF said.

While China has been known to censor textbooks used by Taiwanese expatriate schools in Shanghai, Dongguan in Guangdong province, and Suzhou in Jiangsu province, students are taught any missed parts of the syllabus in Taiwan during winter and summer vacations, the SEF said.

The foundation chided China for "downgrading" Taiwan's sovereignty. "Even in simple cultural and educational exchanges [China] seeks to degrade our position," it said.

The foundation said that China's political systems are vastly different from Taiwan's democratic constitutional systems, with great differences regarding freedom of speech and academic freedom.

A total of 5,570 students were enrolled in the three Taiwanese schools in China in the first semester of the 2024 school year, the foundation said, citing information provided by the schools.