A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN.
Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic Progressive Party, when then-US president George Bush was rumored to have referred to Chen as a “troublemaker” for standing up for Taiwanese sovereignty. Historians would view the COVID-19 pandemic as a watershed moment in which the international community stopped seeing Taiwan as a troublemaker and woke up to the dangerous actions of the Chinese Communist Party.
This narrative arc was traveling in a direction beneficial to Taiwan from that point until recently, when tectonic changes in the international order and the coalition of democratic allies began to make Taiwan’s situation feel once more precarious and uncertain.
The problem with narrative arcs is that they do not always continue on a predictable trajectory. The same thing is happening within Taiwan. What until recently could be perceived as a discernible line from post-World War II majority association with China as the “motherland” to what has been termed “natural independence” — an increased identification among ROC citizens with Taiwan, and a corresponding decline in identification with China.
This process has everything to do with generational transitions, the family environment in which Taiwanese have been raised and changes in the education system. It is the story of how a nation developed an awareness of its own ability to seek to improve its circumstances, and realized the importance of struggling against the system to fight for principles such as freedom, democracy and autonomy.
Until recently, the assumption was that this process of “natural independence” would eventually reach its logical conclusion: All Taiwanese would identify with Taiwan as home, the place in which they and their parents were born, and the ties of older generations with the wave of Chinese who came over from China with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) after the war would fade away.
Just as generational change has placed ties with China further in the past, so is it now consigning the will for freedom so evident among the generation that fought for democracy in Taiwan to a distant past.
In “Youth, democracy and identities” (Sept. 11, page 8), Taiwan NextGen Foundation chief officer of operation Elaine Ko (柯亮羽) wrote a thoughtful piece on what she called a “subtle but significant change ... in the normalization of Taiwanese identity.”
One could argue that the overwhelming presence of “natural independence” has diluted the sense of urgency that once sustained it. As Ko wrote: “For those born after democratization, being Taiwanese is simply natural... If identity no longer feels at risk, the motivation to safeguard it may weaken... Democracy is not static; it must be renewed by each generation.”
This drive is diluted, but has not disappeared. Fifteen years ago, the discourse was that the younger generation that would later give rise to the Sunflower movement was politically unengaged. This year, we have seen the “Bluebird movement” and civic participation in the mass recall movement.
It is imperative to foster civic awareness of external threats and a national identity. In a democracy, the dilemma is to do this in a way respecting individual agency and choice, as opposed to ideological indoctrination. That distinction appears clear in principle. In practice, in the era of social media, propaganda and polarization, the line can be blurred.
Chinese agents often target Taiwanese officials who are motivated by financial gain rather than ideology, while people who are found guilty of spying face lenient punishments in Taiwan, a researcher said on Tuesday. While the law says that foreign agents can be sentenced to death, people who are convicted of spying for Beijing often serve less than nine months in prison because Taiwan does not formally recognize China as a foreign nation, Institute for National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said. Many officials and military personnel sell information to China believing it to be of little value, unaware that
Before 1945, the most widely spoken language in Taiwan was Tai-gi (also known as Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hoklo). However, due to almost a century of language repression policies, many Taiwanese believe that Tai-gi is at risk of disappearing. To understand this crisis, I interviewed academics and activists about Taiwan’s history of language repression, the major challenges of revitalizing Tai-gi and their policy recommendations. Although Taiwanese were pressured to speak Japanese when Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, most managed to keep their heritage languages alive in their homes. However, starting in 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enacted martial law
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
The central bank and the US Department of the Treasury on Friday issued a joint statement that both sides agreed to avoid currency manipulation and the use of exchange rates to gain a competitive advantage, and would only intervene in foreign-exchange markets to combat excess volatility and disorderly movements. The central bank also agreed to disclose its foreign-exchange intervention amounts quarterly rather than every six months, starting from next month. It emphasized that the joint statement is unrelated to tariff negotiations between Taipei and Washington, and that the US never requested the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar during the
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