For Chinese translation, click here. Many thanks to Chen-Yu Chan for the translation.
I am an American. Just like my mother and father, I was born and raised in Northeast Ohio (and as a result have the curse of being a perpetually heart-broken Cleveland sports fan), grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons, and fighting with my brothers over who got the last of the Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. I raked leaves in the fall, and enjoyed snowball fights in the winter. I loved trading baseball cards, playing soccer and video games (I’m still convinced that blowing into the game cartridges made them work), and upon reaching adolescence I adhered to the usual teenager rebellion tactics of wanting to pick out my own school clothes and pleading with my parents for an extended curfew; consistently going to battle with them with the logical ammunition argument of proclaiming “but all my friends can stay out later!” I lived what one could call a typical middle-class American upbringing, and have never questioned my own nationality. Why would I? Nobody else ever has.
My ethnicity, like many Americans however, cannot be hammered down into a simple definition. Years ago, with the help of a grandmother from my father’s side, and a grandfather and great grandmother on my mother’s side, I attempted to retrace the development of my family lines back as far as I could. I was amazed that the further I was able to delve back into history, the more ethnically diverse my family became. I had family who owned small vineyards in Naples, Italy; others who had deep roots in Bavaria, Germany; and I also am a descendant of a long blood line which resided in a small village outside the city of Zagreb, Croatia for well over a century before some of them made the trek to the United States in the early 20th century.
If you are still reading, perhaps you are wondering a) Why this author compelled to spend two paragraphs sharing mundane details about his nationality and ethnicity and b) What does this have to do with Taiwan and China? In a word: everything.
China prefers to view Taiwan through a special prism which sees Taiwan an inherent part of China going back to “ancient times” (the same moniker used when describing Tibet, East Turkestan, the Senkaku Islands, the Paracel and Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, and any other territory that it may find appealing), as well as a place where actual “Chinese” reside. It doesn’t take much digging to find speeches from Mao all the way down to Xi that seek to appeal to a “shared Chinese identity” or a “blood is thicker than water” approach, in which China equates ethnicity with political fate.
In other words, the Chinese conception of ethnicity and nationality is one and the same. To me, one’s nationality is the legal relationship between a person and a state, whereas a person’s ethnicity is an identity with or membership in a specific racial, national, or cultural group, and observance of said group’s customs, beliefs, and language.
Of course, neither nationality nor ethnicity is created in a vacuum—both are cultivated and defined by external factors that over the course of time help create them. And both hold levels of meaning and importance to people that, without exception, will change over time. In the case of China, the rulers have done much to cultivate and define nationality and ethnicity within their borders to their advantage. Any archaeologist or ethnographer could easily dispel the myth that China is “the world’s oldest continuous civilization.”
In its latest iteration, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has since 1949 sought to clobber together a single all-encompassing definition of being “Chinese,” confusing ethnic and national identities into something that could be liberally applied in order to fulfill its social and political objectives. Since its ascension to power, the CCP has recognized 55 ethnic minority groups within its borders in addition to the overwhelming Han ethnicity, whose numbers comprise about 90-92% of its total population. While the government acknowledges these groups as ethnic minorities, it places a far greater importance on the concept of a ‘harmonious society’ in which all citizens are expected to label themselves “Chinese” before any other identity.
While there is nothing unusual about expecting citizens to buy into a national identity, the government of the People’s Republic often takes liberties as to what it believes “Chinese” should be—it’s not just a national identity that centers around the people’s ownership of the state (the people don’t own the state), but an ethnic identity that centers around ethnic groups coming together under the assimilation by the Han majority.
Regardless of the fact that areas within China’s current borders have been conquered and ruled by Mongols, Manchu, Turks, Koreans, Russians, Kazaks, and the Naxi, among other ethnic groups, the CCP has often placed a premium on the here and now: If these ethnic groups reside within our borders now, then they are ‘Chinese’ in a national sense of the word.
