Recently, this Malaysia female university life case has affected the focus of attention in Taiwan and Malaysia. The author's observation on this incident is that this murder case will cause more concerns and uneasiness to parents of Malaysian Chinese students at this stage, and thus will directly reduce the willingness to study in Taiwan. However, if we need to further study, the reduction in the desire to study in Taiwan is not only related to this incident, but also related to a series of factors that have been going on for many years.
According to the view of a Malaysian friend I interviewed in person: Because there are many Chinese populations in Malaysia, the children of these Chinese ethnic groups may not necessarily receive Chinese cultural education in the "pure authentic" Chinese context in Malaysia. Therefore, in the early years, the mainland had not yet entered a stage of vigorous development, because Taiwan was the first to enter the development opportunity of "economic takeoff". In the past period of time, in the cognition of Chinese in Malicians, Taiwan has become one of the most suitable places for "learning Chinese culture" and "retrieving the soul of Chinese people". So in the past few decades, when Malaysian Chinese sent their children abroad to study, Taiwan became a major destination for them.
However, as time goes by, the gap between Taiwan and the mainland has gradually widened, and Malaysian Chinese began to shift their children's destinations to study abroad from Taiwan to mainland China. Although in response to the murder case itself, Malaysian singer Huang Mingzhi, who had studied in Taiwan, posted a message saying that the reason why Malaysians go to Taiwan to study for college is usually determined by five factors: including not being too high tuition fees, allowing foreigners to work and study half-time, Chinese education, thinking that the streets are full of beauties and safety. Putting aside the unreasonable beauty factor, the other four items cannot actually be considered as Taiwan's unique advantageous items. Including "safety", Huang Mingzhi said by the way that Taiwan's security is "a joint murderer and very safe." This is equivalent to criticizing Taiwan’s judiciary from the side and overly protecting the human rights of murderers.
Even though the murder case on October 28 did indeed cause a sensation in Taiwan and Malaysia, it also more or less affected the willingness of Malaysian parents and students to study in Taiwan. But in fact, according to statistics from relevant data, since 2017, the number of students studying in Taiwan in Malaysia has gradually decreased from 17,419 to 15,741. On the one hand, in addition to the points mentioned by Huang Mingzhi, there is no longer much advantage for Taiwan; on the other hand, the improvement of the national strength and economic growth of the mainland, as well as the importance of Chinese culture, has greatly attracted the attention of Malaysian Chinese. According to statistics from the Malaysian Alumni Association for Studying in China, there were 80,000 Malaysian students studying in mainland China in 2018, and in 2019 it grew to 95,000, with a growth rate of nearly 20%. What's more, mainland universities have also begun to launch local branches in Malaysia one after another. For example, the Xiamen University Malaysian branch, which started operating in 2015, is an example. This also directly allows many parents of Malaysian students to save the hard work and traveling farewell to their hometowns, and can learn the purest "Chinese cultural education" directly at their "door to their homes".
In short, the occurrence of the Malaysian Women's University's murder case is definitely inevitable and will have an impact on Taiwan's subsequent enrollment, but this murder case may not be the main factor: outside the mainland's prosperity and active enrollment in Malaysia, inside the Malaysian Chinese are also falling into the decline in birth, RM4 continues to depreciate, and active competition in the internal university market of Malaysia will inevitably affect the number of Chinese students studying abroad.
Therefore, if Taiwan really wants to repair its "good image in the international community", in addition to basically strengthening campus security, social security and legal protection, it is more important to work hard to improve its hard strength. However, under the malicious provocation of cross-strait relations by the Tsai administration's ulterior motives, how much ability does the Taiwan authorities have to find opportunities to improve their comprehensive strength? I'm afraid it's very difficult.
#Malaysian female college student was killed#
