Ethnic Identity and National Identity --
Mainlanders and Taiwan-China Relations

Cheng-Feng Shih

Associate Professor, Tamkang University

2002/4/11

Introductions

Nowadays, it is generally agreed that there are four major ethnic groups in Taiwan: Indigenous Peoples (ì¦í¥Á±Ú, 2%), Mainlanders (¥~¬Ù¤H, 13%), Hakkas («È®a¤H, 15%), and Holos (Åb¨Ð¤H, 70%). Ethnic competitions would be found mainly along three configurations: Indigenous Peoples vs. Hans (Mainlanders¡ÏHakkas¡ÏHolos), Hakkas vs. Holos, and Mainlanders vs. Natives (Indigenous Peoples¡ÏHakkas¡ÏHolos). Owing to differences in race, language, and national identity, ethnic cleavages in Taiwan have so far manifested themselves in the form of clan feuds, electoral competitions, or even armed struggle, not only between the Han setters and the Indigenous Peoples but also among the Hans themselves. In the present day, the most serious ethnic disputes are prevalently found in the extended power struggle between the Natives and the Mainlanders.

At first glance, it appears that there is ample space for coalition making and reconciliation among the four ethnic groups since their cleavages are not reinforcing. However, while Taiwan is endeavor to consolidate its newborn democracy, ethnic maneuverings seem to be increasingly threatening its national security, especially those between the Natives and the Mainlanders, as they have thus far expressed different degrees of sentimental attachment to Taiwan and to China, and thus have yet to arrive at some consensus on their national identity in the face of both vocal and military menaces from China (People's Republic of China, PRC, ¤¤µØ¤H¥Á¦@©M°ê) across the Straits of Taiwan.

As descendants of those followers of the late Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (½±¤¶¥Û), who took refuge in Taiwan after their defeat by the Chinese Communists (CCP, ¤¤°ê¦@²£ÄÒ) in 1949, these Kuomintang (KMT, literally Chinese Nationalist Party, ¤¤°ê°ê¥ÁÄÒ) expatriates and political refugees tend to conceive themselves Chinese diasporas rather than Taiwanese in any sense. Caught in the middle of the protracted disputes between Taiwan and China over the sovereignty of this island state, these loyalists, determined to retain their Chinese identity, seem ready to embrace any political formula of integration with China, which in turn reinforce their distinct ethnic identity. On the other hand, the Natives are to a large degree descendents of earlier voluntary settlers, and have in the main considered themselves native Taiwanese and recognized Taiwan as their motherland.

In this study, we will look into how ethnic identity and national identity have been formed in the Mainlander case. While primordial perspective would focus on racial/cultural interpretations of identity formation, the instrumental approach would emphasize how structural arrangements have contributed to the creation and development of group identity. Alternatively, we will also take a constructionist view by examining how the imaginations of official nationalism have helped to the construction of ethnic identity within the context of national identity. By so doing, we argue that intra-state ethnic contests have reciprocal relations with inter-state interactions.

Primordial Conceptions of Ethnic Differences

According to proponents of primordialism, identity is naturally born, for which there is an authentic core to be discovered. For them, the essence of identity is made up of some objectively discernable characteristics, such as physical traits, language, religion, or other cultural attributes. This line of conceptualizing identity is also termed essentialism. In the case of Taiwan, conventional and popular understandings of ethnic identity tend to take a primoridial cloth.

In terms of racial and cultural stocks, most of the Mainlanders, while originating from various provinces in China, would share Han identity, although there are few Manchurians (º¡¬w¤H), Mongolians (»X¥j¤H), Hueis (¦^±Ú, Muslims), Tibetans (¦èÂäH), Miaos (]±Ú), Yaos (Ø\±Ú) and other minority groups. Among the Natives, except the Indigenous Peoples, both Hoklos and the Hakkas are descendents of earlier Han settlers/ immigrants. As they both share a similar sense of cultural and racial superiority over the Indigenous Peoples, neither racial nor cultural characteristics are viable marks for the differentiation between the Mainlanders and the Natives.

