Mainland, Taiwan to publish report on Chinese language

The Chinese mainland and Taiwan are to jointly publish a report on their respective use of the Chinese language and its differences and evolution across the Taiwan Strait, the Ministry of Education said in a statement on Tuesday.

The two sides have agreed to improve the linkage of websites and network resource sharing, enhance the cross-Strait language exchange mechanism, and strengthen cooperation between young people on joint promotion of Chinese-language classic works, the statement said, adding that all these initiatives would be completed within 2013.

Mainland-Taiwan relations entered a tense era after the Kuomintang (KMT) lost a civil war with the Communist Party of China (CPC) and fled to Taiwan in the late 1940s.

But the relations warmed up after the KMT, led by a new generation of leaders, returned to power in a 2008 election, ending eight years of rule by the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party.

More than 90 percent of expressions used by the two sides are identical, surveys show. But decades of estrangement have caused differences across the Strait in the use of the Chinese language.

With the deepening of cross-Strait cultural exchanges, the two sides have jointly worked on compiling of Chinese language reference books, including those of technical terms, and opened a "Chinese Language Repository" website, the statement said.