Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan announced not to force private universities and colleges to change names after opposition lawmakers threatened to freeze a huge portion of the ministry's budget. The ministry had sent a letter to all universities and colleges with the words "China," "Chinese" or "Chunghwa" (Chinese) in their names and asked them to change their names to underscore Taiwan's identity and avoid confusion with mainland China following Taiwan's executive cabinet plan of changing the names of all of the nation's overseas missions and state-owned enterprises before the Dec. 11 legislative elections, which raised sharp criticisms from legislators of the opposition party.