Cultural differences, in the broader sense, did play an important role in the development of mutual distrust. After fifty years of Japanese colonization, the Natives must have gained certain Japanese cultural characteristics, unintentionally or intentionally, ranging from custom, housing, food, clothing, to language. And they joined the Japanese imperial armed forces proudly. Li Yuan-che (§õ»·õ), a Taiwanese-American who received the Nobel Prize in 1986, recalled one time that he had never realized he was a Chinese when Taiwan was returned to China. It was therefore not surprising that Mainlanders tended to treat the Natives as Japanese subjects with a suspicious eye.

Linguistic differences appear to have been convenient attributes for ethnic identification, if not prejudice or even discrimination, for all relevant groups in Taiwan. The Mainlanders would employ Mandarin as their mother tongue, the Natives have their own languages: the Hoklos speak Hoklo-wei (Åb¨Ð¸Ü), the Hakkas have their own Hak-hua («È¸Üor«È®a¸Ü), and the Indigenous Peoples are endowed with more than ten different languages, none of which are in the main mutually unintelligible. Since Mandarin has been imposed as the only National Language (°ê»y) and thus enjoying the official status in both education and government, the ethnic line of demarcation between the Mainlanders and the Natives is thus expediently drawn between Mandarin speakers (°ê»y¤H) and non-Mandarin speakers (i.e., Taiwanese speakers, ¥x»y¤H).

During the February 28 Incident sparked in 1947, some rebellious Natives, anxiously searching for Mainlanders for retaliation, would provokingly stop any stranger and ask him to speak Hoklo, the most widespread language in the private life on the island. As a Native may also have been a Hakka, a second test would be given if he failed the first one: he would consequently be required to speak Japanese and to sing the national anthem of Japan, as few Mainlanders were able to speak fluent Japanese. Therefore, immediately after the war, one reliable criterion of judging one's Native identity was speaking either Hoklo or Hakka, with Japanese as an auxiliary and yet crucial surrogate.

While linguistic differentiations may be conducive to inter-group dissociation, linguistic commonalities may provide for intra-group solidarity. Since the Natives pupils had been forced to learn Japanese in school and were punished for speaking Hoklo or Hakka in public during the Japanese colonial rule, particularly at the heyday of Japanization immediately before the war broke out, Japanese provided the Hoklos and Hakkas, and even the Indigenous Peoples, their first common spoken language. It is thus paradoxical that a language imposed by the former colonists would later be adopted as symbol of solidarity among the native Taiwanese after the arrival of the Mainlanders. Until recently, elder Native elites, who are at times termed as those with "Japanese spirit," would communicate with one another in Japanese as a gesture of protesting the KMT rule, keenly aware that the Mainlanders resented anything Japanese so much. Even some Natives who were born after the war and thus had never been enrolled in Japanese schools would at times venture to speak corrupt Japanese with the same reason.

Nonetheless, while language may be conceived as capacity, property, or resource for individuals, it is a form of power for the ethnic group. In this sense, primordial ties are intertwined with structural inequalities. Ostensibly, the so-called National Language Policy promulgated after the war was designed to promote mutual understanding between the Mainlanders and the reunited Taiwanese Compatriots (¥xÆW¦PM), it was generally understood as one of the KMT's attempts to Sinicize the Natives, which, reflecting political domination, in turn had persistently degraded native culture as vulgar and thus inferior. Since Hoklo and Hakka were degraded as "dialects" and thus proscribed in the public sphere, as history had repeated, those Native students who spoke their mother tongues in schools would be punished or fined in tokens.

To the dismay of the Natives, the hours of programs in native languages per day had been severely rationed since TV became popular in the 1970s. Further, corrupt Mandarin spoken by the Natives had long been ridiculed as Taiwan Guo-yu (¥xÆW°ê»y), with the intention to humiliate the Natives and to deprive their collective self-pride. Earlier on, Taiwanese figures on TV, if ever, would invariably have been portrayed as those who speak clumsy Taiwan Guo-yu. These biased treatments, intentionally or not, had only created resentment, if not hatred, among the Natives. This cultural wall did create mutual alienation, and eventually helped to consolidate separate senses of collective identity on both sides.

