Simplified structure adds to cultural gap

A list of 8,300 Chinese characters for common use was published last week to solicit public opinion. This is the third time it is being done to regularize characters since 1956 and was against a different background: the heated debate over whether to restore the unsimplified traditional Chinese characters. That this list contains 1,335 more characters than its previous version published in 1986 is considered by some as a gesture of compromise to both sides in the debate.

This is because 51 variant forms of their corresponding common characters are included. And so are six unsimplified ones. Some of them have been used as surnames of particular families and some have been commonly accepted despite their deletion from the first list in 1956.

But the group of experts who have been working on the list for more than eight years has given an explicit answer to the debate by saying that the more complex Chinese characters will not be restored in order to avoid confusion in their use.