Taiwanese National Identity: In Search of Statehood*

　

Cheng-Feng Shih (施正鋒), Ph.D., Professor

Department of Public Administration and Institute of Institute of Public Policy

Tamsui, Tamkang University (淡江大學)

P.O. Box 26-447, Taipei 106, TAIWAN (台灣)

Tel: 886-2-2706-0962; Fax: 886-2-2707-7965

E-mail: ohio3106@ms8.hinet.net; HTTP://mail.tku.edu.tw/cfshih

　

     

　

 

Introduction

In our earlier studies (SHIH, 1999: 4), we have employed primordialism, structuralism and constructuralism[1] to identify three facets of Taiwanese National Identity[2]: Han-Chinese cultural racialism, anti-Japanese/anti-Mainlander ethnic nationalism, and official nationalism/ consciousness of Taiwan Independence.  Nonetheless, we have insensibly used a binary approach to analyze the differences between the self and the other and thus unconsciously homogenized the multiplicity of the internal selves.  By so doing, we have marginalized the minorities, especially the hybridized ones (Powell, 1997).  To redress this pitfall, since Taiwan is a multiethnic, if not multinational, society (SHIH, 2006), while renouncing any attempt at forging hegemony of national identity, we will reexamine the above three dimensions in a more inclusive way.

Primordially, we will look into what the meaning of the emerging Plain Aboriginal identity is.  Ostensibly, they have made efforts undertake to reclaim their indigenous identity, and yet met few hearty receptions owing to the fact that they have largely lost their observable cultural characteristics.  On the other hand, the descendents of the Mainlander (外省人)-Indigenous (原住民) intermarriage is readily embraced even though it is doubtful whether they share any subjective collective identity.  As the government is restricting its affirmative action plan for the Indigenous Peoples in the field of education, it is time to examine this double-edged sword of ascriptive ways of group identity.  Furthermore, if it is insisted that primordialism be prevail in the process of nation-building, it is uncertain whether the popular mixed-blood national discourse is to include the later-comer Mainlanders, who have lost any opportunity to intermarry with the Plain Aborigines in the process of history.

Structurally, it is always argued that the overlapping of cultural differences and discriminatory practices have contributed to the crystallization of group identity, be it ethnic or national one.  Mobilized by the elites, the mass begin to realize their collective destiny under the ethnicized state and rise to claim their fair share of the state or even to take over the whole state machine.  On the other hand, some have pledge to disentangle cultural attributes and political, economic, and social distribution, in the hope that color-blind based programs is more conduced to conflict reduction, if not resolution, of ethnic cleavages.  It is recognized that well-tailored crosscutting between ethnicity and distribution may abate group solidarity.  Nonetheless, when it comes to the question of historical consciousness, the above wisdom will have difficulty in dealing with the diffusing ethnic antagonism over historic traumas.  Leaving aside historical justice, there is no guarantee that fair distributions would mitigate differences in national identity among ethnic groups.

Constructurally, the three-pronged processes of nation-building, state-building, and state-making may go hand in hand.  However, for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP, 民主進步黨), democratization is amount to regime change.  As a result, the stepwise discourse of “Republic of China to Taiwan, Republic of China on Taiwan, and Republic of China being Taiwan” is nothing more than reinforcing the legitimacy of this alien regime.  It is no wonder that there is no well-thought and coherent plan for institutional development.  As the DPP is determined to interpret the task of state-making as nothing but changing the official name of country, it is predictable that the mission of state-making will be compromised as an self-serving instrument of the former only.  What is worse, if democracy is arrogantly defined simply as majority rule whether in elections or in referenda, there is no reason why the alienated minorities would choose to take part in the project of nation-building. 

 

Illusive Primordial Identity

According to the tenet of primordialism, collective identity is based on some unabatedly core, such as lineage, cultural characteristics (such as language, religion, and tradition), or physical traits (such as skin pigment, hair color/texture, and genetic attribute).  Accordingly, if we are to define an ethnic group, or a nation, or to prove its existence, we need to dig out those pre-existing essences, the view of which leads to the idea of so-called essentialism.  In their adherence to positivism, scholars of this fashion of philosophy of science believe that it is their responsibility to “neutrally” discover those “objectively” observable “ascriptive” indicators, or to uncover some hidden genetic marks.  It is although that ethnic “authenticity” could not be validated without some substantive primordial evidences.