While it is yet not entirely clear whether or not the former ruling KMT had purposefully used Mandarin to subordinate the Natives, the cultural hegemony may have been a protective shield erected by the numerically minority of the KMT/Mainlander government in the face of the hostile Natives, who, on the other hand, would interpret it as nothing but the disguised continual of the Japanese colonial practice thrust upon by the KMT, which could do nothing but to serve to reinforce their sense of inferiority. Since most of the Natives could only command their mother tongues and Japanese, and thus barely understand Mandarin after been colonized by the Japanese for half a century, Mandarin, before long, had became one of the most humiliating symbols of domination by an alien regime.

In the past decade, Taiwan has witnessed a renaissance of both Hoklo and Hakka in cultural industries, such as primetime series and news report on TV, and song writing. The approval of Hoklo and Hakka has been singularly noticeable during election campaigns, when Hoklo and Hakka are deemed imperative to attract Native voters in the numerical majority. Even the KMT candidates have been obliged to follow the same populist fashion traditionally adopted by the then opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP, ¥Á¥D¶i¨BÄÒ). Understanding the power of the Native languages, Lee Teng-hui of the born-again KMT, himself a Hakka assimilated by the Hoklos, could not help using Hoklo during his presidential campaign in 1996. In the 1998 mayoral election of Taipei, the KMT candidate Ma Ying-giou (°¨^¤E), a Mainlander, appealed heavily to the Hoklo constituencies in their language. In the same vein, James Soong (§º·¡·ì), a Mainlander who broke away from the now naturalized KMT, would took pains to campaign in Native languages and thus posed himself as a candidate of rainbow coalition in the 2000 presidential election.

In recent years, in order to alleviate the political tension resulting from linguistic monopoly of Mandarin, the government has permitted the teaching of Native languages in primary schools; so far, only a toke of a couple of hours per week is sanctioned. Only recently, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU, ¥xÆW¹Îµ²Áp·ù), a newly formed native party, is campaigning heavily to elevate Hoklo as a second official language (©x¤è»y¨¥). In the spirit of multiculturalism, there have been some suggestions to include all languages in Taiwan as national languages or Taiwanese. Still, at issue is which language(s) would be adopted as the common language(s): while some would retain Mandarin, some would welcome Hoklo.

It remains to be seen whether or not the Mainlanders would consider theses "naturalization" (¥»¤g¤Æ) trends as reversal discrimination. In changing political atmosphere, especially the power transfer from the KMT to the Native DPP, young Mainlanders appear much more willing to learn Hoklo in order to fare better in job opportunity, or, in the worst scenario, to disguise themselves as Natives in case ethnic conflicts break out. Nevertheless, it is yet not clear whether the Mainlanders would interpret the self-adjustment as a form of forced assimilation. It is much less certain whether these developments would reinforce their group solidarity and ethnic identity.

Structural Explanations of Ethnic Identity

According to structuralism, collective identity starts with unequal distributions of political power, economic resources, and social status among (or between) ethnic groups. Being psychologically deprived, the frustrated elites of the subordinated group are determined to embark on ethnic mobilizations. On the other hand, self-segregated or discriminatory measures may be utilized for the preservation of group interests as well as identity. As the focus of this thread of thoughts is on the role the ethnic elites play in the formation of group identity, it is variously termed "instrumentalism."

After Taiwan was retroceded to China in 1945, the Natives initially welcomed the arrival of their Chinese brethren (i.e., Mainlanders) without asking for exercising the right of self-determination. However, in less than two years, the Natives revolted against those who they had greeted not long ago. The ensuing retaliatory massacre aggravated the alienation between the Mainlanders and the Natives, and helped to strengthen the Native consciousness.

After being subdued by the CCP in the civil war, the KMT relocated the government of the Republic of China (ROC, ¤¤µØ¥Á°ê) to Taiwan in 1949. Surrounded by assumed hostile Native Taiwanese, the KMT regime was determined to monopolize party apparatus, administration, and military within a party-state framework. It is no exaggeration to summarize that the state was actually dominated by a feudal caste mainly made up of the Mainlanders. Under such an ethnic stratification, traditional landlords were forced to give up their lands in the name of "Land Reforms;" an emerging middle class turned bankrupt after "Monetary Reforms;" the mass barely survived themselves under tight economic command. As politics and military had bee the privilege of the Mainlanders, the Natives had to retreat from the ethnicized state apparatus. The private sector happened to be the least field where the KMT was able to exert total control, especially in international trade. Some surviving intellectuals chose to exile themselves overseas.

