The impact of Globalization on the National Identity of Taiwan
Date Issued
2007
Date
2007
Author(s)
Liao, Yu-Hsin
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
This doctoral dissertation deals with the impact of globalization on the problem of the national identity of Taiwan. Firstly, the treatise discusses the approach and research method in application. Secondly, it draws up research procedure and framework. Thirdly, it reviews the relevant literatures on globalization, national identity and history and politics of Taiwan and finally her political economy. The prevailing of knowledge and information economy as well as the dominant role of network have tremendous effect on the new phenomenon of globalization. As the matter of facts, globalization has different features and sectors, like economical globalization, cultural globalization, political globalization, etc. National identity comprises political, ethnical and cultural identity. The vagueness of the concepts of “One China” principle tends to obscure and to confuse Taiwanese‘s national identity, to the extent that some of the Taiwanese may consider themselves both Taiwanese (“Taiwan Zen”) and Chinese (“Zhong Guo Zen”). Thus the problematic of “One China” is highlighted at the beginning.
The following chapters analyze the formation and expand of national identity before and during Japan’s occupation of the island. The Japanese colonial government established the basic public facility, and tolerated the left-wing and pro-independent thought. However, the opening of World-War Two led Japan to develop Taiwan as a base for southbound invasion. As the World War Two approached to its end, the Kuomintang (KMT) army which was defeated by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to occupy Taiwan as its new colonial territory. Chiang Kai-shek authoritarian dirigisme and the seizure of the island’s economic resources, Taiwanese tolerance was tired and broken, thus it occurred the uprising on and after 28, February 1947. It was the time when civil war was rampant in the mainland China.
However, under enlightened and liberal ruling of the Japanese colonial governor, Taiwanese consciousness for independence and democratization was matured and awakened in the 1920s immediately after the foundation of the Taiwanese Cultural Society (Taiwan Bunka Shakai) in 1921. The incident and it following “white terror” caused the Taiwanese living in the shadow of so-called 28th February massacre, pacification, and long-time martial law and period of mobilization for the suppression of Communist rebellion (動員戡亂時期), and the KMT regime forces the Taiwanese to use mandarin as the only official language and inculcated the people to accept the ideology of brutal and ruthless suppression and thought control of “Great Chinese”. The national identity of the Taiwanese has been fully representation of the so called “Republic of China (ROC)” shaped and superimposed by the KMT government. However, when the represents expelled from the United Nation (UN), the myth of “Taiwan equals to ROC” and “ROC equals to whole China” was broken to pieces. Yet the recurrent KMT regime still defended desperately it legitimacy of the heir to Sun Yat-sen’s political heritage. Finally, the former president Lee Teng-hui has admitted the KMT-clique as a “exotic regime”, and adopted the pathway to localization.
As the former Soviet collapsed and the East-European countries democratized, globalization was appeared on the stage. In the meantime, Taiwan abolished the martial law and lifted the ban of shipping and traveling to Mainland China, However, the CCP chose to depress the democracy. Under the contact of the semi-official organizations between the strait, there were gigantic growth in trade and investment from Taiwan to China, however most of them had to go through the third country.
The “temporary system” was ended when re-elections on both congress and national assembly was hold in the early 1990s, and the presidential election from all citizens was hold in 1996, Taiwan’s national identity was shifted from pro-independent/ pro-unify to keep status quo, from “Taiwanese” or “Chinese” to “a Taiwanese, and a Chinese”. At that period of time, Taiwan still proclaimed “one China” policy, but Taiwan abolished to struggle the representation for China. Taiwan’s government had promoted the status of education, but as the voters wait and see the future, and afraid of military threat, most of the voters choose to maintain the present situation. When Democratic Progressive Party and the Chen Sui-bian won the presidential election in the 2000 and 2004, the relationship between Taiwan and China moved to a new stage.
The numbers and functions of international organizations are both increased under globalization, and may lessen or condition the function of the State Apparatus. China is now experiencing elemental economic growth, both in growth rate and in scale. Although Taiwan follows international capital and technology flow, and has significant ability of trading and investment, most of countries brush Taiwan aside as a sovereign state and exclude Taiwan to participate most of the international activities.
As Taiwan relies on China in economic activities and trading, changes in the international situations, interaction between Taison and China and some media with biased viewpoints, the Democratic Progressive Party could merely agglomerate common consensus of making Taiwan as a normal country. China absorbs the fund of Taiwan in the one hand, and excludes in the political sphere in the other hand in the international organizations and economic activities. China’s leaders are intending to submit Taiwan to “one China, two systems” and merged into China as the mode of Hong Kong and Macao.
Taiwan can keeps non-official relationships and economic and trading interactions with European Union and Japan, and Taiwan is under the framework of the World Trade Organization, been cared by America, Taiwan can keep distance with China. Even Taiwan has been democratized and experiencing globalization, the vagueness on national identity still makes the pathway of the future Taiwan unknown.
Not at the least, this treatise finds that both globalization and national identity are not simple concepts and contain many dimensions. The appearing of globalization marks the end of the cold-war and challenges the function of the states during augmenting of features and quantity of international organizations. Indeed, governors can shape the national identity of the people and control them to utilize information, but for the case of Taiwan, the hybridity of ethnics, cultural identity, and disagreements with constitutional institutions and name of the state, led Taiwan merely to gather agreement on national identity, especially under globalization and difficult situation in international recognition.
Governors in Taiwan should pay more attention on local education and reserve mother languages. Taiwan should have a suitable constitution, and seek for appropriate location and advantage in the international division of labor, via network and activities expanding Taiwanese’s eyesight on global, to greet with the trend of speeding up of globalization.
Subjects
全球化
網際網路
世界貿易組織
二二八事件
媒體
日本
台商
National identity
globalization
“one China” principle
internet
World Trade Organization (WTO)
28th February incident
media
Japan
U.S.A.
Taison
Type
thesis
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
ntu-96-D89341004-1.pdf
Size
23.53 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):3bcd86f4636d4bcd29d00d5d1bfcf74c