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There seems to be no connection between the first two news items and the last one, but if you have heard the ins and outs of Taiwan Province’s Pinyin War, you may have some new knowledge about the origin between Taiwan Province and Chinese Pinyin.
Anyone who has been to Taiwan Province, or is familiar with Taiwan Province, knows that there are many pinyin systems in Taiwan Province, which are different from those in mainland China. The function of phonetic notation for Chinese characters is undertaken by phonetic symbols (that is, the system that looks a bit like Japanese katakana). The romanization of Chinese characters, Chinese Pinyin and Universal Pinyin are competing for who will undertake the function of Latin Chinese characters (that is, spelling Chinese characters with Latin letters). In particular, the contest between the latter two went beyond the linguistic category and rose to a political struggle, which caused widespread concern and heated discussion, so it was called "Pinyin War".
We are all familiar with Chinese Pinyin, so I won’t say much here. The Romance of Mandarin comes from the French Pinyin of Romance of Mandarin (commonly known as "Lao Guo Luo") formulated by the Preparatory Meeting for the Unification of Mandarin in 1926, and the compilers brought together many famous linguists such as Qian Xuantong, li jinxi, Zhao Yuanren and Lin Yutang. In 1928, Nanjing Kuomintang Government College published it as "Mandarin Phonetic Alphabet II", which was implemented simultaneously with phonetic alphabet. In 1986, Taiwan Province released the Second Form of Phonetic Symbols in Mandarin, commonly known as "New Country Luo". The universal pinyin scheme was first put forward in 1997 and was first used in Taipei City where Chen Shui-bian was the mayor in 1998. In 2002, the Ministry of Education of Taiwan Province adopted the "Chinese Pinyin System as Universal Pinyin", and replaced Chinese Pinyin with Universal Pinyin.
To tell the truth, Mandarin Roman and Universal Pinyin look similar to Chinese Pinyin, both of which use Latin letters, but there are differences in handling some problems, such as which letter to use to express some pronunciations, whether to add additional symbols, how to express Chinese tones, etc. For example, there is a Mucha area in Taipei, which is spelled "Muzha" in Chinese pinyin, "Mucha" in Roman characters and "Mujha" in common pinyin. Generally speaking, all countries or regions want to promote a standard spelling scheme, but different spellings often coexist in Taiwan Province for a long time.
The coexistence of various spelling schemes of Chinese characters is actually the result of political wrestling in Taiwan Province. Before the Chinese Pinyin Scheme was launched in mainland China in 1958, there were always many Latin schemes for Chinese characters in the Chinese character circle. However, after 1958, the spelling in mainland China was unified as Chinese Pinyin, while Taiwan Province, on the other side of the Taiwan Strait, still insisted on using Roman characters, the national language.
Even in Chinese Pinyin, which has been adopted by the United Nations Secretariat since 1979, it is used to transliterate the names and places of China in various Latin alphabets; Even though the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) stipulated in 1982 that Chinese Pinyin should be the international standard (ISO7098), Taiwan Province still used Roman characters to spell Chinese characters, and even released a set of "New Country Luo" which few people used. The competition between Roman characters in Mandarin and Chinese Pinyin may be regarded as a prelude to the Pinyin War.
About because Chinese Pinyin has gained more and more international recognition, due to the need of exchange of scientific, technological, cultural and academic materials, and in order to be in line with the world, in 1999, the administrative department of Taiwan Province authorities decided to adopt the Chinese Pinyin method in mainland China, and it was planned to make Chinese Pinyin a compulsory course for primary school students two years later.
If the story ends here, then the "Pinyin War" is also strangled in the cradle. It happened that in 2000, Chen Shui-bian came to power, implemented the "Taiwan independence" policy, and constantly "localized" and "de-China" in culture. In this context, the universal pinyin, which claims to be more suitable for spelling "Taiwanese Mandarin", has replaced the Chinese pinyin.
Such a move was fiercely criticized and resisted by all sides of the island, and the "Pinyin War" broke out. The main argument of the opponents in the debate is that the universal pinyin is not universal at all, and even it is difficult to pass in Taiwan Province, let alone meet the international standards. Although the official said that universal pinyin would not be enforced, counties and cities that can adopt "universal pinyin" can apply for huge subsidies, while those that adopt Chinese pinyin have no preferential policies. Despite this, some counties and cities do not buy it. For example, Taipei City, which once took the lead in universal Pinyin, insisted on using Chinese Pinyin.
Although the degree of cooperation among all parts of the island is not high, and the backlash from all walks of life has never been cut off, Taiwan Province officials have never given up their efforts to make universal pinyin "unify the world", and even prepared to make all place names adopt universal pinyin by the end of 2007. However, the situation suddenly changed in 2008, when Ma Ying-jeou became the leader of Taiwan Province region. On September 16th, the Ministry of Education of Taiwan Province decided to completely abandon the common pinyin and switch to the Chinese pinyin which is common with the mainland. The "Pinyin War" that lasted for many years finally came to an end.
Of course, although the war is over, there are still many battlefields to be cleaned. For example, in the past six years, the promotion of universal pinyin has left a lot of signboards, and it is naturally a large expenditure to replace them all. Therefore, it is inevitable that the two schemes will coexist for a long time.
Whether to use Chinese Pinyin or Universal Pinyin is originally just a linguistic question. It is not difficult to get an answer by comparing which scheme is more systematic, which scheme can accurately record and reflect Chinese pronunciation, which scheme is easier to teach and which scheme is more in line with international standards. In fact, Chinese pinyin and universal pinyin are roughly the same, with only a few differences. Linguists and users have their own judgment on which of the two schemes is better or worse. However, when Universal Pinyin was implemented, the two parties, the state and the pro-China, also criticized the Democratic Progressive Party authorities for "politics trumps professionalism and ideology overturns practicality". It is no wonder that when the relevant authorities in Taiwan Province decided to change the Chinese transliteration policy from "Universal Pinyin" to "Chinese Pinyin", the People’s Daily at that time was accompanied by an eight-word commentary: "A pragmatic move". (Wuyun)