President Ma Ying-jeou and Culture Minister Lung Ying-tai jointly inaugurated the Ministry of Culture in Taipei on 21 May.

Upgraded from the Council for Cultural Affairs, the Ministry of Culture took over some responsibilities from a number of ministry-level organisations, including the Ministry of Education, to lead on the nation’s development of culture and cultural policies.  Minister Lung expected culture to play important roles in Taiwan’s education, foreign relations, economic and industrial policies, and hoped that President Ma would ‘consider culture the power of a nation, and the development of and investment in culture is the development of and investment in a nation's power’, reports Taipei Times and China Post.