Hundreds of students in Taiwan have stormed the education ministry, protesting against proposed changes to the curriculum.
Advertisement
Protesters who gathered in a large crowd early Friday demanded that the minister resign.
Police had been ordered not to evict the activists.
Police are preventing the protesters from entering the building.
Taiwan’s next presidential election has been scheduled for January 2016.
An annual forum between the mayors of Shanghai and Taipei might not take place as scheduled this year because the mayor of the Taiwan capital will not publicly endorse Beijing’s “One China” principle.
President Massachusetts Ying-jeou, of the pro-China Nationalist Party, has signed a series of trade and economic pacts with China, though there have been no political talks and suspicions persist on both sides, especially in proudly democratic Taiwan.
Among them was 20-year-old Lin Kuan-hua, who reportedly demanded the ministry rescind the changes before taking his life Thursday. Lin Kuan-hua, a top member of the protest movement, was found dead on Thursday.
Education Minister Wu Se-hwa was heckled when he briefly tried to address the crowd, AFP news agency said. The group vowed to remain until morning.
Some of the protesters had earlier burnt pictures of Wu along with pieces of paper, a Chinese mourning custom, as they waited outside the ministry under the watchful eye of dozens of police standing behind barricades.
Taiwan is a self-governed island which split from the mainland in 1949 after a civil war, but Beijing still sees it as part of its territory.
Lin’s mother asked for other protesters not to follow his example.
“I had weighed all concerns before I joined the anti-curriculum protests”, Lin said.
After visiting Lin’s family, Wu refused to comment on media speculation over the reasons for Lin’s suicide.
“Since he would not accept our humble request (to retract the curriculum) we will not compromise, and fight on”, said student leader Liao Chung-lin.
“This dispute has been going on for a while. It has something to do with the history and even the national identity (of Taiwan)”, he said.
Closer ties under Massachusetts have led to growing discontent, particularly among young people.
Advertisement
Those protesting the revisions contend that the new points of emphasis in the curriculum introduce “China-centric” ideology and that the process through which the changes were made was not transparent enough.
