4. A Constructivist Analysis of Recent Cross-Strait Relations, 2000-2011
4.2 Challenging the Rules: DPP Rule under Chen Shui-bian, 2000-2008
4.2.3 Chinese Nation and Cultural Assumptions
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4.2.3 Chinese Nation and Cultural Assumptions
The new DPP administration continued the trend of “nativization” by using assertive speech acts, often packed into the highly normative form of laws, that, in effect, put more emphasis on the Taiwanese, as opposed to merely Chinese, language, culture, and history of the island, and promoted Taiwan literature as well as Taiwan Regional Studies as academic disciplines. At the same time, the amount of classical Chinese in school curricula for Chinese language courses was gradually downsized, which had the further effect of de-emphazising Taiwan's cultural links with China. When Chen Shui-bian was voted into office, the discourse of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society had been underway for quite a while already and had, through the efforts of an increasingly active civil society since the beginning of democratization, led to concrete institutional results such as the creation of the cabinet-level Council for Indigenous Affairs in 1996. After the DPP took over government responsibility, these developments were further continued with the establishment of the Council for Hakka Affairs in 2001, whose goal it is to sustain and promote Hakka culture, as well as the passing of the Indigenous Basic Law in 2007 that aimed at protecting the rights of Taiwan's aboriginal population. The new focus on the diversity of Taiwan's ethnicities and cultures, as opposed to one all-encompassing Chinese culture, was characterized, among other trends, by the promotion of their different languages,161 customs, and festivals. For example, occasions such as the Hakka Yimin-Festival in Hsinchu or Taipei and the Hakka Tung Blossom Festival in Miaoli have been promoted as large-scale Hakka celebrations regularly since 2002. Furthermore, some colleges and institutes for Hakka and Indigenous Studies were created.
In line with this overall facilitating spirit, Chen stated in his first inaugural speech:
We must open our hearts with tolerance and respect, so that our diverse ethnic groups and different regional cultures may communicate with each other, and so that Taiwan's local cultures may connect with the cultures of Chinese-speaking communities and other world culture, and create a new milieu of 'a cultural Taiwan in a modern century.'
Instead of mentioning the “Chinese nation” or its relevance for Taiwan as did most of his predecessors, including, to some degree, Lee Teng-hui, Chen merely spoke of
“Chinese-speaking communities.” The DPP objects the idea of the Chinese nation, not
161Under Martial Law KMT rule, these languages were classified as “dialects” and their use discouraged in favor of the “national language,” that is, Mandarin Chinese.
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only because of its Chinese nationalist origins, but also because it stands in contrast to the more modern idea of a diverse society that gives equal room to all its minorities (at least in principle) who live together as a community of fate. Although Chen acknowledged that “the people on the two sides [of the Taiwan Strait] share the same ancestral, cultural, and historical background,” he qualified that by the additional description of himself and all the citizens of the island as “children of Taiwan.”162 This statement put a new spin on the usual familial assumption between both sides or assertions preferred by Beijing and the KMT that described the people on both sides as belonging to the “same family” by basically underlining the uniqueness of Taiwan has the “common parent” of all Taiwanese.163 This different line of thinking found its expression in the new formula of the “Taiwan Spirit.” In his first National Day Speech, Chen said that the island's democratic achievements were the result of this
“Taiwan Spirit” that was “shared by all of our 23 million compatriots.” His definition of the spirit again emphasized Taiwan's diverse society of which the cultural roots to the mainland were a part, but not the most important one:
The Taiwan Spirit originated from the interaction and mutual influence of Han and Austronesian cultures. It was successfully forged through all of our hardships and dreams. […] Although we came from different places, and although there were once differences between the Hoklos, the Hakkas, the indigenous peoples, and the more recently arrived residents, we are now all merged in the Taiwan Spirit, sharing both our fortunes and hardships.164
Under Chen, even the “national treasures” of the National Palace Museum, formerly seen as an expression of legitimacy to represent Chinese orthodoxy, were now defined as a part of Taiwanese history or, more concretely, as a historical imprint of the many decades of KMT rule over the island. In other words, just as the KMT's “retreat” to Taiwan, culminating in the February 28 Incident, had become part of Taiwan's own historical narrative, “Chinese culture” was now made part of “Taiwanese culture.” By further including Taiwanese and aboriginal artifacts into the museum's collection, the discourse of a multicultural “Taiwanese” society became even more institutionalized.