Within the context of this understanding, social relations are invariably understood as natural phenomena.  If scientific technology fails to conjure up the assumed relationship between lineage and physical traits, cultural characteristics would be summoned to represent collective identity, especially for the validation of ethnic identity.  As a result, we can witness how the Hakka (客家) elites, who deem it impossible for their blood brothers “Fu-lau Kher[3]” (福佬客, Holo-assimilated Hakkas) to embrace their original Hakka identity, are anxious to make their Hakka language visible in the public sphere, including public institutes, educational institutions, and the media.  They even endeavor to “invent” some traditions in the hope that expanded cultural differences with other ethnic groups may contribute to further consolidation of their identity.  For instance, Leicha (擂茶), originally transplanted from China, has been actively commercialized as a new Hakka tradition in Taiwan.  It doesn’t matter whether the Hakka had the tradition of making Leicha or not in the past.  In their framework of reference, as long as the Holos, their most significant other, do not make Leicha, it pays to install this visible cultural wall across ethnic boundaries[4].  In the same vein, some Indigenous elites insist in the last straw that the state adopt language credentials as prerequisites for Indigenous students to be qualified for affirmative action plans with the calculation that their endangered languages may rescued miraculously.  Again, it is hoped that primordially based cultural traits are the last fortress to guard their ethnic boundaries.

For those Mainlanders, who themselves or whose parents or grandparents had migrated to Taiwan only after World War II, their collective identity had in the past firmly secured by the state’s practice of registering a citizen’s “origin of province” (籍貫), buttressed by occupational and/or residential segregations.  In terms of lineages and cultural differences, they may be of Han, Manchurian, Mongolian, Muslim, Tibetan, and other ethnic stocks.  However, as their bitter memory of fleeing from China and taking refuge in Taiwan is frozen, intentionally or unintentionally, and thus still vivid, a Mainlander identity has been well developed and preserved across lineage lines.  Moreover, under the favorable auspices of the so-call “Policy of National Language,” Mandarin, their newly adopted de facto common language, has not only become one’s guarantee for upward mobility, but also an expedient cue for ethnic demarcation in the outer parameter of encounters. 

Consequently, for some aspiring, if not opportunist, non-Mainlander elites, in order to overcome this linguistic barrier, the most convenient way to overcome this concealed obstacle is to excel one’s language skill in Mandarin.  On the other hand, in insistence on speaking corrupt Mandarin, uncompromising native elites are unwilling to surrender to this diglossia and undertake to protest against the continuation of internal colonialism[5] from the Japanese colonial to the Chinese alien rules.  If it is not enough to emphasize the fact that their ancestors had also migrated from Fuchien (福建) or Canton (廣東) in southern China hundreds of years ago, they would not hesitate to choose to become sons-in-law of a Mainlander family, prominent or not.  To a less degree, being an adopted son of Mainlander parents seemed equally adequate for a while.

Under this primordial frame, even if these native sons-in-law may not bring in immediate benefits, offspring of the intermarriage between the male Mainlander and the female native, a natural pattern due to imbalance demographic distribution as a result of forced migration after vicious civil war between the Nationalist Chinese Party (Kuomintang, or KMT) and the Communist Chinese Party (CCP) in 1949, offers an unexpected opportunity for ethnic reconciliation.  According to the old Chinese wisdom, the marriage of Princess Wencheng (文成公主) to the Tibetan King during the Tang Dynasty stood not only for temporary appeasement but also permanent peacemaking between the civilized Hans and the barbarian Tibetans.  In the earlier years of the rule, heads of the local party chapters were said to be encouraged to marry daughters of Indigenous nobles, particularly the Paiwan Nation (排灣族). 

Nonetheless, if intermarriages are always skewed to one side, it is difficult for exogamies not to be interpreted as but one facet of naked dominations by the Mainlanders[6].  Moreover, given the fact that maternal identities have been largely deemed invisible, it seems inconceivable for these native mothers to preserve their own ethnic identities in the atmosphere of total assimilation.  Therefore, if primordialism is to retain its explanatory utility for the cases of inter-group marriages, it is expected to prevail more for cultural acculturation rather than physical hybrid.  In other words, even if the second-generation possesses only half of the Mainlander lineage, it appears that subjective Mainlander identity would be raised to the top once superimposed to the helpless native one.[7]

Among the three possible intermarriage patters, that is, Hakka-Mainlander, Holo-Mainlander, and Indigenous-Mainlander, those between Indigenous mothers and Mainlander veterans turn out to be the most marginal of the marginal ones since they are found in the lowest strata of both ethnic groups.  When these veterans were gradually dying out in the 1990s, Indigenous elites came to the rescue of those widows and their miserable sons ad daughters even though the so-call “Yee-bau-ban” (一胞半) appeared endowed with only fifty percentage of Indigenous pedigree.  As those Indigenous nephews and nieces grew to the ages qualified for affirmative action plans,[8] non-Indigenous parents began to challenge their legitimacy as Indigenous people.[9]  Are they strategic Indigenous people, authentic Mainlanders, or something else? 