For the Natives, the Japanese may have been the colonists, but they at least provided law and order for the society in the pretension of a modern state. Day in and day out, they had to endure the hurt inflicted by Mainlanders' insult. Moreover, they could not understand why the compatriots from the motherland were so ignorant of modern life in Taiwan. Consequently, they could not help but to compare the Mainlanders with the Japanese. Some went so far as to profess that they would prefer to be treated as third-class citizens by the colonist than as the second-class citizens by their own brothers.

By wresting military suppression, political domination, economic monopoly, and cultural humiliation, the KMT had helped to crystallize the Native identity, which would be in a large measure accounted for by anti-Mainlander ethnic nationalism. For the second half of this century, the fundamental polemic in Taiwan had been based on anti-Mainlander and anti-KMT nativism, carrying certain racial and xenophobic color at times, but in the clothes of democratization and Taiwan independence. Within such a context largely created by the KMT, a novel collective identity of the Mainlanders, enshrined by national identity of the ROC, had come into existence.

Mutual distrust also came from quasi-occupational segregation. For fear of penetration and a potential takeover by the Mainlanders, Native-owned firms had in the past been reluctant to hire the Mainlanders. Usually they would not overtly specify that they did not want any Mainlanders. Instead, they would sophisticatedly require that potential job candidates should be proficient in Taiwanese (i.e., Hoklo). Since most Mainlanders had either been unwilling to learn Taiwanese or lacked practical opportunity to learn it due to residential segregation, it was speculated that the linguistic stipulation would almost have excluded them from entering major Native firms, which in turn created the perception that Mainlanders had been discriminated against by the Natives.

After the rapprochement between the United States and China in 1979, both the KMT and the Mainlanders were forced to recognize that they had to settle down in Taiwan eventually. Those first-generation Mainlanders who had visited China after the cross-strait travel was legalized in 1987 suddenly discovered that they had become "Taiwanese brethren" (¥xM) in the eyes of their Chinese relatives. From that time on, the Mainlanders ceased to be the aliens to expel once Taiwan obtains its independence, and whence constitute a "New Resident" (·s¦í¥Á) ethnic group to be managed in the multicultural society. The content of Mainlander identity is still in need of thorough definition and redefinition.

Constructing Ethnic Identity under Official Nationalism

According to the tenet of constructivism, collective identity is artificially constructed, imagined, and even created. Of course, proponents of this thread do not pretend that identity can be fictitiously fabricated without any slightest common objective primordial characteristics or even some unobserved common experience or memory, no matter how selective it is. Nor do they negate the influence of structural factors on the formation of collective identity. What they emphasize is the importance of construction in identity formation undertaken by ethnic or national elites, particularly in the imagination of official nationalism.

Except for primordial attributes and structural factors, disparate collective memories, real or not, had also contributed to the development of incongruent ethnic identities for both the Natives and the Mainlanders. For the majority of the Natives, excepting the Indigenous Peoples, they share the experience of being sold out by their motherland, Chinese Ch'ing Dynasty; and for the all Natives, they still have lingering ambivalent memories of being colonized by the Japanese, and of participating in the Pacific war. On the other hand, the Mainlanders would retain an antipathetic attitude towards the Japanese.

On balance, the demarcation between the Mainlanders and the Natives is not so much based on linguistic differences as on their dissimilar degrees of attachment to the island. Until recently, most Mainlanders had tended to treat Taiwan as their temporary residence, particularly during the reign of Chiang Kei-shek, who insisted the paranoiac myth of retaking Mainland China. Consequently, the possibility of identifying themselves with the island was impeded by the disposition of being provisional residents. For those prosperous Mainlanders, the prospect of a CCP invasion of Taiwan had prompted them to send their descendants overseas, mainly in the United States. Their fear had been aggravated by the anticipation of a Native takeover, if not revolution, and hence the ensuing retaliation by the Natives. We thus would not be surprised to discover that the breakaway New Party (NP, ·sÄÒ), and later the People First Party (PFP, ¿Ë¥ÁÄÒ) would enjoy the largest constituencies in the United States.