Taking it a step further, the CCP often uses the historical borders of such groups when making territorial claims, often attempting to make what I consider outlandish links over the course of history. One example of this is with China’s current border dispute with the tiny Kingdom of Bhutan. Throughout the 1970s, China claimed that since the people of Bhutan were ethnically related to Tibetans (the Bhutanese are believed to have settled into what is now Bhutan in the 7th or 8th century) that
“Bhutanese, Sikkimese and Ladakhis form a united family in Tibet. They have always been subject to Tibet and to the great motherland of China. They must once again be united and taught the communist doctrine.”
Huh?
For those keeping score:
Bhutanese, Sikkimese, and Ladakhis all are ethnically Tibetan +
Tibet is now a part of the People’s Republic of China =
_______________________________________________
All of these ethnicities are really “Chinese” and there their land is Chinese territory.
Confused yet?
What’s more, being Chinese in reality means assimilation into the Han majority. Ethnic groups other than the Han are regarded as having lower social status. Otherwise, the Communist Party would not be incentivizing marriages that involve female brides of ethnic minority backgrounds to wed ethnic Han males by offering vacations, prizes, and monetary gifts, and yes, special reproductive rights to the new couples under the guise of ‘ethnic unity’—unions that have become increasingly common in the “Self-Autonomous Regions” of Tibet and Xinjiang (both with ethnic minority populations that outnumber the Han). There would also be far fewer cases of social unrest in Xinjiang, a province that has the highest rate of GDP growth outside the rich coastal Provinces of the Southeast—if the Uyghur majority were able to share in the economic spoils.
Which brings us to Taiwan—A place and a people that seldom fit neatly into any definition. It is not news that China claims sovereignty over Taiwan. It does so by claiming that the Republic of China government in Taiwan is a renegade holdover from the Chinese Civil War from 1945 to 1949, but it further claims that the people living in Taiwan are “Chinese”—and as we have seen earlier, that means the territory belongs to China too. But how do the Taiwanese people see their own national and ethnic identities?
When it comes to the issue of ethnic identity in Taiwan, it’s a challenging enough topic for those with at least some familiarity of Taiwan and its history, but for those who lack such acumen, it can be a never-ending source of confusion and frustration. This author can share two such experiences that highlight this point.
During my junior year of high school, our family hosted an exchange student over the summer from Taiwan. While I had an interest about China and Japan that went back as far as I could remember, Taiwan was never on my radar. Over the course of the summer, I would probe our guest with questions about nearly everything imaginable:
“What’s the red stamp on your I.D. mean?”
“It says if you have drug, the police can kill you.” (He always laughed when saying this but never did say if he was joking)”
“What does your father do in Taiwan?”
“He is a businessman.”
“Why do you say that you are Chinese?”
“I am Chinese.”
“But you live in Taiwan. So wouldn’t that make you Taiwanese?”
“No, we live in Taiwan, but we are Chinese.”
Needless to say this didn’t ease my lack of confusion about why he called himself Chinese. After all, my family lived in the United States, I knew where my grandparents came from in Europe, and I could say I was “Croatian, German, or Italian”, but of course it always came down to me saying I was an American. The idea that someone could be born in a country, yet identify their ethnicity and nationality something else was really head-scratching for me at the time.
The other example took place years later, a few days following my initial arrival in Taiwan in 2008. While feeling that I had at least a better than average grasp on “the basics” of Taiwan before leaving the United States, all it took was a random glance into a Lonely Planet guidebook that was published in the early 90s that made me feel like I was back into the same conversation with my family’s guest from Taiwan.
When speaking to people in Taiwan, do not call them “Taiwanese”. You will find that most people prefer to be identified as “Chinese”. The issue remains a sensitive topic among many people in Taiwan.
What? Why?
Over the course of the next three years, I sometimes posed the question, “Do you consider yourselves Chinese or Taiwanese?” And of course I received answers that in most cases did not fit neatly into a single category. “Taiwanese”, “Chinese”, “I speak Chinese but I consider myself Taiwanese”, “The only people who are really Taiwanese are the aborigines”, “My family is Chinese but I am Taiwanese”, “I’m Chinese and Taiwanese”.