Meanwhile, if one Yee-bau-ban is willing to adopt maternal last name, it is an indicator that one is ready to accept the baptism of Indigenous society.  Take the prominent Congresswoman Kao Gin-su-mei for example.  As a famous actress, she would have few opportunities of getting elected in the national legislative election.  Still, as soon as she resolved to obtain her Indigenous identity, she has so far successfully garnered Indigenous votes with journalist and financial help from her paternal Mainlander ethnic group.  Nevertheless, as she are apt to take an anti-Japanese rhetoric on such issues as Indigenous comfort women and military recruits in the Pacific War from time to time, its is not clear whether she is playing the role of a Mainlander disguised in Indigenous costumes.  Even if she is eventually perceived by some non-Indigenous natives as authentically Indigenous, there is still no escape from the puzzle why the Indigenous People are so inclined to take Mainlanders into their arms.

Underlying primordialism are two unproven assumptions: more similarities in primordial indicators mean closeness in identities; and more disparities in these indicators represent distance in identities.  These beliefs largely converge with the Chinese proverb that “those who are not of our kind must not share with our hearts.” (非我族類、其心必異)[10]  Nonetheless, the literature on collective identity would illustrate that these primordial understanding can’t stand up well to empirical tests.  For instance, Anglo-Saxons are scattered around at least in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australian, and New Zealand.  Similarly, Germans are mostly found in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, where no goal of irredentism is seriously sought.  Also, there are currently twenty-two Arab states stretching from North Africa to Middle East.[11]  On the other hand, such multi-ethnic states as Switzerland, Belgium, and the United States have demonstrated that primordial heterogeneities are no barrier to forging a common national identity.  In a nutshell, primordial similarities are neither sufficient nor necessary conditions for tranquil process of nation-building.

 

Uncertain Structural Identity

Based on the postulation of structuralism,[12] a group of people who share cultural traits are no guarantee for developing any common identity; rather, only when these people begin perceiving common destiny in the form of deprivation in political power, economic resources, social status, and/or cultural values would they drive for their collective identity.  At this juncture, while ethnic differences are coterminous with ethnic discrimination, they both are reinforcing each other within an ethnicized state.  Mobilized by ethnic elites who strongly feel deprived, the mass start to realize their common fate and are awaken to their collective identity.  To the extreme, an ethnic identity may evolve into a full-blown national one.

In the discourse of Taiwanese Nationalism, the most often portrayed thesis is how waves of alien rules in the past four hundreds years have led to growth of Taiwanese identity.  Therein, the saying that “every three years witness a minor revolt, and every five years behold a major rebellion” (三年一小反、五年一大亂) has not only illuminated how the Taiwanese have been resistant to uninvited rulers but also expressed their strongest protest against those alien regimes.[13]  For those whose ancestors had in the past sailed across the troubled Straits of Taiwan and endured onslaughts waged by the indigenous “barbarians,” the island belongs to them only.  And they are not to tolerate any unjustified deprivation of the land. 

As with most of the nationalist movements in the Third World, the Taiwanese one started with primary resistance against colonists at all shades, ranging from the Dutch, the Manchurians, the Japanese, and finally the Chinese Mainlanders.  Taiwanese identity represents their determination to rid themselves of colonial status and establish their own nation-state.  In retrospect, if the Japanese had treated the Islanders on the same footing, it is doubtful whether the Taiwanese would have welcome the retrocession of Taiwan into the Chinese hands.  In the same token, if the Chen Yee (陳儀) Administration that reigned Taiwan after the war had considered the Taiwanese as compatriots, it is problematic whether the February 28th Incident[14] (二二八事件) would have taken place at all; if the transplanted KMT government had treated the Taiwanese benevolently, it is uncertain whether the native elites would have pursued the path of an independent Taiwan.

In essence, if the vertical relationship between the Mainlanders and the native Taiwanese had been simply a form of domination, the nature of Taiwanese resistance would resemble that of peasant revolts in China, or that of laborer unrests in the West.  However, when the term “alien regime” (外來政權) is employed to rally nationalist support, internal exploit is converted to colonialism for the Taiwanese to undo.  To fully understand the meaning of “alien regime,” we need to look into who are considered aliens. 

