Who, When and Why is Taiwan?

Click to edit Master subtitle style Martin Boyle mb505@kent.ac.uk

5/27/12

Outline

What, where, who, when and why are Taiwan? Reality Puzzles Research question Theoretical Framework Methodology
5/27/12

Two Chinas?

5/27/12

Renegade Province or Sovereign State?

5/27/12

A Hegemonic Struggle?

5/27/12

One pipe dream

5/27/12

replaced by another?

5/27/12

What, When and Where is Taiwan?

the Republic of China has been a sovereign state since it was founded in 1912. Moreover, in 1991, amendments to the Constitution designated cross-strait relations as state-to-state relationship. Consequently, there is no need to declare independence.
(Lee Teng-hui, ROC President, 1999)

a special

Taiwan has always been a sovereign state. In short, Taiwan and China standing on opposite sides of the Strait, there is one country on each side.
(Chen Shui-bian. ROC President 2002)

There is only one China in the world and Taiwan has been a part of China's territory since antiquity. This is a reality widely recognized by the international community.
(Wang Guangya, PRC Ambassador to the UN, 2007)

5/27/12

What, Where and When is Taiwan?

The Republic of China is our nation, and Taiwan is our home (Ma Ying-jeou, ROC President, 2011)

"The ROC government we have today is no longer a government that has come in outside. It's the government of the Taiwan of today." (Tsai Ing-wen, DPP presidential candidate, 2011)

from the

5/27/12

What, When and Where is Taiwan?

"Taiwan is no bigger than a ball of mud. We gain nothing by possessing it, and it would be no loss if we did not acquire ithanging alone beyond the seas [and] far off on the edge of the oceans.
Qing Emperor (1683)

we will extend them (the Koreans) our enthusiastic help in their struggle for independence. The same thing applies for Taiwan"
Mao Zedong (1936)

"No matter who comes into power in Taiwan, Taiwan will never be allowed to be independent. This is our bottom line and the will of 1.25 billion Chinese people. The Chinese people are ready to shed blood and sacrifice their lives to defend the sovereignty and 5/27/12 territorial integrity of the motherland."

Who is Taiwan?

5/27/12

Who is Taiwan?
Sino-centric narratives remain valid because migrants from the Chinese Mainland were the first to develop an island-wide consciousness that transcended and incorporated local identities.
Dawley (2009)

The sinicisation of Taiwan was a function of Sino-European co-colonisation throughout East and South East Asia in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Andrade (2005)

A distinctive Taiwanese identity simply did not exist before 1895.

Dawley (2009)

Taiwanese national consciousness emerged and was reconstructed under the Japanese and Chinese Nationalist rule between 1920 and 1955.
Tzeng (2009)

5/27/12

Who is Taiwan?
It doesnt matter whether you came 400 or 500 years ago or 40 or 50 years ago from the mainland, or if you are an aboriginal, we are all Taiwanese. So as long as we all work hard for Taiwan and the ROC, then we are New Taiwanese
(Lee Teng-hui, 1998)

Who loves Taiwan more than I?

(Lien Chan, 1998)

Lee Teng-hui: Ma Ying-jeou. Where do you come from?

5/27/12 Ma Ying-jeou: I am a New Taiwanese who grew up drinking Taiwan water and eating Taiwan rice,

Who is Taiwan?
I am a Taiwanese
(Tsai Ing-wen, DPP presidential candidate, 2011)

I am a descendant of the Yellow Emperor in blood and I identify with Taiwan in terms of my identity. I fight for Taiwan and I am Taiwanese. In nationality, I am an ROC citizen and I am the president of the ROC.
(Ma Ying-jeou, KMT presidential candidate, 2011)

I am Yok Mu-ming and I am Chinese,

(Yok Mu-ming, New Party presidential candidate, 2011)

5/27/12

Why is Taiwan?

