Articles

The politics of Taiwan’s “Sinicization” and the Formation of Taiwanese Identity

Vostok/Oriens '2015, №2

 
The article deals with one of the aspects of the Taiwanese identity issue which is currently very important for Taiwan, as this problem is closely connected both to the domestic policy of the island, and to the Cross-Strait relations. After the Nationalist Government’s evacuation to Taiwan in 1949 as a result of KMT’s defeat in the Civil War with the Chinese Communist Party in Mainland China, the party proclaimed itself to be the only legal power of China, as well as the only defender of the Chinese traditional culture, that suffered from the “communist bandits” on the Mainland. In the opinion of most researchers of this problem, Taiwanese identity was forming as opposed to the Nationalist government’s policy of imposing “Chinese consciousness” among the island’s population, which was rather effective. But in our opinion, as we try to demonstrate in this article, this policy may be on the contrary considered to be one of the factors contributing to the fast growth of Taiwanese identity of the island’s inhabitants after the liberalization of Taiwan’s socio political life since the end of 1970s.

Keywords: Taiwanese identity, Taiwanese consciousness, Taiwan’s “sinicization”, ideology of the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang)

Pages: С. 132–138