In the eyes of orthodox Chinese historical interpretation, both those Westerner barbarians (西洋番) and Easterner barbarians (東洋番) who occupied Taiwan are without doubt alien rulers no matter whether they are racially of Caucasian or Mongolian stocks.[15]  Seemingly concurring with the above perspective, the Taiwanese seemed to share the view that alien regimes stand for the Dutch, the Spanish, and the Japanese colonial governments.  Nonetheless, for the Ming Dynasty (明朝) loyalists, the Manchurian Ching Dynasty (清朝) that had defeated Koxinga (鄭成功) is also denounced as alien.  As a result, not only anti-Japanese revolts, such as the Yee-wei Resistance (乙未戰爭) in 1895 and the Chia-bar-nian Event (噍吧哖事件) in 1915, are enshrined as nationalist uprisings, but the anti-Manchurian Chu-yee-guei Event (朱一貴事件) in 1721, the Lin-swang-wen Incident (林爽文事件) in 1786, and the Dai-chau-chueng Event (戴潮春事件) in 1862 are also sanctified retrospectively as such.  It appears that in the eyes of the Han settlers in Taiwan, not only Westerner barbarians[16] and Easterner barbarians, but also non-Han Manchurians are judged as alien.  As a result, this Han nationalist sentiment is akin to the idea of “Expelling the Barbarians and Recovering Chong-Hua” (驅逐韃虜、恢復中華) espoused by Chinese nationalists.[17] 

So far, Taiwanese national identity was still caught in the interwoven relationship between primordial Han-Chinese attachment and structural anti-alien reaction.  It was not until the outbreak of the February 28th Incident in 1947 that the Taiwanese were forced to ponder over the puzzle why the Chinese compatriots[18] were more malevolent than those Japanese colonists.  After half-century of one-way yearning for the motherland, the descendents of earlier settlers, disillusioned by the ensuing white terrors in the 1950s, began to reflect upon their primordial Han affinity.  When they finally realized their collective destiny as “the Orphan of Asia” (亞細亞的孤兒), it was the right time for them to rethink and, probably, to forsake their paternal lineage from China. 

Defeated by the CCP and compelled to take refugee in Taiwan in 1949, the KMT government, carrying the formal tile of “Republic of China,” faced a two-front battle.  While struggling to fend off threat to “liberate Taiwan with force” (武力解放台灣) waged by Mao, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek had to keep an eye on his newly returned, if not home-coming, and yet restless Taiwanese subjects, who looked and sounded his most resented Japanese and yet appeared silent to show their very protest.  Meanwhile, Chiang had to figure out how to find a temporary place on this tiny island for his followers, who numbering a couple of millions.  The military, the bureaucracy, and the education institutions (軍公教), left out by the departing Japanese colonists, seemed perfect for these homesick Chinese substitutes.  Just as those former Japanese Inlanders (內地人) before the war, these Chinese Mainlanders (大陸人) were accidentally privileged by the state machine and thus bred, if not inherited, resentment from the alienated Islanders (本島人), who had expected to discard their inferior status as “slaves of the Manchurians” (清國奴) imposed by the Japanese rulers.  In this post-colonial context, a prevailing feeling of being subjugated separated the Hans on this island into two ethnic groups, if not two nations, Ben-shen-jen (本省人, meaning people of the Taiwan Province) and Wai-shen-jen (外省人, meaning people originally from other provinces of mainland China).  Consequently, structural inequalities, whether in the form of state violence or not, as defended by the KMT now, were to overtake any perceptions of primordial similarities left over.

If the idea of “Japanese and Taiwanese in Unity” (日台一體) was a merely a hoax to cover the underlying structure of colonialism, the slogan of “Anti-Communist and Against the Russians” (反共抗俄) was but one of convenient catch phrases to justify the minority rule of the KMT party-state.  In this sense, the February 28th Incident was only one timely catalyst for the conversion of Taiwanese identity.  What made the Taiwanese feel unbearable was institutionalized acculturation in everyday life.  On the one hand, equipped with the domination of educational, cultural, and communicational institutions, the island Chinese state was resolved to Sinicized its spiritually polluted citizens.  On the other hand, buttressed by cultural hegemony, the KMT government was steadfast to convince the Taiwanese that they were essentially inferior and thus doomed to be subjugated. 

Punished for a war, Chia-wu War (甲午戰爭), between the Japanese and the Manchurian Chinese in 1895, where the Taiwanese never wanted to be a party, they were sold out after the Chinese defeat to become Japanese colonized for half a century.  After Imperial Japan collapsed in the Pacific War, Taiwan was renounced by Japan and became a substantive trusteeship territory under the KMT’s military rule.  On every Retrocession Day (光復節) in October, the Taiwanese are reminded their humiliation in a war they never volunteered to fight.  Repeatedly, the notion of becoming an involuntary defeated nation only testifies to the actuality of “the sorrow of being a Taiwanese” (作為台灣人的悲哀).  For the Taiwanese, whether the Armed Forces (國軍) of the Republic of China are interpreted literally as “the State’s Armed Forces” (國家的軍隊) or “the Nationalist Chinese Party’s Forces” (國民黨的黨軍), they are much the same instrument for domination of the alien regimes as those “Guan-bin” (官兵, official soldiers) under the Manchurian rule and those “Dai-zeen” (大人, policemen) under the Japanese rule.  When the Taiwanese vowed to “be our own master” (當家作主), they are no longer satisfied with the goal of equal treatment.  Rather, they are demanding a sovereign independent state with a foot in the international society. 

