Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The national identity of the general populace in Taiwan has experienced rapid change in the past fifteen years since the democratic transition. On of the most salient phenomena of identity change, revealed by many interview surveys, is the predominance of self-identification as “both Taiwan and Chinese”, and of preference to “the status quo.” In contrast with the current theories and explanations, which often presume national identities are mutually exclusive, this paper proposes a two-dimensional perspective of national identity, which allows us a better understanding of those important, and sometimes intriguing, phenomena concerning the change of national identity in Taiwan.
Using the data collected from various nationwide interview surveys in the last decade, this paper finds that, firstly and contrary to the conventional perception, the pattern of national identity change in Taiwan is that Chinese identity has been able to remain stable while Taiwanese identity was on a rapid surge. The phenomenon seems to suggest that the two identities were not antagonistic to, but compatible with, each other. The co-existence of two national identities has the result that a large portion of people uphold dual national identity. Many previous studies either assumed dual identity as a combination of “civic-political” identity with “ethnic-cultural” one, or as that of regional identity with national identity. Contrary to these views, this paper argues that both identities are “national” in their nature and content. The latter scenario has important implications for both the nationalist politics in Taiwan and the security of the area as well.