Capítulo IV. Actores públicos
4.1. Mapeo / Análisis de actores
This section argues that while the literature on Taiwanese national identity lacks a clear conceptualisation of Taipei’s state identity, it provides pointers to that identity both in its understanding of national identity construction and in its linking of it to cross-Strait policy preferences. Any national identity theory may account for Taiwan’s divergence from China; it is how Taipei exploits national identity that matters and that implies a state identity. Studies of democratisation go back to post- 1945 authoritarian rule to understand its genesis in ROC state identity change (q.v. 2.2; 2.3.). The literature on Taiwanese national identity itself presupposes a legitimate ROC state identity that aligns to huadu.
Like the IR literature, much of the NI-driven literature views Taiwan’s political divergence from China as either an inhibited search for taidu or a false choice between taidu and tongyi, effacing the ROC. The dominant approach is positivist and
sticks close to NI modernism; Taiwanese national identity developed in opposition to the authoritarian ROC other after 1945 and cannot be considered without reference to Chinese national identity.420 In the 1990s, Taiwanese national identity, driven by the
consolidation of democracy, pivoted to mainland China as its other, drawing the ROC into its scope in the process. State identity is implied throughout the literature. This provides an explanatory way out of the tongyi-taidu puzzle.
Alan Wachman’s seminal 1994 study Taiwan: National Identity and
Democratization identified a lack of KMT-DPP consensus on national identity
alongside consensus on civic democratic identity. 421 Christopher Hughes’ (1997) Taiwan and Chinese Nationalism locates Taiwanese national identity in democracy;
this broke the link between Chinese Nationalism and KMT legitimacy and decoupled the ROC from Chinese Nationalism. This clearly implies a shift to “an intermediate” state identity.422 The salience of a pronounced post-democracy shift from a Chinese to
a Taiwanese state identity and a corresponding shift towards a policy preference for the status quo that eschews both tongyi and taidu (q.v. 1.4.) is a broad theme operating through two cross-cutting strands: first, post-democracy changes in Taiwan’s partisan structure involving factional tension; second, the shift from an ethnic to a civic national identity. These two strands further explain how Taiwanisation of the KMT and the ROC caused national identity to impact on domestic power politics and cross-Strait relations. What is left insufficiently explored is a conceptualization of state identity as the solution to the sovereignty issue. Huadu provides this.
420 See: Rigger, Shelley. 1997. Competing conceptions of Taiwan’s identity; Chang, Mau-kuei. 2003.
Understanding Contending National Identities: Reading Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson from Taiwan, in Henders, S.J. (ed.) Democratization and Identity: Regimes and Ethnicity in East and
Southeast Asia. Lanham, MD: Lexington Book, 67-93.
421 Wachman, Alan M. 1994. Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization. New York: M.E.Sharpe 422 Hughes, Chrstopher 1997. Taiwan and Chinese Nationalism. London: Routledge.
With regard to the first strand above, post-democracy changes in Taiwan’s partisan structure led to competing nation-building projects, with the DPP-KMT opposition dominating.423 National identity was the dominant party cleavage. Yet, there was
consensus on Taiwan’s sovereignty and nation-building required the ROC state.424
This elite-led project co-opted Taiwanese national identity to the ROC to head off
taidu between 1991 and 2000. 425 Between 2000 and 2008, the DPP sought to re-
construct the ROC as a Taiwanese nation state while rhetorically threatening to enact
taidu. 426This presupposes ROC state power and identity. Niou (2004) uses
Constructivism to show how Taiwanese identity was talked into being. 427
Quantitative analyses of elite discourse by Sullivan and Lowe (2010) and Sullivan and Sapir (2012) confirm Schubert’s (2004) qualitative research revealing converging KMT and DPP positions on a Taiwanese national identity linked to the ROC.428 This suggests huadu.
The second strand shows how sub-ethnic identities influenced domestic politics from 1945 and constituted a Taiwanese national identity that gelled in democratisation. A Mainlander (waishengren)-Taiwanese (benshengren) cleavage arose from brutal KMT suppression and hampered sinification during the 1950s and 1960s, ensuring
423 Fell, Dafydd. ed. 2008. The Politics of Modern Taiwan. London: Routledge. See also: Fell,
Dafydd . 2005. Party Politics in Taiwan: Party Change and the Democratic Evolution of Taiwan, 1991-2004. London: Routledge.
424 Hsieh, John Fu-sheng. 2004. National Identity and Taiwan’s Mainland China Policy. Journal of
Contemporary China.13 (40): 479–490.
425 Jacobs, Bruce and I-Hao Ben Liu. 2007. Lee Teng-hui and the idea of ‘Taiwan. The China
Quarterly, 190: 375-393. Lynch, Daniel. 2004. Taiwan’s self-conscious nation-building
project. Asian Survey 44( 4): 513-533.
