Two terrible arguments for and against Taiwan sovereignty (Part 1)
China claims that Taiwan is a family member of the same blood, language, and culture. But both sides wiped out much of that heritage
A friend from Malaysia once told me about his hometown on the island of Penang, waxing poetic on the ways in which that little corner of his country was one of the few places in the world to have preserved authentic Chinese culture. The Communists in China wiped out many of the nation’s historical traditions on the mainland, he said, while the Taiwanese constructed a generic and somewhat Americanized simulation of Chinese civilization overtop of any trace of the Japanese colonization that preceded it.
The Cultural Revolution on one side, White Terror on the other, pummeled most of the ancient beliefs and ethics out a people who were being forced to modernize in the aftermath of civil and world wars.
The descendants of the Chinese migrants on Penang, according to my friend, preserved their classical education, Confucian values, religious rituals, ancestral halls, dialects, and festivals, most of which vanished in the homeland after the fall of the last Chinese dynasty.
I got a taste of this phenomenon while living in Singapore, where Chinese New Year festivities would stretch across two weeks. I recall being invited to dinners and house parties to celebrate specific days of the holiday, such as “Everybody’s Birthday” on Day 7, or hearing about the “In-Law Reunion” on Day 11, or other auspicious days for company dinners or housecleaning, culminating in a huge parade on Day 15.
In Taiwan, none of my friends or coworkers had heard of such traditions. “That’s probably just a Singapore thing,” they told me. Meanwhile on the mainland, such “feudalistic and superstitious” rituals had been suppressed by contemporary rulers.
The Chinese will tell you that “Both sides of the Taiwan Straits share the culture and ethos of the Chinese nation,” according to one government source. Another (translated) says: “Compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have the same blood relationship, the same language and writing system... Taiwanese culture is a part of Chinese culture.”*
But what defines that culture? Its ancient history, or the modern reforms imposed on the population by rival governments? For instance, China was linguistically diverse before the fall of the last dynasty in 1911. Mandarin was only spoken by about 15% of Chinese before the Nationalist government forced the language on the population as a lingua franca. When the Nationalists were cornered in Taiwan, residents there faced punishment for speaking their mother tongues, while the mainland Communists continued to suppress local languages across all its provinces for both practical and ideological reasons. (They also made drastic alterations to the writing system, changing about a third of the written characters.)
Today, Mandarin is the mother tongue of 950 million people — the largest first language on the planet — but only because two relatively recent governments pulled it out of regional obscurity during their efforts to reshape civilization in their images.
I have observed how those efforts resulted in distinctly different cultures. When I found the rough-and-tumble of China a bad fit for my anxious personality, an editor I worked for in Shanghai told me to “try Taiwan, it’s the civilized China.” I also heard about how cultural remnants of the Japanese occupation remained threaded through the island’s personality.
Indeed I discovered that life here was a sharp contrast from the mainland, sometimes for better, sometimes not. Sure, in Taiwan I was relieved to find myself not getting shoved out of queues or pushed aggressively on the subway, not getting pickpocketed or worrying about my personal safety, not getting scammed in seemingly reputable shops, to see wealth better distributed to the middle and lower classes, to watch traffic actually stop at red lights and not trap pedestrians in the middle of intersections, and (as a teacher) being able to talk about any issue or ideology in the classroom. But Taiwan suffers by other comparisons — the bland cuisine, the urban aesthetics of a warehouse loading dock, forthrightness being sacrificed for superficial politeness, the primary national interests of the young being eating, sleeping and video games.
When I first came to Taiwan for my master’s studies, the campus had a large population of exchange students from China. In my classes (both as a student and a teacher), it was the Chinese who spoke up the most and contributed to class discussions. I found it ironic that the “suppressed” culture was the one that more freely expressed opinions on a wide range of issues. In private, they sometimes broke the stereotype of the brainwashed Chinese and shared mixed opinions on their government and living standards back home.
Even outside of class, the Chinese had a way of being a little more present. One night in a dumpling restaurant, an engineering student plonked his food down at my table and sat right across from me, despite there being plenty of other places to sit. He just wanted to talk and make friends. The behavior was familiar, and I guessed right — my new friend was from Shanghai. Later in the week, he introduced me to some friends who came with him to study. One appeared at my door with a rented bike and invited me to go on a Spring Break cycling trip around Taiwan the next day. It was a bit too unplanned and last-minute, so I declined. But this has been my experience with the Chinese wherever I’ve lived: One minute you’re eating dumplings, the next you’ve got three drinking buddies and getting roped into a cross-country cycling adventure.
The Chinese were virtually barred from Taiwan for political reasons in 2017, and I noticed that life here became a bit more subdued. But as much as I liked having the Chinese around, I know that the quieter, more modest, perhaps more Japanese-like Taiwanese feel much differently about the matter. Blending the two societies would not be the seamless transition that Chinese officials imagine it to be.
If there is one overarching similarity between China and Taiwan, it is that both nations paved over everything that was historically unique about themselves and built their own versions of modernity upon the ruins. Each one has produced a different society with differing habits and behaviors, and differing views on what constitute their identities. So if Beijing is really looking to annex an island with deep roots in Chinese culture and traditions, perhaps they should look back further in time and put a claim on Penang instead.
Tomorrow’s “Bad Argument,” Part II: A look into Taiwan’s weakest claim for sovereignty, and the strong argument that never gets made.