Is Taiwan the motherland of China?

This article was originally published by Taiwan New. Chieh-Ting Yeh is the co-founder and editor in chief of Ketagalan Media. He is an advisor of the National Taiwan Normal University International Taiwan Studies Center (ITSC) and the Global Taiwan Institute. He has been a long-time thinker of Taiwan’s history, politics, economy, and nationalism.

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Double Ten perfectly encapsulates contradictions in equating Taiwan and the ROC

President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) said last week at a banquet ahead of National Day (Double Ten) that while the People’s Republic of China (PRC) celebrated its 75th anniversary on Oct. 1, the Republic of China (ROC) celebrated its 113th on Oct. 10.

“Therefore, in terms of age, it is absolutely impossible for the People’s Republic of China to become the ‘motherland’ of the Republic of China’s people. On the contrary, the Republic of China may be the motherland of the people of the People’s Republic of China who are over 75 years old,” Lai said.

This remark won applause at the banquet and was well-received in Taiwan. However, it’s problematic on two deeper levels: how much should the Republic of China, especially its “birthday,” be embraced and celebrated by Taiwanese? And is the concept of the “motherland” even appropriate in this day and age for Taiwan?

Double Ten history

The holiday commemorates an armed uprising in China on Oct. 10, 1911, in Wuchang by anti-Qing forces that led to the creation of the ROC the next year. However, on Oct. 10, 1911, Taiwan was a Japanese colony.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) was established in Beijing on Oct. 1, 1949, while the ROC government fled to Taiwan, which had been relinquished by Japan. The ROC, headed by Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), operated as an authoritarian regime in Taiwan until 1987. Every year the ROC regime existed in Taiwan it celebrated Oct. 10, or Double Ten, as a “national birthday.”

As the Taiwanese began dismantling the authoritarian ROC regime, a democratic system was instituted, but the ROC name, written constitution, and state symbols remain to this day. That includes the annual celebration of the Double Ten as a national birthday.

There are two reasons for this. First, Taiwan did not have a violent revolution; instead the successor of the Chiang family of dictators, Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), gradually molded Taiwan’s polity into a democracy through a series of political compromises.

Second, Beijing’s claim on Taiwan stems from its interpretation of the relationship between the PRC, the ROC, and China. It sees itself as a lawful successor to the ROC after winning the Chinese Civil War and as the sole legitimate ruler of China, including Taiwan.

In other words, as long as the ROC exists in Taiwan, Beijing believes it can claim Taiwan because anything held by the ROC must eventually be inherited by Beijing, once the ROC surrenders itself to the PRC. If the ROC disappears, Beijing will see that claim being severed, which most people believe will cause Beijing to invade Taiwan to prevent independence.

Therefore, for the Taiwanese people to exist and survive as a sovereign democratic state, the most pragmatic path is to create Taiwan’s polity while retaining, at least for the moment, the ROC entity. This was the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) stance in 1999 when it was still the opposition: “Taiwan is a sovereign state called the Republic of China.” DPP Presidents Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), and now Lai, have embraced this stance and taken it further, effectively saying the ROC and Taiwan are the same thing.

“Taiwan’s birthday”

However, there are problems with equating the ROC and Taiwan. Double Ten is perhaps the most salient point where the contradictions are most apparent.

The ROC and Taiwan have distinct national origins and aspirations. The ROC originated as an uprising against the Qing Empire; the aspirational state of Taiwan originated from the struggle against a different oppressive power—the very same ROC led by Chiang Kai-shek.

Celebrating the birth of Taiwan under the guide of remembering a Chinese uprising during a time when Taiwan was part of Japan is already confusing, but to say a regime’s national day that was an oppressor in Taiwan until recently is now “Taiwan’s birthday” is pure irony.

Overly emphasizing the ROC’s rule of Taiwan also gives credibility to the views of both the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Beijing: that Taiwan is undisputedly a part of China and that the current state of “separation” is a consequence of the unfinished Chinese Civil War. This only serves to legitimize Beijing’s territorial claims on Taiwan.

Understandably, the president of Taiwan, elected under the ROC constitution (which itself was written without Taiwan in mind), would speak on the ROC’s national day. But the more speeches a president gives on Double Ten, the more these contradictions are exacerbated.

Motherlands

Similarly, Lai’s remarks about dueling motherlands may seem like a witty jab at Beijing’s rhetoric, but it runs the risk of agreeing with Beijing’s logic on Taiwan.

Throughout history, Taiwan has been a frontier of empires and a crossroads of civilizations. As such, it has been ruled by various imperial powers, and the Taiwanese of today share a diverse ethnic and cultural makeup, with ancestors that may have originated in Taiwan or from abroad.

For such a diverse community, the word “motherland” has different meanings for different people. The concept of a common motherland for the people of Taiwan just does not make sense.

Moreover, the ROC or the PRC are regimes. They are political creations. Applying the concept of a motherland that encompasses the ideals of heritage and ancestry to political organizations is also strange.

But the motherland is a central dogma for Beijing. Beijing confounds its regime with heritage.  Beijing insists that China is the motherland of the Taiwanese and that the Taiwanese must respect the motherland’s wishes, and therefore support the “unification” or annexation of Taiwan by China.

When the word “motherland” is mentioned in Taiwan, it is only in the context of talking about China; specifically, it is in the context of admonishing the Taiwanese for “forsaking” their “motherland” which is the PRC.

For Taiwan’s president to engage in a narrative about motherlands and compare the PRC and the ROC on which regime is a more proper motherland is to, again, give legitimacy to Beijing’s logic.

Temporary tool

Internationally, Taiwan operates as a sovereign state under the guise of the ROC. As mentioned above, there have been practical reasons why Taiwan’s democratic polity developed this way: a price to pay for a gradual and peaceful transition and to avoid unnecessarily provoking China.

But it’s just a compromise. The fusion of Taiwan and ROC has fundamental inherent contradictions, which Double Ten reminds everyone of. Double Ten forces everyone to focus on the past when the ROC was China. What should be happening is the ROC continues to become more Taiwanese as time goes by, not Taiwan becoming more like the ROC.

Taiwan is a sovereign state today as the ROC, but Taiwan’s sovereignty does not ultimately depend on the ROC. The ROC is but a temporary tool for Taiwan’s independence. Its birthday is not “Taiwan’s birthday,” and it is certainly no “motherland.”

(Featured photo by Taiwan’s Presidential Office)