Taiwanese do not share a sense of a community of common destiny or a sense of national identity. Struggling between the remnants of China and a newborn Taiwan, how should Taiwanese conceive of their national identity?
When World War II ended in 1945, Japan gave up colonies in Taiwan and Korea. The latter declared independence, dividing into North Korea and South Korea.
Without the awareness of being a nation, Taiwan took on the name the Republic of China (ROC) and inherited the Qing government. However, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) defeated the ROC in the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Since then, Taiwan has been mired in the never-ending struggle between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) representing the PRC and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) representing the ROC.
Intellectuals who fled to Taiwan with the KMT had expected the ROC to become a democratic nation in Taiwan. However, under the regimes of former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), dissidents were repressed for having a conscience.
Taiwanese democracy pioneer Peng Ming-min (彭明敏) in 1964 drafted “A Declaration of Formosan Self-Salvation” with his students, expecting “residents in Taiwan” to build a new nation together.
Peng, an expert in international law, who had been recruited as an adviser to the ROC’s delegation to the UN by Chiang Kai-shek, called the then-president’s dream of “retaking the mainland” unattainable, and advocated for “one Taiwan, one China,” a new constitution, joining the UN as “Taiwan” and creating a free nation.
Peng then became a political prisoner and remained in exile for more than two decades until Chiang Ching-kuo was succeeded by then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) in the early 1990s.
The ROC under Lee’s rule had encouraged a community of common destiny, but the vision of establishing a new democratic nation was not accepted by supporters of a colonial party-state.
Most of these privileged supporters of the KMT’s party-state appeared to be anti-CCP and patriotic, and yet they conspired with and benefited from the KMT’s authoritarian rule during the Martial Law era. Ever since Taiwan democratized, they became reactionaries who impeded the forging of a Taiwanese community.
“Pro-China” supporters, who appear to root for the ROC, often get US citizenship for their families to avoid risks. Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is one example.
Many of the mainlanders who fled China with the KMT after 1949 — the so-called waishengren (外省人) — have already identified with Taiwan. However, some of them who came from the military faction of the KMT’s party-state and the culturally privileged group do not share the vision of Taiwan as a new democracy.
It is astonishing for a political clown like Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) to become the KMT’s choice to organize the Double Ten National Day celebrations.
He compared former president Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) remarks on safeguarding the ROC on Taiwan to “locking up a little old man suffering from malnutrition in a dark house for the past eight years.”
Who is trying to eliminate the ROC? Who is trying to murder the ROC on Taiwan? Is it not the PRC?
Ending the exile of the ROC, wiping out its remnants and rebuilding the nation, returning the Chineseness to China and ending sovereignty disputes are the only ways that we can turn a new page in the history of a community with a common destiny and national identity.
Lee Min-yung is a poet.
Translated by Fion Khan
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