In recent years, in order to devoid of political manipulation on ethnic differentiations, some have suggested that distributions of welfare benefits be de-linked from ethnicity.[19]  Nevertheless, even if ethnic cleavages can be effectively crosscutting with class ones, the quarrelsome, if not antagonistic, issue of historical consciousness is still far from being settled.  As long as there are unrecognized collective victims, numerous banal bystanders, and unnumbered silent beneficiaries, without a single humble perpetrator, any decontextualized peacemaking remains futile since ethnic identities, if not national identities, have been firmly constructed by incongruous collective memories.  To the extreme, would political, economic, and social egalitarianisms be conducive to the convergence of national identities? 

Counterfactually, if Japan had won the war and offered the Taiwanese to decide their future, what would they have chosen?  Perhaps, they would have reluctantly remained Japanese as the Okinawans did after the war.  Probably, they would have wondered among the choice of becoming an independent Cuba or the Philippines, or an American territory as Puerto Rico or Guam as those subjects of the Spanish former colonies did after American-Spanish war.  Questionably, would they have subserviently yielded to the status of an integral part of China under the formula of “One State, Two Systems” (一國兩制) as the peoples of Hong Kong and Macao did? 

Back to the real life, with ceaseless military threats, political coercions, and diplomatic isolations, political China has long degenerated into a menacing giant neighbor, if not a zealous distant relative.   If China decides to take over Taiwan with force, it would be another alien regime for the Taiwanese. 

 

Contending Constructivist Identities

In accordance with the constructivist tradition of Anderson (1991), how can the Taiwanese have imagined their national identity?  Judging from the experience of nationalist movements in Latin America, we may classify the process of nation-building into three models: creole, mestizo, and indigenism (or indigenista).[20]  In the first place, a creole nationalist movement was propelled by descendents of white settlers.  In pursuance of a three-pronged mission, these creole leaders, while managing to liberate themselves from the political domination of the white conquerors, known as peninsulars, they were endeavoring to sever their connections with Spain, and, at the same time, contemplating to construct a brand new nation-state of their own on the setters’ societies.  Secondly, a mestizo nationalist movement was an antithesis to the insistence on the assumed lineage purity of the former.  Having pragmatically taken note of the fact of intermarriages between the whites and the Indians and thus following cultural hybrids, those mestizo pacemakers felt secure enough to set up a separate state with national identity distinct from both Spanish and Indian ones.  And last but not the least, agitators of an indigenism nationalist movement, while acknowledging the foreignness of the setters’ societies, took pains to adopt nativity as the raison d’être of the state.

We have earlier construct a conceptual framework for understanding the political development of a settlers’ society (SHIH, 1998), wherein children of settlers, including the Holos and the Hakkas, are struggling to survive a dual challenge[21]: externally, they have to resist absorption by both the motherland and imperialists; internally, they need to accommodate the Indigenous peoples and relatively new immigrants, including the Mainlanders and the marriage migrants[22].  Within this frame of reference, we have similarly come up with three perspectives for constructing Taiwanese identity.[23]

In the beginning, we have identified the discourse of “Hsin Chong-yuan” (新中原, New Middle Kingdom) designed by former President Lee Teng-hui, and that of “Hua-zen Guo-chia” (華人國家, Chinese State) as two prominent representatives of creole national identity.  Having failed to resist the iron grid of primordialism, they are ready to take over a national identity based on Han lineage and Chinese culture inherited from the Chiang’s Republic of China.  Since the Indigenous peoples constitute only two percents of the total population of Taiwan, political elites would find it easily accessible to envisage a non-indigenous project of nation-building whether in the name of “the Chinese Republic of Taiwan” (中華台灣共和國)[24] or “the Democratic State of China-Taiwan” (中華台灣民主國).[25]

Since the core of national identity is made up of the so-called Han Chinese, not only foreigners, including the Dutch, the Spanish, and the Japanese, but the Manchurians are also regarded as aliens.  On the other hand, the Ming loyalist regime under Koxinga would be considered a legitimate heir of the Han lineage.  Nevertheless, judging from the harsh taxes levied on the Indigenous peoples,[26] this Han dynasty had been lucky enough to escape its stigma as an alien regime.  In reality, in the eyes of the Indigenous peoples, all governments reigning over Taiwan so far, including the Han ones, are indisputably alien.  For the Hans, indigenous resistances against the Japanese pacifying adventures (理蕃), from the Mu-dan-ser Event (牡丹社事件) in 1874, Chi-giau-chuang Event (七腳川事件) in 1908, Lee-dong-san Event (李棟山事件) in 1912, Tai-lu-ger Event (太魯閣事件) in 1913, Da-feng Event (大分事件) in 1915, and Woo-ser Event (霧社事件) in 1930, have been cherished.  However, when it comes to indigenous wars against the Manchurian settlement and pacification episodes (開山撫番), such as the Da-gun-kou Event (大港口事件) in 1877, and the Ga-lee-won Event (加禮宛事件) in 1878, it would be tremendously embarrassing.  Actually, for the impassive Indigenous peoples, all the Hans are “Bai-lung” (白浪, literally Bad Guys) anyway.