?
5/27/12

The Reality

5/27/12

The Reality

The Chinese side reaffirmed its position: []the Government of the Peoples Republic of China is the sole legal government of China; Taiwan is a province of China []The Chinese Government firmly opposes any activities which aim at the creation of "one China, one Taiwan" "one China two governments", "two Chinas", an "independent Taiwan" or advocate that "the status of Taiwan remains to be determined". The U.S. side declared: The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese 5/27/12 themselves.

The Reality

Has anyone asked the Taiwanese?

Milton Viorst, The Washington Post, March 11, 1972

5/27/12

A Puzzle

5/27/12

A Puzzle

5/27/12

A Puzzle

5/27/12

A Puzzle

5/27/12

Three Puzzles

Taiwanese political identity increasing, despite material realities. Security dilemma persists, despite increased economic, social and cultural integration. Increased Taiwanese national identity

5/27/12

Research Question
Despite the rapid expansion of cross-Strait economic and social ties and the material reality of the islands political and legal status, why does the electorate in Taiwan consistently reject unification with China when this might remove the security dilemma?

5/27/12

Hypotheses

ROC/Taiwan state identity reconstruction. Taiwanese national identity reconstruction. ROC elite construction v. PRC elite construction. Evidence for PRC elite construction of Taiwan through cross-Strait dialogue.

5/27/12

Further Research Questions

Have policy elites in mainland China re-constructed Taiwan and the Taiwanese? If so, why? Do PRC elites acknowledge that there is a Taiwanese political and national identity that is separate to a Chinese one and is this picked up on by Taiwanese elites and transmitted to the Taiwanese electorate? Do PRC elites, in attempting to create a Chinese identity for Taiwan, inadvertently create a separate Taiwanese-ness? If so, how can evidence for this be located?

5/27/12

Theoretical Framework
Constructivism

Neoclassical Realism

Power
Relative, social, relational, interactional and contingent power. Elite agency affects relative power distribution. Interactive v constitutive power. Compulsory, institutional, structural and productive power.

National Identity

Anarchy through state interaction. Social, normative, ideational phenomena influence agency. Human agency affects foreign policy. Norms and discourses define interests. Co-constituted and intersubjective identities.

States prone to conflict. Elite perceptions inform policy decisions. Anarchic world order of relative power distribution. Aggression comes from domestic politics not the international system. Perceptions of relative power, prestige and state structures. Tribalism and group identity make nationstate dominant actor.

Modernist paradigm. Imagined communities. Discursively constructed. Local elites.

5/27/12

Theoretical Framework

Constructivism

Identities are the basis of interests. Actors do not have a portfolio of interests that they carry around independent of social context; instead, they define their interests in the process of defining situations. (Wendt, 1992: 398)

The identity of a state (national identity), more than anything else, provides a cognitive framework for shaping its interests, worldview, and consequent foreign policy actions. An understanding of this identity will therefore contribute to more accurate accounts of state behaviors. (Kim, 2003)

State interests do not exist to be discovered by self-interested, rational actors[but are]constructed through a process 5/27/12 of social interaction. (Katzenstein, 1996)

Theoretical Framework
Neoclassical Realism

a countrys foreign policy is drivenby the countrys relative material power. Yet, systemic pressures [are filtered through] decision-makers perceptions and state structure. (Rose, 1998)

[Tribalism] as the analytical link between individual identity and collectives and makes a link with constructivism regarding collective identity formation. (Sterling-Folker, 2006: 42).

5/27/12

Theoretical Framework
Power
A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do (Dahl, 1957, 20203)

Power may comprise anything that establishes and maintains the control of man over manits content and manner of its use are determined by the political and cultural environment. (Morgenthau, 1978: 9)
the production, in and through social relations, of effects that shape the capacities of actors to determine their own circumstances and fate.

5/27/12

Theoretical Framework
National Identity

Modernism

Invented traditions [are] part of a process of formalisation and ritualisation, characterised by reference to the past. (Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1999)

Imagined Communities

Official historical narrations reconstruct national consciousness through remembering or forgetting. (Anderson, 1991: 46)

5/27/12

Methodology

Literature review Discourse Analysis Applied linguistics approach Elite interviews

5/27/12