On the contrary, a collective Natives identity had developed gradually in the process of land settlement and in the common experience of subordination to discrimination imposed by subsequent waves of alien rulers. For the Natives, the island is their homeland, where their ancestors, determined to settle their home there, had fought with the Indigenous Peoples, and resisted against waves of alien rulers. If they were forced back to Mainland China, they would not have located any near relatives to turn to.

More specifically, the above discrepancies between the Natives and Mainlanders would be reflected in their separate conceptions of national identity. While the Natives would identify themselves as Taiwanese but not Chinese and are more sympathetic to the cause of Taiwan Independence, the Mainlanders tend to self-style as Chinese rather than Taiwanese and are inclined to rally behind a pro-unification stance. Nonetheless, the majority of Taiwanese residents would consider themselves either as "Taiwanese and Chinese as well" (¬J¬O¥xÆW¤H¡B¤]¬O¤¤°ê¤H) or "Chinese and Taiwanese as well." (¬J¬O¤¤°ê¤H¡B¤]¬O¥xÆW¤H)

The official nationalism under the Chiang regime had largely molded the Mainlander identity. Having territorialized the ROC government in Taiwan, and wrestled military measures to ward against possible rebellion, the KMT in earlier years adopted three pillars to guarantee political loyalty: threat of bloodshed from the Red China, material affluence from economic development, and legitimacy as the only true ruler of China. Although the mode of Chinese national identity forged by the KMT had been not only precarious but also confusing, it was effectively dissimilar to the one molded by the CCP. In fact, the original format of official nationalism was exclusively defined after Mainlander identity.

At his later days, Chiang Chin-kuo (½±¸g°ê), son of Chiang Kai-shek, finally come to realize that he and the Mainlanders had been qualified as Taiwanese. To preempt any revenge, real or imagined, from the Taiwanese, he handpicked a Native Lee Teng-hui as his successor and created a space for ethnic reconciliation. Since President Lee came to power unexpectedly in 1988, the KMT had gradually undertaken its naturalization process. Former ethnic division of labor had become more horizontal, and ethnic justice in terms of more equitable political redistribution is materializing, especially from 1995 on when President Lee boldly embarked on political reforms. Meanwhile, the Mainlanders have been facing such identity crises that they would not have envisaged. While in the past they would be securely loyal to the trinity of state-party-leader, they now have to search for ways to define their collective identity, ethnic and national.

Nowadays, most of the Mainlanders would waste no time considering themselves as "Chinese"(¤¤°ê¤H) without conscious understanding of what "Chinese" stands for. For some, "China"(¤¤°ê) may symbolize their attachment to historical, cultural, or geographical China. For others, it may represent their romantic imagination. Of course, it cannot be denied that a few may be true believers for identification with the current Chinese political regime. Nevertheless, there might be some element of the Mainlanders' self-defense against the Natives' self-assertion.

Compared with the Chiang father and son, the ROC under Lee Teng-hui had given up its fictive claim over the territory of the whole China, and abandoned its bitter contest with the PRC as the legitimate China. Ostensibly, the rhetoric had been "One China, two regions, and two equal political entities," (¤@Ó¤¤°ê¡B¨âÓ¦a°Ï¡B¨âÓ¹ïÄÒ¬Fªv¹êÅé) which would actually read "one country, two governments." (¤@°ê¨â©²) Still, Lee seemed resolute to nurture Taiwan as a cultural Chinese state, and to cultivate the Taiwanese as the better Chinese. In other words, while retaining the mythical Chinese cultural identity, Lee would also like to uphold the concrete Taiwanese political identity. In this regard, Lee was still by nature an "ethnic Han," (º~¤H) if not political Chinese, loyalist. Since there is no easy way to reconcile cultural and political facets of national identity, Lee's "official nationalism" was at most a Janus-faced form of born-again "reform nationalism."

