#9:Identity
In the first class, our teacher introduced the situation that Taiwanese feel uncomfortable when they are called Chinese. I know that Taiwan is different from China both culturally and poritically because my major is Chinese and I've learned Taiwanese history in other class. So, I would like to think about Taiwanese identity.
At first, let's talk about Taiwanese histry just breafly. In Taiwan there were originally the natives called "Ami" or "Paiwan". In the 16C, people from the Netherlands power based in Taiwan and started land development. At the same time, in China, the Ming dynasty was over. A Chinese man named Koxinga went to Taiwan in order to beat the Netherlands and revive the Ming dynasty there. After that, the Qing dynasty govern Taiwan. In 1894, the Sino(the Qing dynasty)-Japanese war boroke out. Then Japan won the Qing dynasty and get Taiwan. Japan started to govern Taiwan as its colony. At first, there were many Taiwanese who resisted Japanese government. However, Japanese government carrird out infrastructuredevelopment and gave higher education, then gradually the number of people who resisted Japanese government was decreased. After WWⅡ, Taiwan got to be out of the rule of Japan. Then 蒋介石 got Taiwan as a part of the Republic of China. The Republic of China(Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China(China) started a civil war. Then the People's Republic of China(China) won. China says Taiwan is a part of China, but it is hard to say that because of this completely diffirent background.
According to the investigation of 新台湾国策智庫, 85.5% of people in Taiwan recognize themselves as Taiwanese and 10.6% of them recognize themselves as Chinese. It is often said that the reason why Tiwanese identity is strong is because of a hatred towards the People's Republic of China(China) . However, others say that it is not nation scale, it is just province scale identity. Like you call the people from 広東省(Kantong province) "広東人(Kantonese)", you call the people from 台湾(Taiwan) "台湾人(Taiwanese)".
I dont't know what answer is correct. But we definitely have to take account of Taiwanese history and their identity especially when communicate with both Taiwanese and Chinese people as one of Japanese.
Questions
1 What do you think about Taiwanese identity?
2 Do you think that Japanese have also strong identity?
3 What do you think about the future of the rerationship between Taiwan and China.
List of references