426 Lynch, Daniel C. “Taiwan’s self-conscious nation-building project”; Asian Survey 44, No. 4 (2004):
513-533.
427 Niou, Emerson. 2004. Understanding Taiwan Independence and its Policy Implications. Asian
Survey, 44
428 Sullivan, Jonathan and Lowe, Will. 2010. Chen Shui-bian: On Independence. The China Quarterly,
203: 619-38. Sullivan, Jonathan and Sapir, Elyahu. 2012. Ma Ying-jeou’s Presidential Discourse.
Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 41:3.Schubert, Gunter. 2004. Taiwan’s Political Parties and National Identity: The Rise of an Overarching Consensus”. Asian Survey 44(4): 534-54.
an oppositional state-seeking Taiwanese national identity.429 A number of books
expose KMT brutality: Mancall’s (1964) Taiwan: Island of Resignation and Despair and Mendel’s (1970) The Politics of Formosan Nationalism relay a sense of
benshengren hatred towards waishengren. 430Harrison (2006) provides a thick
constructivist account of historical national identity construction. These allude to
taidu as Taiwan’s independence from the authoritarian ROC, not the PRC. This
strand invites examination of huadu as a response to an earlier KMT crisis of legitimacy – that is the one sparked by 2-28 in 1947.
The striking shift from sub-ethnic identities to a civic national identity driven by democratisation was already visible in 1997,when Lee Teng-hui articulated the New Taiwanese identity (q.v. 7.3.).431 Taiwanese accept China as a cultural and ancestral
focus, but identify nationally with Taiwan in the form of the ROC.432 With ethnic
identity resolved, civic democracy represents Taiwanese identity. Despite a positivist bent, however, a closer reading of the literature invites a RC conceptualisation of
429 See: Tien, Hung Mao and Chu Yun-han. 1996. Building Democracy in Taiwan. The China
Quarterly, 148: 1141-1170;Huang, Li-Li, Liu, James H. and Chang, Maanling. 2004. The Double Identity of Taiwanese Chinese: A Dilemma of Politics and Culture Rooted in History. Asian Journal
of Social Psychology, 7(2): 149-168; Tien, Hung-mao. 1975. Taiwan in transition: prospects for socio-
political change. China Quarterly, 64: 615-644; Tien, Hung-mao. 1989. The Great Transition:
political and social change in the Republic of China. Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press.
430 Mancall, Mark. 1964. Taiwan: Island of Resignation and Despair. In Mark Mancall. Ed. Formosa
Today. New York: Praeger: 1-42; Mendel, Douglas. 1970.
431 See: Schubert, Gunter and Damm, Jens (eds.), 2011, Taiwanese Identity in the Twenty-First
Century. London: Routledge. See: Gold, Thomas. 1994. Civil Society and Taiwan’s Quest for Identity,
in Harrell, Stevan and Huang, Jun-chieh (eds.) Cultural Change in Postwar Taiwan. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 47-68.
Ho, Szu-yin and Lin I-chou. 2002. The Taiwanese/Chinese Identity of the Taiwan People in the 1990s.
American Asian Review, 20(2): 29; Chang, Mau-kuei. 2003; Chao, Chien-min. 2003. Will Economic
Integration between Mainland China and Taiwan Lead to a Congenial Political Culture? Asian Survey, 43(2): 280-304.
432 Rigger, Shelley. 1999. Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy. London: Routledge; Brown,
Melissa. 2005; Andrade, Tonio. 2006. How Taiwan Became Chinese. Available at: http://www.gutenberg-e.org/andrade/preface.html [Accessed 20 Februery 2012].
democratisation; that is, rather than Taiwanese national identity causing the ROC to democratise, democratisation was co-constituted by the state and the national group. National identity in ethnic struggle gathered power in the 1990s but was also visible in local elections from the 1950s. Chao (1992) and Chen (1995) confirm a tension between local and national KMT factions that contrasts the Chinese Confucian political culture of KMT elites and their Taiwanised local-government counterparts.433 Chao and Myers (2000) claim these pre-democratic elections worked
as pressure valves for grievances against the KMT while allowing it to embed patronage through the party state.434 This strand culminated in Makeham and Hsiau’s
(2005) magisterial study of the dangwai movement that tracked the progression of
bentuhua outside of the KMT party structure and which was to form the nucleus of
the DPP (q.v. 6.4.).435 An overall tension between a Free China state identity and a
Taiwanese national identity is clear.