Secondly, the first Taiwanese identity constructed in a mestizo fashion was initially brought up by the exile Liau Wen-yee (廖文毅) after the war.  Arguing that the Taiwanese are offspring of the Hans, the Indigenous peoples, the Dutch, the Spaniards, and the Japanese, he claimed that a new nation, the Formosans, was eventually born, which would provide for the rationale to secede from China.  Although clothed in the style of melting bowl nourished in the United States, this well-intended hybrid engineering was diametrically opposed to the traditionally romanticized primordial purity of the Han Chinese and thus received little fervent support.  In spite of this setback, the folklore that “Yio Tang-san-gon, Mei Tang-san-ma” (有唐山公、沒唐山媽, having paternal lineages from China and yet without any maternal ones from there) has been providing Taiwanese nationalists unlimited horizons of imagination.  Matching the image of “Noble Savage” sought in the West, native researchers, professional or nonprofessional, have been busy searching for any piece of evidence that may prove the existence of the Plain Aborigines, of whom current residents of Taiwan, the Holos, and to a less degree, the Hakkas, are believed to be their direct descendents.  In their attempts to dissociate with Chinese lineage and culture, they have essentially retained a primordial way of constructing national identity.

Despite that fact this hybrid mode of Taiwanese national identity has more or less rehabilitated maternal lineages passed on the Indigenous peoples on the Plains, which have so far neglected, if not suppressed, by official accounts of historical consciousness dominated by the Hans, this postponed historical representation is a double-edged knife.  While assumed primordial lineages have been summoned to justify the separation, political as well as physical and cultural, between Taiwan and China, it would render the latecomer Mainlanders in an irrevocable situation whence they would have been involuntarily deprived their historical opportunities to marry Plain Indigenous women and further to obtain whatever levels of “pure hybridity” they are equally entitled in order to become authentic Taiwanese.  The same misfortune would also fall on those newly arriving marriage migrants.  It would similarly be unfair for these brides, as they have missed the exact historical mission of “national fusion” that took place during the earlier phase of settlement. 

There is another attempt to construct a mestizo Taiwanese identity.  By calling upon such genetic evidence as HLA,[27] some scholars have sincerely posited that since ancestors of the Holo and the Hakk Taiwanese, mainly had their origins in Fuchien or Canton in southern China, their lineages are thus endowed with more Bai-yuei (百越) breeds than Han ones.  Understandably, the reckoning is to dilute as many Han Chinese lineages, languages, and cultural traits as possible so that the nationalist undertaking of “Deserting Han” (脫漢)[28].  Still, while non-Han lineages from Southeast Asian countries are welcome,[29] but no steadfast efforts have been made to introduce these newcomers’ concomitant cultures to the so-called “New Sons of Taiwan” (新台灣之子), it is undecided how far this desertion would be allowed. 

Finally, two versions of indigenism nationalist movement, Indigenous and Plain Indigenous, have been proposed.  Costumed in the appeal of promoting indigenous rights, pioneers of the indigenism movement set out to challenge the fiction of Wu Fong (吳鳳), a Han interpreter-trader turned martyr in the 18th century, who was said to have sacrificed himself in order to move the Tso Nation (鄒族) to renounce the savage practice of headhunting.  Ostensibly a legend on the romantic encounters between the civilized Hans and the ferocious Indigenous peoples, this tale was dug out and tailored by the Japanese colonists to the serve the need of assimilating those Fan-zen (蕃人, Barbarian Humans, or Barbarians) after military pacification in the early 20th century.  After the war, being of the same mind, the KMT government retained the myth in the textbook of the primary school.  Therefore, the action to tear down Wu Fong’s statue erected outside the train station of Chia-yee (嘉義) in 1989 signified the watershed of the Indigenous resistance to the continued  status of passive objects in historical representations in Taiwan.[30] 