To further withstand Chinese nationalism, Lee Teng-hui endeavored to engineer the construction of a community of fate (¥Í©R¦@¦PÅé) for all of the residents of Taiwan by resorting to the principle of people's sovereignty (¥DÅv¦b¥Á) in a communitarian fashion. In his cardinal contemplation, all policy priorities would be given to the whole residents of Taiwan, which implicitly made him a territorial Taiwanese nationalist since a nation would be conceived as a community of fate embedded on its sovereign state. Curious enough, even thorough Lee had in general followed a "Independence Taiwan" (¿W¥x) line in the past few years, he has so far refrained from the articulation of Taiwanese nationalism. This deliberate ambiguity has eased the process of identity redefinition for the Mainlanders.

In order to court the Native voters to empathize with the stigmatized KMT in elections, Lee openly spelled out the so-called "sorrow of the Taiwanese" (¥Í¬°¥xÆW¤Hªº´d«s) while interviewed by a Japanese writer (born in Taiwan before the war) in 1995 before the first popular presidential election, which unintentionally alienated the Mainlanders for his favorably undisguised pro-Japanese predispositions. Consequently, Lee had to come up with the concept of "New Taiwanese" (·s¥xÆW¤H) to appease the Mainlanders in the 1998 Taipei mayoral election. If they are willing to accept this new created all-inclusive national identity, the Mainlanders may be relieved from the convergence of national identity and ethnic identity. Nonetheless, while the long waited reconciliatory design was widely welcome, the newly coined term has remained both vague and ambiguous not only for the Mainlanders but also for the Natives.

If "New Taiwanese" is meant to embrace all residents of Taiwan, especially to include the Mainlanders only, it is too all encompassing to offer any discriminative utility in practice. For the Natives, as they have been "Taiwanese" anyway for long, the term futile for them; for the Mainlanders, a new ethnic group name is still called for. On the other hand, if "New Taiwanese" is reserved for the Mainlanders, the term is no less discredited than the original one.

Even if this ingenious orthodox of ethnic integration may have alleviated ethnic tension at home, the controversial issue of national identity has not been resolved at rest as expected, again, particularly for the Mainlanders. While some Mainlander elites start out admitting themselves as "Taiwanese," they still cling to their Chinese identity. In any case, most of them still consider themselves "Chinese" first and Taiwanese second, or rather rhetorically "Chinese on Taiwan,"(¤¤°ê¤H¦b¥xÆW) much the same as the state is "ROC on Taiwan."(¤¤µØ¥Á°ê¦b¥xÆW) Understandably, by so dubiously defining, "Taiwanese" is relegated to a territorial regional identity while "Chinese" is advanced to a national one.

Dubious Identity and Attitude toward China

We have come to realize that ethnic identity and national identity in Taiwan are coterminous with each other. On the one hand, one's ethnic identity (Natives or Mainlander) would largely decide one's national identity (Taiwanese or Chinese) and hence one's attitudes toward the issue of Taiwan's future (Independence or Unification). On the other hand, one's ethnic identity is also composed of one's conception of national identity and/or Taiwan's relations with China in the future, especially for the Mainlander. So far, these cleavages have also by and large converged with voters' party identification in Taiwan.

Right from its inception in 1986, the DPP has been largely perceived as the Taiwanese party, read the ethnic, if not nationalist, party for the native Taiwanese. On the other extreme of the continuum of ethnic identity, the evaporating NP would be considered as an extricating Mainlander party, formed in 1993 by some anti-Lee conservatives who would consider themselves as the authentic KMT. The KMT would have safely retained the central ground as a mechanism of ethnic consociation between the Taiwanese and the Mainlanders. As the PFP is becoming a new Zion for the Mainlanders, Soong, the party chair, has made all efforts to make it a non-ethnic party by engaging in coalition formation with native politicians, which makes its location along the ethnic spectrum difficult. Recently, as the KMT is reasserting its pro-unification stance in order to fence off Soong's snatch, some native adherents of Lee's line within the KMT have made up their minds to set up the TUA. While the splinter TUA pledges to sit between the DPP and the KMT, some pro-independence activists are anxious to throw themselves upon.

