Us or Them? Institutional Frameworks and National Identity of Mainland Chinese Students in Taiwan

This study focuses on Mainland Chinese students participating in degree programs of higher education in Taiwan, and explains how policies on Mainland Chinese students and their daily life experiences in Taiwan affect and reshape their national identity. By analyzing the interview response of 23 Mainland Chinese students and secondary data including news reports and the Legislative Yuan Gazette, policies on Mainland Chinese students, embodying ‘contradictory reterritorialization’, see Mainland Chinese students as “citizens”, but regard them as inferior to foreign students. This boundary-work institution not only causes numerous negative consequences, but also widens the gap between Mainland Chinese students and local communities, and further strengthens their identity of ‘Mainlanders’. Secondly, this study discusses in daily interactions, how Mainland Chinese students use narratives in webs of discourses of Taiwan and China to identify the difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’, and negotiate national identity and social distance between themselves and Taiwan students. This study defines three types of boundary-work: (1) stressing the difference between Mainland Chinese students and local students, and believing in the One-China Principle, commonly seen in graduate Mainland Chinese students who are heavily exploited by the policies and disagree with the “a little happiness” cultural habitus; (2) most Mainland Chinese students identify the stark difference between themselves and local students, but they still endeavor to blend in while supporting the One-China Principle. However, students from Shanghai as well as those practicing “a little happiness” cultural habitus consider themselves no different from local students; (3) likely to integrate into local communities, taking no certain view on cross-strait relations, or considering both sides to be two different states, commonly seen in Mainland Chinese students adopting weak Chinese nationalism, or affected by intimate relationship. This study argues that policies embodying ‘contradictory reterritorialization’ and discrimination in daily life experiences would result in an increase of the first type of students, and even trigger anti-Taiwan sentiments, which is detrimental to the Taiwan society.