The Legacy Left by Chinese Rule on the Taiwanese Identity

Written By: Ethan Chiu

 

Skyline of Taipei, Taiwan at dusk.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a country is defined as “an area of land that has its own government, army, etc.” Based on that definition alone, Taiwan is undoubtedly a sovereign state. Why, then, is Taiwan claimed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) based in Beijing, officially called the Republic of China (ROC) based in Taipei, and not a part of the United Nations? 

Simply put, the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) fled to Taiwan after losing the mainland to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949, and they are still perpetually at war. The Kuomintang’s legacy, along with the constant threat of an invasion by the PRC, has left deep scars on the Taiwanese people and has contributed to the formation of a distinctly non-Chinese Taiwanese identity.

Freedom House, a non-governmental organization that measures civil liberties worldwide, ranks Taiwan as the second freest democracy in Asia due to its continued pursuit of increased transparency and rights for its citizens, even as most of the world shifts toward illiberal populism and dictatorships. Taiwan and its people continue to uphold the core values of democracy even as the PRC uses lucrative salaries and benefits to entice top Taiwanese semiconductor engineers to work on the mainland, poaches Taiwan’s diplomatic allies using substantial economic incentives, points thousands of missiles at Taiwan, and continually threatens to invade Taiwan with military force. In fact, as of June 15, 2021, PRC warplanes have set a record number of 28 daily sorties over Taiwanese airspace in a clear attempt at intimidation. To fully grasp the Taiwanese people’s obsession with independence and refusal to bow to the PRC’s whims, however, one must acknowledge Taiwan’s tumultuous history under Chinese occupation.

A Chinese H-6 bomber flying near Taiwan getting escorted by a Taiwanese F-16 fighter.

Although Taiwan was “discovered” by the Dutch and Spanish in the early 17th century, the island was eventually absorbed into the Greater Qing Empire. Rich in natural resources and farmland, Han Chinese settlers poured into Taiwan, driving Taiwanese aboriginals into the central Taiwanese mountains. While the Qing granted Taiwan a relatively high degree of autonomy, the Qing Empire’s 1895 defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War sealed Taiwan’s fate as an imperial Japanese colony. Attempting to create a “model colony,” the Japanese embarked upon infrastructural and educational projects to indoctrinate Japanese culture into the Taiwanese people. 

After its defeat in World War II, Japan transferred control of Taiwan to the Republic of China (ROC) led by the Kuomintang. However, since the Kuomintang was in the midst of a civil war with the CCP, almost all of Taiwan’s commodities were monopolized and used in the war effort, leading to chronic shortages of essentials such as rice among the Taiwanese population. Furthermore, political change was impossible since many Taiwanese were banned from serving in government and news outlets were strictly censored. Thus, when Kuomintang officers beat a Taiwanese woman for selling illegal cigarettes, now known as the 228 Incident, a revolution spread like a wildfire throughout Taiwan. In response, Kuomintang troops in Taiwan killed and raped tens of thousands of Taiwanese people from February to March of 1947 under the guise of martial law, beginning a 38-year period of totalitarian rule known as the White Terror.

Hundreds of people form the words “Do Not Forget 228” in front of Liberty Square in Taipei City, Taiwan, on February 28, 2009. Thousands of Taiwanese people were killed when Chinese nationalist troops crushed an island-wide riot on February 28, 1947, in an event known as “228” in Taiwan. 

Facing defeat after defeat on the Chinese mainland, the Kuomintang hastily fled to Taiwan, its “unsinkable aircraft carrier” from which it could build strength to take back the mainland, bringing millions of mainland Chinese supporters and soldiers (Waishengren) with them. Government positions were only open to the Waishengren minority, but not even they were safe from Kuomintang tyranny. Ironically ruling over what the West referred to as “Free China,” the Orwellian Kuomintang executed and imprisoned hundreds of thousands of suspected dissidents for thoughtcrimes — unorthodox or controversial thinking — during the White Terror. With American backing at the height of the Cold War, the mafia-like Kuomintang was free to execute any dissidents it labeled as “communists.” The Kuomintang secret police would primarily target educated “elite” Taiwanese men, taking them from their families to be “questioned” only to never return. When one daughter of a White Terror victim, Hsu Hsu-mei, was just five years old, her native Taiwanese (Benshengren) father was ripped away from her and executed by the Kuomintang. Almost 70 years later, Hsu found her father’s “confession letter” in official government archives. He cited his disappointment about “the oppression of the Taiwanese people… the corrupt, inept ways of officials” as his incentive for joining a communist organization. 

The Kuomintang under Waishengren administration resisted all attempts by the Benshengren to create opposition parties, promote democracy, or advocate for civil rights. After a pro-democracy human rights march in the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung, the Kuomintang secret police arrested the Benshengren opposition leaders and massacred the entire family of one pro-democracy Taiwanese independence advocate as a stern warning to all who opposed its iron grip. However, the majority of those killed by the Kuomintang were innocent. The Kuomintang’s paranoia is perfectly summed up by its famous slogan: “It is better to capture one hundred innocent people than to let one guilty person go free.” 