162GIO (2001): “Taiwan Stands Up: Advancing to an Uplifting Era: Inauguration Speech, May 20, 2000,” in: President Chen Shui-bian's Selected Addresses and Messages (I): A New Era of Peace and Prosperity. Taipei: Government Information Office, 8-17.
163Chen did make a similar statement in his New Year's Eve Speech, but obviously without the political connotation of belonging to the “same one China” that Beijing derives from this kind of assertion. GIO (2001): “Bridging the New Century: Seeking a New Framework for Cross-Strait Integration, December 31, 2000” in: President Chen Shui-bian's Selected Addresses and Messages (I): A New Era of Peace and Prosperity. Taipei: Government Information Office, 40-45.
164GIO (2001): “Constituting a New Paradigm of Democracy for all Chinese Societies: Address to the National Day Rally, October 10, 2000,” in: President Chen Shui-bian's Selected Addresses and Messages (I): A New Era of Peace and Prosperity. Taipei: Government Information Office, 26-29.
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(WANG 2004: 806)
One of the goals of China's economic development in the Hu Jintao era was to allow for a resurgence of the Chinese nation. With regard to Taiwan, his “status quo approach” of maintaining the “one China” rule also aimed at “preserving some sort of 'familial bond'” between Taiwan and China (HUANG / LI 2010: 315). Speech acts from agents in Beijing in this regard had the same goal (and content) under Hu as they did under his predecessors. A typical example for this stance that was portrayed not only Cross-Strait-internally but, in line with China's claim over Taiwan, also to the outside world, can be seen during Hu's state visit to Brazil in late 2004 when he stated that the
“23 million Taiwan people are our flesh-and-blood compatriots.”165 Although he stressed that both were part of the same family, he announced that reunification could come after the country's development. Similar cultural assumptions were repeated in Hu's “four point” proposal, one of many occasions, on which assertive speech acts aimed at connecting the idea of both sides constituting a family with the overarching construct of the Chinese nation that in turn becomes, at the same time, purpose and justification for the goal of “peaceful reunification:”
The 1.3 billion Chinese people, including the Taiwan compatriots, all love peace and sincerely hope to maintain peace and live in peace. They share an even greater hope that the flesh-and-blood brothers in one family can resolve their own problems peacefully. A peaceful resolution of the Taiwan question and peaceful reunification of the motherland conforms to the fundamental interests of compatriots across the Taiwan Straits and the Chinese nation, as well as the currents of peace and development in the world today. This is the fundamental reason why we have always been making unremitting efforts for the realization of peaceful reunification.166 (My emphasis.)
When then-KMT chairman Lien Chan met the Chinese President in China during his 2005 visit, Hu made a similar statement and stressed that both sides should strive for a resurgence of the Chinese nation together (and he even abstained from mentioning
“reunification”).167 Lien Chan, on the other hand, voiced his opposition to Taiwanese independence, the DPP's efforts at “name rectification” and producing a new constitution as well as what the Chinese Nationalists denounced as “de-sinification,”
that is the other side of the DPP's “nativization” coin.
165People's Daily (16 November 2004): “Hu Jintao Meets with Overseas Compatriots in Brazil: China Has to Develop and Reunify,” via: http://tw.people.com.cn/GB/14810/14858/2990167.html (accessed: 2011-11-16). (Chinese)
166People's Daily (3 March 2005): “Hu Jintao's Four-points Guideline,” via: http://english.cri.cn/4426/
2007/01/11/167@184032.htm (accessed: 2011-11-12).
167Xinhua (29 April 2005): “Welcome Address of Hu Jintao's Afternoon Meeting with Lien Chan in the Great Hall of the People,” via: http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/news.xinhuanet.com/
taiwan/2005-04/29/content_2895152.htm (accessed: 2011-11-16).
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All in all, it is striking to see that the most obvious lines of differences did not anymore run between Taiwan and China as they did for the most part of the 1949-1999 era. Instead they could be situated within Taiwan, that is between the governing and opposition parties. No matter whether it was with regard to upholding the “one China” rule via the constitution, the “1992 Consensus,” or the idea of the Chinese nation – there were more commonalities between CCP and KMT as between KMT and DPP.