Research based on mass surveys pointed to a general civic national identity developing in Taiwan during the 1990s that was culturally Chinese, but politically Taiwanese. Democratisation and Chinese threats were its drivers. Mainlanders (waishengren) developed a more flexible national identity between 1997 and 2008.436
The 2000 DPP victory marked a shift to an overtly “self-conscious nation-building project”, reflecting anxiety over increasing economic convergence with China with research exploring the DPP administration’s construction of a Taiwanese national
433 Chao, Yung-Mao. 1992.Local Politics on Taiwan: Continuity and Change. In Denis Fred Simon
and Ying-mao Kao (Eds.) Taiwan: Beyond the Economic Miracle. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe: 43-68.
434 Chao, Linda and Ramon Myers. 2000. How Elections Promoted Democracy in Taiwan under
Martial Law. The China Quarterly, 162: 387-409.
435 Makeham, John and Hsiau A-chin., eds. 2005. Cultural, Ethnic and Political Nationalism in
Contemporary Taiwan: bentuhua. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
436 Lin Chia-lung. 2002. The Political Formation of Taiwanese Nationalism", in: Corcuff, Stephane
(ed.). Memories of the Future: National Identity Issues and the Search for a New Taiwan. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe: 219-241.
memory.437 By 2008, though, what Beijing and the pan-Blues perceived as a move to taidu led to electoral defeat for the DPP. Quantitative studies and opinion polls
revealed that the electorate was pragmatic on unification/ independence.438 This
reflected a salient rise in pro-independence and fall in pro-unification sentiment overall between 1992 and 2016, but with the majority preferring the status quo.439
These studies locate Taiwan’s preference for the status quo in China’s inhibition of Taiwanese nationalism’s desire for taidu and Taiwan’s inability to accept tongyi leading to an “unresolved national identity dilemma”.440 Liu and Ho (1999) identify a
decline in Chinese identity and a rise in Taiwanese identity regardless of ethnicity; they locate national identity as the key variable in political thinking and attitudes. The NCCU data point to a sharp rise in Taiwanese identity and fall in Chinese identity after ROC constitutional changes (q.v. 1.3.2.). The elite-led decoupling of
437 See the Summer 2004 issue of Asian Survey, devoted to the development of democracy and
identity in Taiwan: Chu, Yun-han. 2004. Taiwan’s Identity Politics and the Prospect of Cross-Strait Relations, Asian Survey, 44(4): 484-512; Dittmer, Lowell. 2004. Taiwan and the Issue of National Identity, Asian Survey, 44(4) 475-483; Kao, Mily, Ming-tzu. 2004. The Referendum Phenomenon in Taiwan: Solidification of Taiwan Consciousness? Asian Survey, 44(4): 591-613; Lynch, Daniel C. 2004. Taiwan's Self-Conscious Nation-Building Project,” Asian Survey. 44(4): 513-533; Niou, Emerson M.S. 2004. Understanding Taiwan Independence and its Policy Implications. Asian Survey, 44(4): 555-567; Schubert, Gunter, 2004. Taiwan’s Political Parties and National Identity. Asian
Survey, 44(4): 534-554; Wang, T.Y. and Liu, I-chou. 2004. Contending Identities in Taiwan:
Implications for Cross-Strait Relations. Asian Survey, 44(4): 568-590; Wu, Yu-shan. 2004. Taiwanese Nationalism and its Implications: Testing the Worst-Case Scenario, Asian Survey, 44(4): 614-625.
438 Niou, Emerson 2005. A New Measure of the Preferences on the Independence: Unification Issue
in Taiwan, Journal of Asian and African Studies 40(1-2): 91- 104; Copper, John. 2004. Taiwan in
Troubled Times. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing.
439 Election Study Center. National Chengchi University. 2017. Taiwanese / Chinese Identification
Trend Distribution in Taiwan (1992/06~2017/12) Available at:
http://esc.nccu.edu.tw/course/news.php?Sn=166# Accessed: 20th January 2018; Niou, Emerson. 2011.
The China Factor in Taiwanese Politics. Unpublished paper [Online] Available at: http://www.iss.u- tokyo.ac.jp/democracy/doc/Niou_Paper.pdf [Accessed 12 January 2012].