Enlightened by the idea of indigenous rights in the West and thus dissatisfied with their marginalized standings on their own homelands, the Indigenous elites embarked on the crusade to claim the unique status as the Indigenous Peoples on this land, and to challenge the legitimacy of the existence of the Han-Chinese state whatever its name is.  In their view, since they have never formally given up their sovereignty even if conquered, this setters’ state can no longer enlist the notion of terra nullius to justify its illegal dominion in Taiwan.  In this context, the task turns to how to reach some historical reconciliation in the spirit of nation-to-nation partnership under the framework of statehood, national or multi-national. The mainstream of the society, however, seems not ready to give up the Han domination that has prevailed for the past four hundreds years.  Rather, this movement and its accompanied appeals are but one of many thorny issues that the government has to accommodate, if not manage, under the fantasy of multiculturalism in the process of democratization.  Having chosen to keep silent on those appeals in public, most of the Han elites would rather enhance current welfare tokenism than to be engulfed in any abstract rhetoric, ethnic or national.  Accordingly, in the near future, it is not foreseeable that this Han-dominated society is not disposed to imagine Taiwan as an Indigene-defined, even if nominally, state, just like the Philippines, Malaysia, or Fiji. 

In recent years, in the name of “Fan-hue Li-shih (番回歷史, Reverting to the Historical Barbarians), some Plain Indigenous elites are actively urging the state to formally recognize their original status as Indigenous peoples.[31]  During the historical development of Taiwan, the Plain Indigenes have their identities evolved from “Shen-fan” (生番, Untamed Barbarians), “Hua-fan” (化番, Assimilated Barbarians), “Shou-fan” (熟番, Domesticated Barbarians), and finally “Han-jen” (漢人, Han-Human).  After the war, the KMT government deprived their status as Indigenous peoples resorting the argument that they had lost most of their indigenous cultural traits.  Encouraged by the cause of the Indigenous Rights Movement, they began to demand their recovery of being Barbarian. 

When the representative of the Plain Indigenous was received along with those eleven ones by the then President Lee Deng-hui at the Presidential Palace in 1994, the curious Secretary-General Chiang Yuan-shih (蔣彥士) questioned, if not challenged : “Does such a people as the Plain Indigenes still exist?”[32]  Doubtfulness from the government aside, these involuntary Barbarians-turned-Humans, have to face the suspicious eyes of their kinsmen, the orthodox Indigenous Peoples.  For the latter, these former allies of the Hans during the process of conquest and settlement in the early days had a bitter history of disputes with them.  Having enjoyed the metamorphosis of “Tsuo-zen” (作人, becoming humans) so far, the Indigenous elites distrust, what on earth are these Plain Indigenes looking for?  Without any primordial Indigenous characteristics, they are indistinguishable from the Hans; actually, they are less Indigenous than those “Yee-bau-ban” mentioned earlier.  In case they are ready to give up any benefits of affirmative action programs from the government in exchange for the status of being Indigenes, how many Hans in Taiwan would be turned into Indigenes?  Eventually, if the state becomes an Austronesian one after more than half of the Taiwanese residents decide to obtain an Indigenous status, what else would the prototype Indigenous Peoples have retained?

 

Conclusions

In search of their statehood in the past half of the century, the Taiwanese have sought various approaches to mould a nation of their own choice, including primordialism, structuralism and constructuralism.  When the Indigenous elites emphasize their cultural similarities with the Austornesians in the South Pacific, they must have taken into account how primordial affiliations with those cousins, with their political nation-states, may provide some moral support to their causes.  No serious efforts have been made to convert Taiwan into an Indigenous state.  Likewise, when the Taiwanese Hakkas undertake networking with all over the world, they are merely claiming that they are only an ethnic minority in the numerical sense in Taiwan but not one globally.  Therefore, the concentration on linguistic revitalization is intended for the survival of a collective identity endangered by an ascending Holo identity that is assumed identical with Taiwanese national identity.  Paradoxically, if primordial resemblances are keys to the forge of national identity, the Taiwanese Holos must have been marveled at those kin Holos residing in China, Singapore, and the Philippines.  Are they going to transform Taiwan into a Zion for all Holos?

A Holo cultural renaissance, it appears, against Mainlander/Chinese domination is perceived by both the Indigenous Peoples and the Hakkas as nothing but another wave of acculturation, which is destined to be deemed as a prelude to political exclusions.  Accordingly, would some well-intentioned measures to ensure formal equalities among all ethnic groups have alleviated the misgivings among one another?  Probably not, since cultural hegemony can be easily converted into political power as well as economic affluence.  In the end, structural asymmetries in all forms are bound to brew disaffections, which are thereafter doomed to become impediments to the full blossom of inclusive Taiwanese national identity.  Accordingly, if the Mainlanders are not allow to express their cultural features, such as speaking standard Mandarin, it would be as uncompassionate as when the Holos are ridiculed for their corrupt “Taiwan Guo-yu” (台灣國語, Taiwanese Mandarin).  Further, if their collective inclinations to China, whether cultural or even political, were suppressed, it would be equally heartless as when the KMT government used to refrain the natives from learning anything Taiwanese. 

