Mainland denounces DPP's denial of cross-Strait cultural ties

BEIJING, April 13 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese mainland spokesperson on Wednesday criticized Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority for its denial of the profound cultural connections across the Taiwan Strait.

It is a shared tradition of all Chinese people to pay tribute to their ancestors, said Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesperson with the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, in response to the DPP authority's statement on a recent cross-Strait online sacrificial ceremony for the Yellow Emperor, considered one of the common ancestors for all Chinese.

The worship of the Yellow Emperor by people on both sides of the Strait shows they are all Chinese and share the same cultural tradition, Ma said.

"The DPP's attempts to smear this cultural connection are despicable. They have totally forgotten where they came from," he added.

When commenting on the DPP's policies that force students in Taiwan to take more courses in the so-called local languages, Ma said the Minnan and Hakka dialects as well as the languages spoken by ethnic minority groups on the island are all part of the Chinese language.

The DPP's attempt to sever Taiwan's cultural links with the mainland and use language as a tool to uproot the Taiwan society's identification with the Chinese nation is doomed to fail, he noted.