It wasn’t until towards the end of my time living in Taiwan did it occur to me that there wasn’t going to be a simple answer. Taiwanese society was only twenty some years removed from a 46 year-long martial law period during which anything other than Chinese identity was oppressed. Prior to that there were 50 years of Japanese colonial rule. A Taiwanese identity, while young and fragile, was in the process of evolving and shaping itself into something tangible. While many people in Taiwan considered themselves ethnically Chinese, a half century of separation between China and Taiwan allowed for nearly every facet of both societies to become altered from each other due to the different experiences felt by both sides. Perhaps the most sagacious explanation of what ‘Taiwanese’ meant in their eyes came from Michael Fonte, the Democratic Progressive Party Liaison in Washington D.C. described it to me as: “Something that while having aspects and traits of Chinese culture within it, is also molded and shaped by Taiwan’s experiences with its own indigenous cultures, as well being influenced by Japanese, Western, South Asian, and Polynesian experiences as well—All rolled up into a new culture that is unique to Taiwan.”
It sure sounds like something that is more complex than what Lonely Planet and my exchange buddy described. Just don’t try explaining this to China.
And this is where the root of the Taiwan and China antagonism lies. While China and the CCP continues to march down the road of national unity, ethnic sameness, and ever-invasive claims to rule over their “historical territories,” there appears to be an inexorable shift within Taiwan’s society that continues to pull the population as a whole towards a lasting and permanent identity separate from one that is Chinese-centric, regardless of the pleas coming from the People’s Republic. For as America did in its infancy, Taiwan is becoming confident and finding its voice. Perhaps one day in the near future, there could even be a family in Ohio that hosts a student from Taiwan, and that student will say without reservation, “I am Taiwanese”. Period. And all the controversy and debate surrounding Taiwan’s ethnic and national make-up and identity can be passed somewhere else in the world where it is needed. China, maybe.
(Feature photo of China’s ethnolinguistic groups, by the US Central Intelligence Agency in 1967.)
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Most of Taiwanese would considered themselves as Taiwanese, not Chinese because the hostility of Chinese government never stop appears in International activities among China, Taiwan and the involvement with other countries. Those actions create the hatreds in Taiwanese people toward Chinese people, which widen the gap of each other. Needless to say, the Chinese government using economic force to control the economic activities, and also the political activities in Taiwan, which makes the issues deepen and unsolvable.
“Taiwanese, not Chinese” is impossible. Our country’s name is the Republic of China. We are inherently Chinese. We’re both. We are Chinese by blood and Taiwanese by identity. There is no reason to say we have to be one or another. We’re both.
Not really. There are the aboriginals who really are not related to China at all, and there are the “native Taiwanese” who have lived in Taiwan for a long time.
The very idea of being Chinese, for those who live in Taiwan, were brought over by the ROC in 1945. Before that, nobody in Taiwan would claim themselves Chinese. Remember that the very concept of “China” was born in 1911, yet since 1895 Taiwan was Japanese territory. From then until 1945, people in Taiwan gradually started to consider themselves Japanese. The Chinese identity simply did not exist at that time.
Those who are “really Chinese” therefore are limited to the new immigrants who came over to Taiwan during 1945-1949. From then, it’s heavy state indoctrination to eradicate the non-Chinese identity. These are historical facts.
For that reason, it’s possible and perfectly reasonable for a citizen of the Republic of China to consider him/herself Taiwanese and not Chinese.
Now add to that fray, the fact that the word “China” now globally refers to the People’s Republic of China, which is generally viewed as an aggressor by people in Taiwan, it should be obvious why people are starting to want an identity that “isn’t Chinese”.
Of course there are still loads of people who insist that “we the Republic of China are China”; to that, I can only say: “it’s time to wake up and face the music.”
Beware of your use of ‘we.’ Many people living in Taiwan are not Han Chinese. Ethnically speaking, most Taiwanese, though widely considered as Han Chinese, have austronesian ancestors; some can even be seen as Dutch or Spanish descendants.
