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Ethnic split is not top challenge to social peace

The fundamental contradiction society faces is not ethnic conflict, as some people absurdly propose, but the idea that Taiwan and China add up to one Chinese nation. The reason for this is that the two sides' development and social structures have been different for 400 years. After World War II and the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) occupation unleashed Sinocentrism on Taiwan, Chinese nationalism was used to suppress, exploit and slaughter the Taiwanese people.

Trying to win back the power it once enjoyed, the KMT, already on the road to destruction, is falsifying the social reality of ethnic groups in Taiwan by bringing forward the idea of "four ethnic groups." This idea labels the Chinese nation as a single ethnic group and throws it in together with the Hoklo, Hakka and indigenous ethnic groups that make up the nation in a plot to place this nation under the umbrella of China.

To understand this major contradiction, we must apply the objective criteria of history and sociology. We should use history to study Taiwan's unique development -- ie, native cultures, immigration, trade, capitalism and modernization -- and sociology to study the unique social structure shaped over 400 years as a result of natural and social conditions. Using this approach, we will arrive at the Taiwanese feeling of a national <> that resulted from the exploitation, suppression and slaughter inflicted by colonial rulers -- the Dutch, Cheng Cheng-kung (or Koxinga, 鄭成功), the Qing dynasty and Japan.

The feeling of community also led to the formation of a Taiwanese nationalism through the resistance against the Dutch, the Chinese and the Japanese. This horizontal expansion of Taiwanese society created a culture of local strongmen and the formation of villages; the Ghost Month, Matsu and Pudu festivals are manifestations of original Taiwanese culture. This vital and strong society is vastly different from China's society.

Ethnically, the nation is made up of Hoklo, Hakka and indigenous ethnic groups. China consists of a greater variety of ethnic groups than Taiwan, including ethnic groups in Fujian, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Hunan, Sichuan and other provinces. The languages and lifestyles surely differ between ethnic groups. In Taiwan, the opposition between local Taiwanese and alien KMT Chinese is not a matter of opposition between ethnic groups. Instead, it is a matter of opposition between nations.

A Taiwanese nation already took shape during the development of capitalism in the Japanese era. As a result, the Japanese imperialist invasion was fought under the banner of Taiwanese nationalism.

After Japan, the KMT rulers continued to treat Taiwan as a colony. KMT rule thus forced continued resistance in the name of Taiwanese nationalism, this time against new alien aggressors promoting Chinese nationalism. The concentrated expression of Taiwanese nationalism during the 228 revolution must therefore be thoroughly remembered or the Taiwanese nation will perish. If the Taiwanese people want to follow the wishes of their ancestors to be the masters of their own houses, they must make the Taiwanese nationalism their ideal, their banner, and the glue that unites the three ethnic groups in a joint effort toward complete Taiwanese independence.

Thus there is only an opposition between nations in Taiwan today: the opposition between the Taiwanese and the Chinese nations, and not an opposition between four or more ethnic groups. To realize the overall political goal of the people -- complete independence -- the Taiwanese people must make unity between ethnic groups its top priority.

Su Beng is a Taiwan independence activist and founder of the Su Beng Educational Foundation.

TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
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