Structurally speaking, while dominations within are stumbling blocks to the embryo of Taiwanese national identity, ones imposed without are on the contrary conducive to its breeding.  Without uninterrupted harassments from China so far, the ethnic groups in Taiwan would lack a significant other for their national imagination.  In the long run, still, a robust national identity ought to be based on something positive from within rather than anything negative from without.  In the way to search for a nation-state of their own making, the Taiwanese are still caught in the flux of various constructivist imaginations.

 

　

References

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CHENG, Ching-Zen (鄭欽仁).  2002.  “Taiwan’s Name-changing Movement in the Past Thirty Years.” (台灣三十年來的正名運動──體制內改革的瓶頸) (http://www. taiwannation.org.tw/forum/chengkj.htm).

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Esteva-Fabregat, Claudio.  1995.  Mastizaje in Ibero-America.  Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

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* Prepared for the International Studies Association 48th Annual Convention, Chicago, February 28th -March 3rd,  2007.

[1] See Anderson (1991), Esman(1994), Isaacs (1975), Le Vine (1997), and Prinsloo (1996).

[2] In Taiwan, scholars tend to equate “national identity” with the notion of “state identity.”  For attempts at disentangling these conceptual confusions, see SHIH (2000).

[3] In Mandarin; or in Holo (福佬, 閩南, 河洛, or 鶴佬 ), Holo Khei. 

[4] For discussions of ethnic boundary, see Barth (1969).

[5] For the conceptualization of internal colonialism, see Hector (1975).

[6] On the other hand, if the intermarriage pattern is a male married to an Amis (阿美), or Plain female, Indigenous traits are to stay since both are maternal societies.

[7] Of course, this does not apply to those were raised outside the residential compounds reserved for the civil servants or military personnels.

[8] For instance, the Legislative Yuan, equivalent to the Parliament, has currently eight reserved seats for the Indigenous candidates.  Starting from the legislative election due this year, the seats will be reduced to four.

[9] In reaction to these protests, the Medical School of the National Taiwan University, for instance, has erected some requirements to block Indigenous applications for entrance.  See CHENG (2005).

[10] For the development of the Han-Barbarian binary, see Dikötter (1992).

[11] See the web of the League of Arab States on http://www.arabji.com/ArabGovt/ArabLeague.htm.

[12] Also known as “instrumentalism.” 

[13] See, for instance, WNAG (n.d.), SHIH (1980), and YANG (1987).

[14] Or rather “Uprising.”

[15] For instance, the KMT government would prefer to term the Japanese rule ear (日本統治時代, or日治時代) as “the Japanese Occupation Era” (日據時代).

[16] During the Dutch rule, there was a Guo-whai-yee Incident (郭懷一事件) in 1652.  According to historical accounts, 5,000 Han males and their 4,000 spouses were massacred.  They were, of course, by definition “brutal” (WANG, n.d.).

[17] For anti-Manchurian thoughts in late Ching Dynasty, see Laitinen (1990).  For the idea of Chinese national identity, see Dittmer and Kim (1993).

[18] It is interesting that when the term “compatriot” (tong-bau, 同胞) is enlisted, such as “Sun-dee tong-bau” (山地同胞, literally those compatriots residing in the mountains, that is, Indigenous Peoples), or “Hai-wai tong-bau” (海外同胞, Overseas Compatriots),  In the same toke, when the Chinese call the Taiwanese as “Tai-wan tong-bau” (台灣同胞), they must have some sense of alienation.

[19] For instance, see Fraser and Honneth (2003).

[20] For the development of nationalist movement in Latin America, see Esteva-Fabregat (1995), Kinght (1990), Radcliffe and Westwood (1996), and Schmidt (1978).

[21] In the literature of foreign policy, it is also known as “two-level game.”

[22] Also popularly called “Wai-chi Hsin-nien” (外籍新娘, foreign brides).  Most them originally come from China and Southeast Asian countries, such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Philippines.

[23] Of course, except for few true believers o Chinese irredentism, there are some who have not shied from the dream that Taiwan would be incorporated as one state of the United States.

[24] See the French scholar GAO (2004). 

[25] See CHENG (2002).

[26] See SHIH (1980: 107).

[27] The most prominent scholar is LIN (2001).

[28] For the movement, see the web at http://www.de-han.org/.

[29] Still, this may be premature since Deputy Minister of Education Chou Chan-der (周燦德) once remarked that “foreign brides may not want to give birth to too many children.”  See the report from China Times (中國時報) (http://ccms.ntu.edu.tw/~psc/pop_news9307/930716003.htm) (2004/7/10).

[30] For a brief historical account of this event, see WUSAI (2004).

[31] See CHEN (2002) a participant’s documentation.

[32] See the report from Independent Daily(自立早報) (1994/6/24).

 

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