Democratic Progressive Party Chairman Yu Shyi-kun recently coined the term Chinese Taiwanese, to describe himself and others in Taiwan. In addition, Insight City Guide: Taipei, a tour book published by a German company in May, but partially sponsored by the Taipei City Government, claimed that the term "Taiwanese" made some Mainlanders feel uncomfortable.
These incidents stirred up a lot of opposition. It is clear that identity is important to people in Taiwan in terms of both political gains and self worth. Samuel Huntington of Harvard University summarized in his 2004 book Who Are We? that there are six primary sources of identity: one, Ascriptive, Cultural, Territorial, Political, Economic and Social.
Moreover, in 2004 Melissa Brown of Stanford University described in her book Is Taiwan Chinese? The impact of Culture, Power, and Migration on Changing Identities that several assumptions and concepts about Han (
One, Han ethnic identity is linked to Chinese national identity.
Two, Chinese national identity is linked to Han culture.
Three, Chinese national identity has a clear border, and a person or a group is located on one side or the other. This border separates Chinese from non-Chinese, Han from non-Han. All of these assumptions and concepts, some derived from Confucian "culturalist" principles, have serious problems in "stamping" others' identity. However, based on her excellent field work in Taiwan and in China, Brown theorized and successfully demonstrated that the following points were true:
One, identity is based on social experience, not cultural ideas or ancestry. Two, cultural meanings and social power constitute two distinct -- though interacting -- systems that affect human behavior and societies differently. Three, demographic forces such as migration affect human behavior and society in other ways.
I am an active board member in the St. Louis chapters of both the Taiwanese Association of America and the North America Taiwanese Engineers' Association. In these organizations, we call ourselves Taiwanese and Taiwanese Americans.
However, because of this, the organizations and its members were often labeled by Chinese Americans as "Taiwan Independence groups" and "exclusive."
They sometimes prescribe a remedy that asks us to be "inclusive." This kind of characterization is not only overly simplistic, but also mean-spirited. The root cause I think for this mischaracterization is their premeditated bias and agenda.
The term "Chinese" in English means "Zhongguo ren (
However, the meaning of "Zhongguo ren (
But, on the other hand, I often wonder what the problems are for those who were born in Taiwan, grew up in Taiwan and were educated in Taiwan that make them so fearful or uncomfortable to be identified as Taiwanese or Taiwanese Americans?
Instead, they are most comfortable calling themselves and others "Zhongguo ren" -- people of China, a country that is authoritarian, barbaric and most of all, extremely hostile to Taiwan.
Most ironic of all, when others want to be called Taiwanese or Taiwanese Americans, they are now labeled as "exclusive."
They should learn to be "inclusive." It is sad and pitiful. I maintain that striving for a de jure independent Taiwan and inclusiveness are not at all mutually exclusive.
Donald Shengduen Shih is a materials scientist at the Boeing Company.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) sits down with US President Donald Trump in Beijing on Thursday next week, Xi is unlikely to demand a dramatic public betrayal of Taiwan. He does not need to. Beijing’s preferred victory is smaller, quieter and in some ways far more dangerous: a subtle shift in American wording that appears technical, but carries major strategic meaning. The ask is simple: replace the longstanding US formulation that Washington “does not support Taiwan independence” with a harder one — that Washington “opposes” Taiwan independence. One word changes; a deterrence structure built over decades begins to shift.
The cancelation this week of President William Lai’s (賴清德) state visit to Eswatini, after the Seychelles, Madagascar and Mauritius revoked overflight permits under Chinese pressure, is one more measure of Taiwan’s shrinking executive diplomatic space. Another channel that deserves attention keeps growing while the first contracts. For several years now, Taipei has been one of Europe’s busiest legislative destinations. Where presidents and foreign ministers cannot land, parliamentarians do — and they do it in rising numbers. The Italian parliament opened the year with its largest bipartisan delegation to Taiwan to date: six Italian deputies and one senator, drawn from six
Recently, Taipei’s streets have been plagued by the bizarre sight of rats running rampant and the city government’s countermeasures have devolved into an anti-intellectual farce. The Taipei Parks and Street Lights Office has attempted to eradicate rats by filling their burrows with polyurethane foam, seeming to believe that rats could not simply dig another path out. Meanwhile, as the nation’s capital slowly deteriorates into a rat hive, the Taipei Department of Environmental Protection has proudly pointed to the increase in the number of poisoned rats reported in February and March as a sign of success. When confronted with public concerns over young
Taipei is facing a severe rat infestation, and the city government is reportedly considering large-scale use of rodenticides as its primary control measure. However, this move could trigger an ecological disaster, including mass deaths of birds of prey. In the past, black kites, relatives of eagles, took more than three decades to return to the skies above the Taipei Basin. Taiwan’s black kite population was nearly wiped out by the combined effects of habitat destruction, pesticides and rodenticides. By 1992, fewer than 200 black kites remained on the island. Fortunately, thanks to more than 30 years of collective effort to preserve their remaining
RSS