Ask This Taiwanese: July 4th–What Makes a Country a Country?

Ask “This” Taiwanese is an advice column dedicated to pesky and uncomfortable questions about Taiwan or about being Taiwanese. July’s question is about July Fourth.

Send us your questions in the form here: https://forms.gle/t4ddFbfqWKoRstn2A

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Recently, when a friend asked me about the origin story of Taiwan, I found myself explaining the relationship between the Republic of China and the evolving Taiwanese consciousness. The conversation got very interesting as we compare different democracy’s origin stories and we ended up asking ourselves what makes a country a country. Is the question of what makes a country a country uniquely Taiwanese challenge or do you think it’s a challenge for all democracies? 

From Fellow Believer that Taiwan is a country

Dear Fellow Believer that Taiwan is a country,

What a question! What makes a country a country? It is absolutely existential. The short answer to your question is – it is definitely a challenge for all democracies because in democratic societies, our struggle about our existence is also about how we exist. 

A lot of people may immediately think of legal definitions of what a “state” is. While that is definitely important, we’d like to let the lawyers debate that today and instead focus on what makes a country in our minds and hearts.

In honor of July 4th when we celebrate the “founding” of the United States of America, that’s where we’ll start.

But contrary to the common lore of July 4th, we believe America was not simply founded on one specific day by waving a magic wand (or signing a piece of paper, as it were). The actual “country” we call America is, instead, formed over time as we strive for that more perfect union, even if we stumble and backtrack along the way.

On the other hand, we also want to say that Taiwan, the country, exists—even if no declaration has been signed, or a specific moment that this country came into being (we will talk about “Double Ten”, October 10th, in, well, October). In the same way that America is still being formed, Taiwan is also being formed, by each successive generation of people connected to Taiwan and nearby islands.

In other words: signing a piece of paper doesn’t magically create a country, nor does the absence of a piece of signed paper mean a country doesn’t exist.

What Is a “Country?” 

How do we define a “country?” We borrow a little bit from Benedict Anderson’s seminal work on identity and nationalism: it’s a group of people who feel a kinship with one another through a sense of belonging and commonality in the abstract.

We’re talking about being proud of the accomplishments of someone from your country, even though you’ve never met them. It’s that feeling of solidarity you may feel when you’re traveling and you hear someone speaking your own language. We will get into arguments with people why boba is the best drink in the world because of these kinds of bonds.

Having a sense of commonality is extremely important for a country. It enables us to serve the country and help other fellow members of our country, by doing things like paying taxes, voting, contributing to public healthcare schemes, serving in the armed forces, or just simply following the law. A modern state would not function unless its citizens have some sense of contributing to the common welfare of the entire country.

For many countries, that abstract commonality is based on ethnic identity, bloodlines, and cultural heritage. For America, we began as a new experiment in the history of human civilization, a country bound together not by birth but by civic ideals. 

Two hundred years later, Taiwan is gradually moving towards that model as well—bound together by civic ideals, encompassing ethnic diversity as well as political differences.

A Challenge Especially for Democracies 

Binding a nation together is especially important for democracies, and at the same time also more challenging.

Not to say authoritarians don’t face the same question about what makes a country a country, but we have seen way too many examples of countries falling apart after a dictator is deposed.

In contrast, it’s just especially important because democracy is founded on the basic tenet that each individual has sovereignty and participates in a country by choice. In a representative democracy (which is almost all democracies in the world today), we as citizens loan our right to participate in political decisions to our representatives who exercise those rights on our behalf. This can only happen if there is a baseline of understanding that we are doing this because we care not only that we exist but how we exist together.

Also in a democracy, using civic ideals as the glue that holds a country together is challenging, because civic ideals are much harder to hardwire into people’s minds and hearts. Ties based on bloodlines and tribes are easier to understand because they speak to our primal instincts as social animals. Ideals and philosophies may persuade people on a rational level, but do not elicit the same kind of emotional response.

Therefore, a country built on a foundation of civic ideals must constantly reaffirm those ideals by practicing them. Each time those ideals are reaffirmed, the nation is reborn, stronger, and more resilient; each time those promises are broken, the nation is at risk of falling apart at the seams.

Both America and Taiwan are constantly going through reaffirmations of our ideals, in ways big and small.

We are also constantly failing our own promise of democracy and rule of law in ways big and small. Our nations are enduring an era of extreme polarization and tribalization, both forces that run counter to consolidating healthy, diverse, and resilient nations.

As we celebrate a day that we were taught to have “created’ our nation, we must not forget that it was not until 13 years after the declaration that we ratified our written Constitution; four scores and seven years later until we settled the issue of legal slavery, and more years yet for women’s right to vote; for the Civil Rights Act to reaffirm the Constitution guarantee basic human rights of our era. Yet these questions remain present, as we saw a Supreme Court decide a constitutional right we took for granted for a generation really didn’t exist in the first place.

Nevertheless, democracy is a strength for a country.

Plato wrote that “Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.” We like to think that democracy is like building your own sandwich: we may not like all the ingredients sometimes but more variety does mean more chances at a better sandwich. Diversity is what adds to our perspectives and the chaos of self-governance is what keeps us improving. Binding a country using democracy is not always easy, but over the long run, it is what truly makes a country a country by the conscious will.

Most of all, we think there is no better way to celebrate a country than with deep contemplations and debates on what kind of country we want to be.

Civic consciousness is absolutely a beautiful thing!

Wish everyone a happy July 4th!

For the love of democracies,

Ask This Taiwanese