This official effort to portray native “Taiwanese” as a separate ethnic group, with scant relation to Chinese culture, was extended to language, as Chen favored using the Fujian dialect in lieu of the Mandarin spoken by 1.3 billion Chinese and taught all over the world. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education sought to expunge all references to China in school textbooks.
扁政府努力将本地“台湾人”描绘成一种独立存在的，跟中国文化甚少瓜葛的族群，而陈水扁本人则喜欢用福建方言（闽南语）而不是13亿中国人都在使用并在全世界推广的普通话（国语）。而与此同时，台湾教育部则试图把一切跟有关中国的注释从教科书上抹个干净。