Using the official name of the ruling government of Taiwan as an argument for who we are is, really, not a good idea. According to your argument, some elder people in Taiwan were Japanese and now Chinese. Wow, how amazing it is! And if the ruling government of Taiwan adopts Taiwan as its official name rather than ‘Republic of China,’ people in Taiwan will no longer have the right to call themselves Chinese, even if some of them were born at the mainland China and were ethnical Han Chinese. National identity can never be done with ethnics or the official name of a ruling party.
98% inhabitants on the 22 million strong are han chinese. So YOU beware with your `many people’ phrase. This is fact and momo is right.
Hmmm…how do you define ‘Han’ Chinese? In America, we once legally defined being black as having even ‘one drop’ of ‘black blood’, even if a person’s immediate ancestors were mostly white. According to this rule, a great many people in Taiwan would probably *not* be Han Chinese, since aboriginal, European, and Japanese populations intermarried with the settlers/colonists from southern China.
So these definitions are socially and culturally contingent – they’re not written in stone anywhere, and thank goodness they change over time. ‘Blood’ does not have to be political identity. Indeed, it’s only repressive regimes that would make it so.
Chen Shui Bian and his DPP henchmen tried their best to merge politics with identity. We all know how that went right? If Taiwan cannot come to terms with its past then how the hell is it going to form a identity on its own considering identity is formed from the cultural experiences of a peoples rich history?
Which of course the KMT never tried to do.
We have our own history. No need to piggyback onto a superpower for this.
There are parallels but you cannot really compare the issue of identity in the US, with that of Taiwan. Simply speaking, the US has been established since 1776 while Taiwan as an individual political entity only came into existence since 1949; merely 65 years ago. Also, I don’t see why you cannot be ethnically and culturally Chinese and Taiwanese at the same time, just like how different peoples of Mainland China will identify themselves as eg. Shanghainese, Cantonese etc. It is true that being Taiwanese is a unique identity, but why does that have to mean sacrificing our yet extremely relevant ‘Chinese’ identity?
You can be, but a lot of people in Taiwan who feel “Chinese and Taiwanese” don’t feel it the same way Shanghainese or Cantonese experience it, i.e. as a regional identity within a national one. Instead, for many of us the feeling is of being “culturally/racially Chinese, but of Taiwanese nationality.” More similar to how a second-generation Chinese-American might feel, oddly enough.
When we say we’re not Chinese in any way, honestly, it’s out of spite. We’re tired of having Chinese identity shoved down our throats, and we no longer have to pretend to accept it to avoid being visited by the secret police. But sure, any aspect of our culture that goes back longer than 120 years is obviously Chinese. (I’d argue that national identity is based on recent shared history and political culture, and in those aspects Taiwan does stand apart.)
Of course, many Taiwanese do identify as being of Chinese nationality, and are Taiwanese as a subset of that (similar to regional identities in China). Interestingly, not all of them support unification, even in the distant future. That’s the “ROC = Taiwan (permanently)” crowd, not a small one in Taiwan.
In Taiwan it’s got to be even more complicated for those from mainlander families, such as my wife, since in Taiwan the word “Taiwanese” has usually referred to the Minnan-speaking descendents of 17th century Fujianese (I’ll call them Hoklo Taiwanese, though I think only us pan-green Taiwanese-Americans use that term). My wife feels Chinese in culture and nationality, but feels that Taiwan is so different from China or oversees Chinese communities that being from Taiwan is definitely part of her identity… except she doesn’t want to use the word “Taiwanese” because she isn’t Hoklo Taiwanese and that’s what the word has always meant to her.
The ancestors of the vast majority of the people living in Taiwan arrived there around the same time (or well before) there was a significant white population living in what is now the United States. If we don’t fault the descendants of European and British settlers and colonists for developing a uniquely ‘American’ identity within a few generations, and desiring a separate government, why should we think it strange that the people of Taiwan – reflecting both on their history, and their current geopolitical situation – have come to embrace a social and political identity they call ‘Taiwanese’?