Not only did the Kuomintang baselessly kill dissidents, but they also suppressed Taiwanese culture in an attempt to “sinicize” the Benshengren in their illusory quest to eventually retake mainland China from the CCP. As a result, the native Taiwanese language, Hokkien, was banned from schools and the media in favor of Mandarin Chinese, and mandatory military training was introduced into the Taiwanese high school curriculum. Students who spoke Hokkien were fined and underwent corporal punishment in front of their classmates. Thus, up until martial law lifted in 1987, the Kuomintang unrestrictedly mass murdered, committed cultural genocide, and sacrificed the wellbeing of the Taiwanese people in its delusory pursuit to reoccupy its historical capital of Nanking.

Due to the underlying Japanese infrastructure, the vast Chinese gold and silver reserves the Kuomintang brought with them to Taiwan, and billions in American loans, Taiwan became a rapidly growing Asian Tiger economy by the 1960s. By the time of Kuomintang dictator Chiang Kai-shek’s death in 1975, the Taiwanese Benshengren had become better educated as a result of a booming economy and were increasingly resentful of the Chinese Waishengren minority governing them. Especially as the Waishengren in power were becoming increasingly wealthy, Benshengren like Dr. Hsu Chiang were “utterly [disappointed] to see the oppression of the Taiwanese people… the corrupt, inept ways of officials.” Chiang Kai-shek’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo, presided over a ROC that was both expelled from the United Nations and abandoned by the United States due to Nixon’s policy of detente. Thus, he ended the second-longest era of martial law in modern history under public pressure in 1987 by finally allowing opposition parties to form. 

Taiwan’s Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport, now called Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, was built as one of the Ten Major Construction Projects to stimulate Taiwan’s Asian Tiger economy.

After Chiang Ching-kuo died in 1988, Lee Teng-hui, a man who epitomized Taiwan’s various cultural identity shifts, became the first native Taiwanese president. Lee was an officer in the Imperial Japanese Army and a brief member of the Communist Party of China who later became a Kuomintang heavyweight. Naturally, Lee would also lead Taiwan into its next era as a democracy. After seeing the Berlin Wall fall and the Eastern Bloc nations breaking away from the Soviet Union in 1989, Taiwanese Benshengren saw their chance to achieve democracy during a meeting of the unelected National Assembly. Thousands of students flooded the dictator Chiang Kai-shek’s Memorial Hall protesting authoritarian Waishengren rule during the Wild Lily Movement in 1990. With banners reading “Compatriots, how can we tolerate the oppression of 700 more emperors?,” the students called for direct elections of their representatives in the National Assembly. As a Taiwanese native seeking to differentiate the Kuomintang from the CCP and its brutal crackdown in Tiananmen Square, Lee promised direct elections for representatives in 1992. As expected, three-quarter of the National Assembly’s seats were filled by native Taiwanese Benshengren representatives. Next, Lee granted universal suffrage for mayoral elections in 1994 and presidential elections in 1996. 

However, since the PRC and the Kuomintang had agreed that Taiwan was part of China, albeit with different definitions of China, under the 1992 Consensus, the PRC felt threatened by Lee opening up presidential elections to all of the Taiwanese people. Therefore, the PRC sent missiles into the Taiwan Strait, hoping that it could intimidate the Taiwanese into voting Lee out of power. Fortunately, the PRC’s threats only galvanized the Taiwanese populace to overwhelmingly vote for Lee. Furthermore, President Bill Clinton sent two carrier strike groups through the Taiwan Strait to demonstrate the United States’ renewed commitment to its newly democratic Asian partner. Due to the Taiwanese people’s hard-earned freedom after their traumatic political and cultural experiences under Kuomintang oppression, many are now hardened to the idea of the PRC extending its repressive claws over Taiwan.

After Taiwan became fully democratic in 1996, the Kuomintang steadily lost its monopoly over political power due to its tyrannical past. Now, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which favors Taiwanese independence, is in power. However, since the DPP does not ascribe to the 1992 Consensus that Taiwan is part of China, the PRC feels threatened, especially since the Kuomintang’s “sinification” of Taiwanese people has shown the world that a society based on mainly Chinese cultural roots can, indeed, be a successful democracy. In fact, as a bastion of liberal democracy, Taiwan was the first Asian nation to legalize same-sex marriage in 2019. 

Street celebrations in Taipei after Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage in 2019.

Taiwan’s previous existence as a dictatorial Kuomintang rump state and its current freedoms threaten the CCP’s very legitimacy as the sole despotic government of China. Now that all of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy legislators have resigned, it has fallen completely under the PRC’s yoke. Thus, the CCP has considerably ramped up its efforts to absorb Taiwan into the PRC as its next target. But according to the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation and United Daily News, 83% of people in Taiwan identify themselves as solely Taiwanese in 2020 compared to just 44% in 1996. What the CCP does not realize, however, is that the more it tries to oppress the Taiwanese populace, then the more the Taiwanese people will cry for liberty.

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