President Ma Ying-jeou says he hopes that Taiwan will become a global center for Chinese language education. Ma was speaking Friday at a scholarship award ceremony in Taipei.
Ma said that in Taiwan foreign students are able to learn both traditional and simplified Chinese characters.
“More than 2,000 simplified characters are used in China, which is between a quarter and one third of the [commonly-used] Chinese characters," said Ma.
"Among them, less than 500 are radically simplified. Therefore, as long as simplified characters are added next to the traditional ones in our publications, [students] will be able to learn the two forms at the same time.”
Ma said that about 15,000 foreign students are currently studying Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan. Ma said he hopes that number will rise to 29,000 in 2016 and again to 40,000 in 2020.