I definitely hope to see an independent and internationally-recognized Taiwan in my lifetime. But I believe that everyone should have the right to identify themselves as they wish. I can see how someone would feel both Chinese and Taiwanese (Chinese heritage, Taiwanese nationality; or Chinese and Taiwanese heritage, etc.). The only thing I would say is that it’s delusional to believe that Chinese nationality (as it’s now currently defined – living under the sovereignty of the PRC) has any room for Taiwanese democracy and freedom.
Comparing Taiwan to the USA is silly. Projecting your own idealizations of political identity and the implications thereof to those 1.6+ billion people – both in the PRC and the ROC is silly. Simplifying the PRC’s political interests into a caricature is silly. Silly silly silly. As an opinion on East Asian politics: almost completely irrelevant.
Michael,
In relation to China’s position on Taiwan, it’s very difficult to simplify the PRC’s territorial claims any further than they already are.
“Taiwan has been an inseparable part of China since ancient times”
Case closed in their eyes.
Ethnicity and national identities are not static and subject to change. In the sense that a distinct American identity developed over the course of time due to the difference in social environments between itself and England, I’m confused as to why it’s “silly” to make a comparison between the American experience and that of Taiwan–Both cases are examples in which national identities were developed by their own experiences, which were different than that of where a substantial portion of their respective families originated from.
I haven’t “projected” my own idealizations of what it means to be Taiwanese–the overwhelming majority of Taiwanese have already formulated their own distinct identity separate from China for themselves.
I think one of the great things about this article is that it shows @brianbenedictus:disqus was interested in what the people of Taiwan had to say for themselves. He doesn’t shy away from acknowledging that the issue of identity has been and still is very fraught for the inhabitants of the island. He’s also captured how the pace of continues to accelerate, with more and more people coming to identify as Taiwanese first, in their nationality and politics.
Why is it that the definition of being “Chinese” cannot evolve? It has evolved throughout the history of China. The term Chinese during the Ming dynasty did not include Manchurians and other “barbaric tribes and peoples” but during the Qing dynasty, the definition changed to encompass both Han and Manchurian, and any minority groups that live within the territory are classified as being Chinese. Ask the Uighurs how “Chinese” they feel. The term Chinese has always been a political classifier, the idea that it has anything to do with an unadulturated bloodline is completely insane. Given that idea, many Latin Americans are essentially “Spanish” or “Portuguese” as their ancestors are Europeans who heavily bred with local natives, instead of being Chilean, or Argentinian, etc. Ask the Paraguayans how “Spanish” they feel. They run their own nations now and to continue this colonial speech of who their great great great grandparents are is laughable. Historical viewpoints change, territories change, political reality changes, get used to it.
A little off topic, but does anybody find it hypocritical that an American is criticizing China’s attempt to assimilate ethnic minorities and claim historic borders? America’s rise to power involved Europeans immigrants, whom over the course of time killed and assimilated millions of Native Americans, took their lands, and displaced the remaining few in reservations. The atrocities even goes on in recent times like when “thousands of Native American children were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to boarding schools, to be re-educated. Leaving entire generations missing from the one place whose future depended on them — their tribes.” http://www.npr.org/2011/10/25/141672992/native-foster-care-lost-children-shattered-families
Sorry again for the derail, I just find this piece hilariously duplicitous since its coming from an American haha
Weak to quoque argument is weak.
“to quoque”?? LOLL
The Lonely Planet guidebook was published in the early 90s, but when the author set his foot in Taiwan, things have changed. The books says, When speaking to people in Taiwan, do not call them “Taiwanese”. The meaning of “Taiwanese” has changed over time. In the early 90s, it meant a local identity under Greater China. After a series of incidents and the advent of pro-independence political parties, “Taiwanese” carries the connotation of a national identity. Now (2016-2017), more than half of the population identify themselves as singularly Taiwanese, and you’re more likely to find singular Taiwanese identification in the younger segments of the population.