Taiwan's identity in formation: in reaction to a democratizing Taiwan and a rising China

Abstract

The formation of Taiwanese identity is a good example to make sense of the theoretical debate between primordialism and constructivism. Based on the two-level multinomial logit results, this paper proves that primordial ethnicity in Taiwan becomes less salient; rather, changing sociopolitical contexts turn out to be the dominant factor in shaping ethnic identity. Specifically, it indicates how the democratic transition has brought about various types of mechanisms, which smoothly disenchant the dominant Chinese identity. As the Taiwanese renaissance emerges to take a leading role in Taiwan's political platform, ethnic identity might be reshaped in accordance with this mainstream Taiwanese ideology. This study also shows that reformation of ethnic identity in Taiwan relies as much on cognition of state boundaries as on the evaluation of political-economic conditions on both sides of the Taiwan straits.

Keywords:

• ethnic identity
• identity change
• constructivism
• KMT
• cross-strait relations
• Taiwanization

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments in completing this article.

Notes

 1. See Laitin, Identity in Formation, Ch.1.

 2. Of 95% of the people in Taiwan, approximately four-fifths are descendants of early immigrants (73% of ethnic Hoklo and 13% of ethnic Hakka) from the adjacent Fujian and Guangdong provinces from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The other 12% of the population are descendants of recent immigrants who came to Taiwan after 1949. To simplify, in this project, Hoklo and Hakka are called Taiwanese. Chinese mainlanders are referred to those whose ancestors came here after 1949.

 3. In 1995, President Lee Teng-hui proposed the concept of ‘New Taiwanese,’ which means that a person who lives in Taiwan can claim himself as New Taiwanese. That was proposed to push Chinese mainlanders to assimilate to Taiwanese identity.

 4. Narrol, “Ethnic Unit Classification,” 296.

 5. Verkuyten, The Social Psychology, 86.

 6. See Geertz, “Primordial Loyalties,” Sec. 4.

 7. Barth, Ethnic Groups, 22–4.

 8. Jenkins, Rethinking Ethnicity, 52–4.

 9. See Pye, “Identity and the Political Culture,” 101–34.

10. Waters, Ethnic Options, 1–15.

11. Song, Choosing Ethnic Identity, 20–2.

12. Haggard, “The Politics of Industrialization,” 277–9.

13. Gallner, “Nationalism and Modernization,” 50–70.

14. Taiwan's party system can be generally categorized as Pan-Blue (which includes the KMT, PFP, and NP) and Pan-Green (which includes the DPP and TSU).

15. Brass, “Elite Competition,” 83–9.

16. Dittmer, “Taiwan's Aim-Inhibited Quest,” 76.

17. Wu, “Taiwanese Nationalism,” 614, 619.

18. Liu, “Generational Difference,” 61–5.

19. Hung, “The Realignment of Political Territories;” Hsu, “The Formation of Southern Politics,” 167–96.

20. Due to space limitation, for details of explanatory variables see the Appendix to this paper.

21. See also the Appendix.

22. See Agresti, An Introduction, Ch.8.

23. See Rabe-Hesketh and Skrondal, Multilevel and Longitudinal Modeling, Sec.4.7, Sec.4.8.

24. Laio, Interpreting Probability, 53.

25. Tajfel, “Some Developments,” 310–20. Social identity theorists claim that a positive social identity is the outcome of favorable social comparisons made between in-group and other social groups.

26. Chu, “Taiwan's National Identity Politics.”

27. Zaller, The Nature and Origins, 25.

28. See Lipset and Rokkan, Party Systems, 1–64.

29. Lay, Chen, and Yap, “Spatial Variation,” 2.