440 Dittmer, Lowell. 2005. Taiwan’s Aim-Inhibited Quest for Identity and the China Factor. Journal of
the tongyi-taidu debate from national identity and democracy created a space for
huadu to occupy, making civic identity prominent.441
KMT Taiwanisation remained an important research theme throughout the 2000s. Research revealed that to equate Chinese identity, support for the KMT and pro-
tongyi sentiment on the one hand and Taiwanese identity, support for the DPP and a
pro-taidu stance on the other based on an imprecise Taiwanese-Mainlander distinction was simplistic. By 2000, the KMT itself had democratised and Taiwanised and the party showed no appetite for tongyi in the short term, while by 2000 the DPP showed less appetite for taidu. Yu Wu-shan (2011) argues that a rational KMT sought a strong bargaining position vis-à-vis China that could be modified to maximise votes. To this end, it moved towards the DPP on identity and sovereignty during the 1990s. In opposition during the 2000s, it shifted to Chinese nationalism to appeal to a core constituency alarmed at perceived shifts to taidu by the DPP, but the 2008-16 KMT position under Rapprochement was practical, hoping to strengthen Taiwan’s economy and achieve a modus vivendi with Beijing.442
Such endogenous partisan change reflects findings on state identity change. Winckler (1984) and Tien Hung-mao (1989) suggest ROC institutional change, a generational shift in power from Chinese to Taiwanese leaders and to liberal authoritarianism presaged change.443 Gold (1986) suggests social change meant ROC identity had to
change.444 Bruce Jacobs (2012) sees the KMT as a Chinese colonial regime that
441 Rigger, Shelly. 1999. The China Impact on Taiwan’s Generational Politics. InSchubert, Gunter ed.
Taiwan and the China Impact: Challenges and Opportunities. Abingdon: Routledge.
442 Wu Yu-shan. 2011. The evolution of the KMT’s stance on the One China principle: national
identity in flux. In: Schubert, Gunter and Damm, Jens. eds. Taiwanese Identity in the 21st Century:
domestic, regional and global perspectives. London: Routledge.
443 Winckler, Edwin. 1984. Institutionalization and Participation on Taiwan: From Hard to Soft
Authoritarianism? The China Quarterly, 99: 481-499; Tien Hung-mao 1989. The Great Transition:
Politics and social change in the Republic of China. Taiwan: SMC Publishing.
Taiwanised.445 Phillips (2003) relates Chinese Nationalist elites negotiating Chinese
and Taiwanese state identities.446 Dickson (1993; 1997) identifies KMT elite agency
as motivating state identity change.447 Mattlin (2011) argues that it was the KMT’s
penetration of Taiwanese society itself that facilitated intense politicisation of the polity.448 All of these make state and elite agency salient in national identity change.
These insights into the dynamics of Taiwan’s complex national identity formation show how it is co-constitutive of huadu. First, Taiwan’s national identity has been formed at the domestic and cross-Strait levels; second, this national identity reinforces Taipei’s sovereignty claim around the status quo; third, it restrains top- down Taiwanisation and sinification policies, coalescing around the status quo; fourth, it was constituted by democracy - democratisation is Taiwanisation.449
In sum, elite-led national identity construction, tempered by the intervening role of civil society, constitutes huadu. Yet, much research is too influenced by a misplaced debate over the role of nationalism and national identity in an inhibited search for
taidu to fully account for the constitution of ROC state identity. Indeed, Dawley
notes that post-2000 research in particular tends to conflate national, state and ethnic categories while being “too heavily influenced by contemporary debates over Taiwanese independence”.450 Admittedly, to distinguish among these categories is
445 Jacobs, Bruce. 2012.
446 Phillips, Steven. 2003. Between Assimilation and Independence: The Taiwanese Encounter
Nationalist China.Stanford: Stanford University Press.
447 Dickson, Bruce. 1993. The Lessons of Defeat: The Reorganization of the Kuomintang on Taiwan,
1950-52 The China Quarterly, 133: 56-84; Dickson, Bruce. 1997. Democratization in China and
Taiwan: The Adaptibility of Leninist Parties. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
448 Mattlin, Mikael. 2011. Politicized Society: The Long Shadow of Taiwan’s One-Party Legacy.
Helsinki: NIAS Press.
449 Lan, Yiping. 1983. minzhuhua jiu shi taiwanhua
(Democratisation is simply Taiwanisation). Minzhuren, 8:11-12.450 Dawley, Evan N. 2009. The
question of identity in recent scholarship on the history of Taiwan, China Quarterly, 198: 442-52.
450 Dawley, Evan N. 2009. The question of identity in recent scholarship on the history of Taiwan,
not easy; national and state identities often overlap epistemologically (q.v. 4.2.) and ethnic identity has been strategically deployed alongside national identity in Taiwan’s domestic politics. The two-host dilemma (q.v. 1.1.) invites conflation of the Chinese nation and state but, theoretically, some scholars do use national identity for what is clearly state identity.451
This study argues that there is, in a huadu conceptualisation, no necessarily inhibited “quest for Taiwanese sovereignty” vis-à-vis Beijing.452 Taiwanese sovereignty has
already been achieved through huadu and that invites an account of ROC state identity change. In order to conceptualise huadu as state identity, it must be separated from its sub-state identities. This entails first exploring how those sub-state identities constitute state identity.