Intertwined with these ethnic clouds are confusing national identities. After forty years of orthodox education imposed by the KMT, who claimed to the sole legitimate descent of the Chinese lineage, it is no wonder that the majority of the Taiwanese are still not certain if they and the Chinese belong to the so-called "Chinese nation" (¤¤µØ¥Á±Ú) or not. While the simplest acid test would be whether they have a mind to share one Chinese nation-state, most people in Taiwan tend to accept a primordial conception of national identity. No wonder that politicians in Taiwan seem reluctant to walk out of the cloud of identity crisis. Giving the fact that both Lien Chan (³s¾Ô) and James Soong, presidential candidates of the KMT and the PFP respectively, were both born in China, it is not surprising for them to claim they are "ethnic Chinese" (¤¤°ê¤H); however, they would rush to claim themselves Taiwanese as well politically.

In July 1999, then President Lee Teng-hui unleashed the "Two States Discourse" (¨â°ê½×) while interviewed by German journalists, arguing that Constitutional amendments since 1991 had designated cross strait relations as "a special state-to-state relationship," (¯S®íªº°ê»P°êÃö«Y) it was believed that his purpose was to set the limit for future president's China policy. Still, "Two States Discourse" provides a host of connotations along the spectrum from "Two States in One China" (¤@¤¤¨â°ê) espoused by the loyalists, through literal "Two States in One Chinese Nation" (¤@Ó¥Á±Ú¡B¨âÓ°ê®aor¤@±Ú¨â°ê) by the KMT mainstream, and to "Two Chinese States"(¨âӵؤH°ê®a) by President Chen Shui-bian (³¯¤ô«ó). Even among the KMT elites, there have been contestations over whether to employ the suffix "One Nation," or "One Chinese Nation" after "Two States," since nation would carries dissimilar as well as multiple interpretations both in Han Chinese and in English. If "One Nation" stands for an amorphously cultural "Chinese people," (µØ¤H) the formula is on even terms with the DPP since Singapore is also broadly "misperceived" in Taiwan as a Chinese state. However, if it is contemplated as a political "Chinese nation," the denomination strongly implies pro-unification predisposition, which is also understood in Taiwan as the so-called "German model" of unification.

After the last presidential election, Lee admitted that the reason why the KMT had lost to the DPP was mainly due to internal cleavages over identity among the party members and supporters. Concurrently, Lee was forced to step down from his chairmanship from the KMT after angry protesters surrounded the party headquarter and demanded his resignation.

The victory of the DPP candidate Chen in the second presidential election in March 2000 seemed to have taken most Taiwan watchers in surprise. What struck us most were Chen's reconciliatory attitudes toward China in his inauguration speech on May 20th, 2000, by appealing for the so-called "Five No's" (¤¤£) principle, , that is, no declaring independence, no change of state title, no constitutional revision to institutionalize the "Two States Discourse" of former President Lee Teng-hui, no plebiscite for Taiwan's future, and no abolishing the "Guidelines for National Unification." (°ê®a²Î¤@ºõ»â) Furthermore, in his millennium speech on the New Year's Eve 2000, President Chen pledged to embark on economic and cultural integrations with China, and to seek for a framework for perpetual peace and eventual political integration across the strait of Taiwan. The next day, he dauntlessly broke up the DPP taboo and brought up the idea of "One China under the Constitution of the Republic of China." (¾Ëªk¤@¤¤) Recalling how Chen had bitterly assailed former DPP chairman Hsu Hsin-lian's (³\«H¨}) policy of "Bold Expedition Westwards" (¤jÁx¦è¶i) in the mid-1990s, we wonder what factors have contributed his drastic change of mind.

Now that most of the ruling DPP elites seem plainly willing to illuminate Chinese nation as cultural one and disregard its political, historical, or geographic meanings, it is no wonder the native-born Chen would agree that both the ROC and the PRC are two Chinese states. By so doing, Chen and the DPP feel comfortable to take over the ROC state apparatus from Lee. It appears that President Chen is ready to consider himself as a "Hua-jen," (µØ¤H, cultural Chinese) probably having a mind to appease China, and to tranquilize the Mainlanders.

