Mainland China to Resume the Use of Traditional Chinese Characters within Ten Years?

Mainland China to Resume the Use of Traditional Chinese Characters within Ten Years?
Nanfang Daily
March 3, 2009
Translated by Bevin Chu
http://chinanews.sina.com

Love without a Heart: Ai, or "Love," in Simplified Chinese 

Love with a Heart: Ai, or "Love," in Traditional Chinese

The China Desk: Taiwan independence demagogues have long denounced Chinese reunification as "surrender to Beijing." 

Really?  

Champions of free market capitalism, including myself, like to joke that "The Cold War is over. We won." 

The USSR lost the Cold War to the USA. The PRC lost the Cold War to the ROC.  

Beijing was forced to admit that it lost to Taipei. Beijing was forced to admit that it was defeated by Taipei in the War of Economic Systems. Deng Xiaoping on the Chinese mainland, was forced to adopt the free market capitalism practiced by Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo on Taiwan.   

So who surrendered to whom? 

If that isn't enough, now Beijing is being forced to admit that it lost to Taipei in the War of Characters. 

So who says reunification means "surrender to Beijing?"

Closer examination suggests that reunification means "victory over Beijing." 

Mainland China to Resume the Use of Traditional Chinese Characters within Ten Years? 
Nanfang Daily 
March 3, 2009
Translated by Bevin Chu
http://chinanews.sina.com

Pan Qingling, a Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Committee Member, has proposed that the nation phase out the use of Simplified Chinese characters in stages, and resume the use of Traditional Chinese characters within ten years, for three reasons.

One. The adoption of Simplified Chinese characters in the 1950s, during the last century, was too crude. It constituted a violation of Chinese writing, both artistically and scientifically. For example, the Traditional Chinese character for "love" includes the character for "heart." Upon simplification, the result is "love without a heart."

Two. It was once said that Traditional Characters were too complex, too hard to learn, too hard to write, and not conducive to popularization. But now most people use computers. No matter how complex the characters might be, they are no more difficult to type. This is no longer a problem.

Three. Resuming the use of Traditional Chinese characters is beneficial to reunification. The Taiwan region still uses Traditional Chinese characters, and refers to them as "Standard Characters." This has deep implications. The use of "Standard Characters" as an intangible cultural heritage exerts a form of pressure on the mainland.

全國政協委員潘慶林建議恢復使用繁體字

南方日報

2009年03月03日 03:33 

http://chinanews.sina.com 

全國政協委員潘慶林提出，建議全國用10年時間，分批廢除簡體漢字，恢復使用繁體字，原因有三:

1 上世紀50年代簡化漢字時太粗糙，違背了漢字的藝術和科學性。比如愛字，繁體字裡有個“心”，簡化後，造成“無心之愛”。

2 以前說繁體字太繁瑣，難學難寫，不利於傳播，但是現在很多人都是用電腦輸入，再繁瑣的字打起來也一樣，所以這個問題已經漸漸不存在。

3 恢復使用繁體字有利於兩岸統一。現在台灣依然用繁體字，並稱其為“正體字”，深有意味，還要為“正體字”申請非物質文化遺產，給祖國大陸方面造成了壓力。