Speaking at a national convention on youth policy sponsored by the Cabinet-level National Youth Commission, Ma said the government's policy of recruiting Chinese students is aimed at making Taiwan's educational environment more liberalized and globalized.

"The policy was espoused 10 years ago by then Education Minister Wu Jin," Ma noted.

He added that the so called "opening policy" means that domestic colleges and universities will be allowed to recruit Chinese students but the administration will not push or encourage them to do so.

Noting that China now has over 2,500 colleges and universities, some of which rank among the list of leading universities in the world, Ma said Taiwan will leave itself a "laughing stock" if it continues to close its doors and turn its back on world opinion.

On the viewpoint that such opening will "bring about unlimited business opportunities to the country," Ma denied that this is the purpose of the government policy.

"The first and foremost purpose of allowing Chinese students to study in Taiwan is to help young men and women from the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to better know each other, eventually helping normalize cross-strait relations," Ma said.

"Secondly, it will help Taiwan recruit top-notch Chinese students to spur Taiwan students' competitiveness," he added.

"The other purpose of the opening policy is that it will probably help solve the problems facing privately run colleges and universities because of increasingly declining enrollment rates," he predicted.

Ma added, however, that the country will not allow Chinese citizens to sit tests in Taiwan for professional licenses on the grounds that only people who are Republic of China nationals are allowed to sit such tests.

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