To be fair, the DPP has never confronted the goal of independence, although some would denounce its supporter as fundamentalists without reservation. What worries the DPP elites most is that independence has excluded other policy options, such as "Two Chinas," "Chinese Commonwealth," (µØ¤H°ê¨ó) or "Two States in One Nation." However, the posture of "Two Chinas," (¨âÓ¤¤°ê) in whatever forms, would run risk of being misperceived by the international society as romantic Taiwanese irredentism with China. Secondly, it is doubtful whether China would accept a formula in opposition to its staunch "One China principle."(¤@Ó¤¤°êì«h) And thirdly, in the home front, the designation of Chinese state neglects the fact that Taiwan is not a homogeneous Han-Chinese society, but rather a multi-cultural, ethnic, and racial one.

Conclusions

As a privileged, if not dominant, ethnic group, the Mainlanders in Taiwan had in the past constructed their collective identity based on the loyalty to the Republic of China, the Kuomintang, and the Chiangs. Disguised in primordial linguistic distinctions under the National Language Policy, their identity had been securely guarded by structural inequalities under political monopoly in an ethnicized state. However, ever since a Native Lee Teng-hui became the president and took over the KMT in the late 1980s, the trinity of state-party-leader had ceased to provide sure foundation upon which the disarrayed Mainlanders would anchor their allegiance. Particularly when Lee embarked on the process of naturalization and democratization in the mid-1990s, the frustrated Mainlanders had to delineate their identity anew.

While more and more Mainlanders are inclined to recognize themselves as Taiwanese, still, they are not ready to forsake their Chinese identity, cultural or political. Even though ethnic identity, national identity, and to less degree, party identification, have so far been highly coterminous with one another in the political arena, it is not yet entirely self-evident how the causal links would flow. While it is almost a truism that a Mainlander would be more likely to support the cause of Chinese irredentism than a Native, nevertheless, it is not obvious how one's ethnic identity would account for his national identity. Since neither primordial nor structural explanations are adequate to reveal ethnic foundation of national identity, it is therefore speculated that national identity is but one dimension of ethnic division. In other words, national identity is best interpreted as one instrument for ethnic mobilization in political maneuvering for power sharing. Last but not least, if national identity is exactly the raison d'etre of ethnic identity in the Mainlander case, the labyrinth of ethnic competitions and their influences on China policy in Taiwan would be much more intractable.

References

Alter, Peter. 1989. Nationalism. London: Edward Arnold.

Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. ed. London: Verso.

Esman, Milton. 1994. Ethnic Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Kohn, Hans. 1957. American Nationalism. New York: Collier.

Le Vine, Victor T. 1997. "Conceptualizing 'Ethnicity' and 'Ethnic Conflict': A Controversy Revisited." Studies in Comparative International Development. Vol. 32, No. 2 (EBSCOhost Full Display).

Prinsloo, R. 1996. "Studying the Cleavaged Society: The Contributions of Eric Hobsbawm." South African Journal of Sociology, Vol. 27, No. 1 (EBSCOhost Full Display).

Shih, Cheng-Feng. 2001a. "Taiwan's Foreign Policy toward China: An Assessment of the Chen Shui-bian Administration." Paper presented at the International Studies Association 2001 Hong Kong Convention. Hong Kong, July 26-2.

Shih, Cheng-Feng. 2001b. "National Identity and Foreign Policy: Taiwan's Attitudes toward China." Paper presented at the International Studies Association 42nd Annual Convention. Chicago, February 20-24.

Shih, Cheng-Feng. 2000a. "The Taiwanese Political Identity: Three Contending Approaches." Paper presented at the Conference for the Understanding the Social World 2: Construction and Identity. Huddersfield, England, September 3-6.

Shih, Cheng-Feng, 2000b. "Political Status of the Aboriginal Peoples in Taiwan." Paper presented at the 18th General International Peace Research Association Conference. Tampere, Finland, August 5-9.

Shih, Cheng-Feng. 2000c. "Deconstructing Taiwan's National Identity." paper presented at the International Studies Association 41st Annual Conference, Los Angel, March 14-18.

Stargardt, Nicholas. 1995. "Origins of the Constructivist Theory of the Nation," in Sukumar Periwal, ed. Notions of Nationalism, pp. 83-105. Budapest: Central European University Press.

TOP