Contemporary Taiwanese Cultural Nationalism

Drawing on a wide range of Chinese historical and contemporary texts, Contemporary Taiwanese Cultural Nationalism addresses diverse subjects including nationalist literature; language ideology; the crafting of a national history; the impact of Japanese colonialism and the increasingly strained relationship between China and Taiwan. This book is essential reading for all scholars of the history, culture and politics of Taiwan.

This volume analyzes what is arguably the single most important aspect of cultural and political change in Taiwan over the past quarter-century: the trend toward 'indigenization' (bentuhua). Focusing on the indigenization of politics and culture and its close connection with the identity politics of ethnicity and nationalism, this volume is an attempt to map prominent contours of the indigenization paradigm as it has unfolded in Taiwan. The opening chapters concern the origin and nature of the trend toward indigenization with its roots in the unique historical trajectory of politics and culture in Taiwan. Subsequent chapters deal with responses and reactions to indigenization in a variety of social, cultural and intellectual domains.

In the aftermath of 1949, Taiwan’s elites saw themselves as embodying China in exile both politically and culturally. The island—officially known as the Republic of China—was a temporary home to await the reconquest of the mainland. Taiwan, not the People’s Republic, represented China internationally until the early 1970s. Yet in recent decades Taiwan has increasingly come to see itself as a modern nation-state. A-chin Hsiau traces the origins of Taiwanese national identity to the 1970s, when a surge of domestic dissent and youth activism transformed society, politics, and culture in ways that continue to be felt. After major diplomatic setbacks at the beginning of the 1970s posed a serious challenge to Kuomintang authoritarian rule, a younger generation without firsthand experience of life on the mainland began openly challenging the status quo. Hsiau examines how student activists, writers, and dissident researchers of Taiwanese anticolonial movements, despite accepting Chinese nationalist narratives, began to foreground Taiwan’s political and social past and present. Their activism, creative work, and historical explorations played pivotal roles in bringing to light and reshaping indigenous and national identities. In so doing, Hsiau contends, they laid the basis for Taiwanese nationalism and the eventual democratization of Taiwan. Offering bracing new perspectives on nationalism, democratization, and identity in Taiwan, this book has significant implications spanning sociology, history, political science, and East Asian studies.

This volume analyzes what is arguably the single most important aspect of cultural and political change in Taiwan over the past quarter-century: the trend toward 'indigenization' (bentuhua). Focusing on the indigenization of politics and culture and its close connection with the identity politics of ethnicity and nationalism, this volume is an attempt to map prominent contours of the indigenization paradigm as it has unfolded in Taiwan. The opening chapters concern the origin and nature of the trend toward indigenization with its roots in the unique historical trajectory of politics and culture in Taiwan. Subsequent chapters deal with responses and reactions to indigenization in a variety of social, cultural and intellectual domains.

In the vast majority of literature on 'Chinese nationalism' the distinction between nation and state is rarely made, consequently nationalism usually appears as loyalty to the state rather than identification with the nation. Yet, since 1989, both the official configuration of the nation and the state's monopolized right to name the nation have come under rigorous challenge. Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary China relocates the discussion of nationalism to within a more contemporary framework which explores the disjunction between the people and the state and the relationship of each to the nation. With its challenging exploration of one of the most neglected aspects of identity in China, this book should appeal to Asianists, China watchers and all of those with an interest in cultural and sociological phenomena in East Asia.

This inter-disciplinary volume of essays opens new points of departure for thinking about how Taiwan has been studied and represented in the past, for reflecting on the current state of ‘Taiwan Studies’, and for thinking about how Taiwan might be re-configured in the future. As the study of Taiwan shifts from being a provincial back-water of sinology to an area in its own (albeit not sovereign) right, a combination of established and up and coming scholars working in the field of East Asian studies offer a re-reading and re-writing of culture in Taiwan. They show that sustained critical analysis of contemporary Taiwan using issues such as trauma, memory, history, tradition, modernity, post-modernity provides a useful point of departure for thinking through similar problematics and issues elsewhere in the world. Re-writing Culture in Taiwan is a multidisciplinary book with its own distinctive collective voice which will appeal to anyone interested in Taiwan. With chapters on nationalism, anthropology, cultural studies, media studies, religion and museum studies, the breadth of ground covered is truly comprehensive.

In March 2000, for the first time in its history, Taiwan witnessed a democratic change in ruling parties. Given the contrasting stances on Taiwan's political and cultural belonging held by the defeated party, the KMT, and the new ruling party, the pro-independence DPP, the change wasa historical turning point. Although there has been increasing interest in Taiwan Studies in the last decade, no single volume has yet addressed the complexity and impact of the change in ruling parties in Taiwan. This book aims to fill that gap by comparing the years before and after the DPP's transition to power. Although the analytical starting point is the regime change of 2000, the scope of topics goes beyond party politics. Designed to provide an all-encompassing view, the thirteen chapters examine and evaluate the extent to which the change in Taiwan's ruling party has resulted in a political, social, economic and cultural transformation of the island. They build a complex picture of the differences and the perhaps surprisingly high degree of continuities between the two regimes. The book addresses readers interested in interdisciplinary approaches to Taiwan's recent political, social, and cultural changes.

This book provides a detailed snapshot of cultural policies in China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. In addition to an historical overview of the culture-state relationships in East Asia, it provides an analysis of contemporary developments occurring in the regions' cultural policies and the challenges they are facing.