Country, National, and Pan-national Identification in Taiwan and Hong Kong
Standing Together as Chinese?
A B S T R A C T
This study, based on analysis of survey data collected in 2011 in Taiwan and Hong Kong, shows that cultural identification explains the choice of country and national identities and that Chinese nationalism emerges as an important factor connecting the minds of people in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
K E Y W O R D S : Country identification, national identification, ethnic identification, Taiwan, Hong Kong
I N T R O D U C T I O N
Both Taiwan and Hong Kong were part of China under the Ching (Qing) Dynasty and then separated from China as a result of the dynasty’s failed wars against other countries. After the end of the 1946–49 Chinese civil war and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, social and political interactions between the PRC and these two regions were relatively limited from the 1950s to the 1970s. This served as an important condition for the emergence and crystallization of strong Taiwanese and Hong Kong identities. However, since the 1980s and 1990s, citizens in Taiwan and Hong Kong have expressed greater concerns about their relationship with China and their own identities as Chinese. This attitude shift reflects continual
FRANKC. S. LIUis Associate Professor in the Institute of Political Science at the National Sun Yat- Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. His research interests mainly reside in political communication, parties, and political identities. He thanks the National Science Council for a research grant (98- 2410-H-110-011-MY3). FRANCISL. F. LEEis Associate Professor and Head of the Graduate Division at the School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include public opinion studies, journalism studies, political communication, and media and social movements. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments. Emails:
<frankcsliu@mail.nsysu.edu.tw>, <francis_lee@cuhk.edu.hk>.
Asian Survey, Vol. 53, Number 6, pp. 1112–1134. ISSN 0004-4687, electronic ISSN 1533-838X.© 2013 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/AS.2013.53.6.1112.
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tensions across the Taiwan Strait, and the retrocession of Hong Kong, respectively.
At present, the set of islands constituting Taiwan functions as a sovereign state ruling over 23 million people. Inheriting the legacy of the Republic of China (ROC), Taiwan, or more precisely, its international status, remains a matter of debate in modern Chinese history and international law. In the context of more than two decades of democratization, the majority of Tai- wanese citizens have formed an attachment to the concept of a Taiwanese nation. At the same time, they pragmatically acknowledge the legitimacy of the ROC name and continue to use it. Taiwan’s dual national identities––its people’s tendency to consider themselves both Taiwanese and Chinese––are intermingled with partisanship and individual perspectives about the state.
Taiwan therefore represents a case where ‘‘nationality becomes integrated into the political orientations of real people.’’1
Interestingly, national identification and political orientation also inter- twine in Hong Kong. Having been a British colony for about 150 years, the city returned PRC rule in 1997 as a special administrative region (SAR).
While independence has never been considered a realistic or desirable option by most of Hong Kong’s citizens, its residents are deeply concerned about the autonomy of the SAR’s political, social, economic, and legal systems. Such concerns are tied to the question of identity, which in this context revolves around whether people consider themselves primarily ‘‘Hong Kongers’’ or Chinese.
In other words, while there are certainly many differences between the situations in Taiwan and Hong Kong, Ien Ang’s formulation of the problem of Chinese identity is likely to resonate with citizens of both places: ‘‘If I am inescapably Chinese by descent, I am only sometimes Chinese by consent.
When and how is a matter of politics.’’2 Given this background, it is not surprising that a substantial body of research on the identity question has been generated in each of the two societies. But few studies have examined the two places simultaneously in order to shed light on the situation for both.
Moreover, few existing Taiwan and Hong Kong studies have moved beyond the notion of national identification to examine the question of pan-national
1.Virginia Sapiro, ‘‘Not Your Parents’ Political Socialization: Introduction for a New Genera- tion,’’ Annual Review of Political Science 7 (June 2004), p. 7.
2.Ien Ang, On Not Speaking Chinese (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 36, emphasis in the original.
identification, i.e., whether people in one place see not only themselves but also people elsewhere as belonging to one greater nation. Do Hong Kong’s people see Taiwan as part of China, too? And how do the Taiwanese perceive Hong Kong?
Using country, national, and pan-national identification as its key con- cepts, this study draws upon representative survey data in Taiwan and Hong Kong to compare relationship patterns among the different types of identi- ties, and between identities and other variables, in the two places. We believe that patterns drawn from the data on Taiwan and Hong Kong will provide a basis for understanding issues common to both locations and serve to inform us about the three-way relationship between Beijing, Hong Kong, and Taipei in the future. The findings will also shed light on the development of theories on the formation of country identification and help clarify the formation of country and national identities.
The next section begins with a brief discussion of the conceptualization of the country, national, and pan-national identifications adopted in this study.
We will then further elaborate upon the social and political contexts in Taiwan and Hong Kong. This is followed by discussion of survey methods and measurements, and analysis of study findings. The concluding section discusses the social and theoretical implications of the findings.
C O N C E P T S : S T A T E , N A T I O N A L , A N D P A N - N A T I O N A L I D E N T I F I C A T I O N
It is beyond the scope of this article to fully review the wide range of discus- sions surrounding the notions of nation, national identity, and nationalism.
For our purposes, the most important distinction to highlight is that between the country and the nation. In Max Weber’s classic definition, the state or the country is the entity that possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within a certain territory.3 More broadly, the state is constituted by the set of political institutions with the authority to enforce and maintain order in a society.4Country identification, therefore, refers to the extent to which individuals acknowledge themselves as subjects under the rule of the existing political entities.
3.Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983), p. 3.
4.Ibid., p. 4.
The nation can be distinct from the state or the country: it refers to a collectivity within which individuals have certain mutual rights and duties to each other in virtue of their being members of the collectivity.5 Other observers have provided richer conceptualizations. For example, Anthony Smith defines the nation as ‘‘a named human population sharing a historic territory, common myths and historical memories, a mass, public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members.’’6 But whether one adopts a ‘‘thin’’ or ‘‘thick’’ definition of the nation, the concept refers to a human collective rather than a set of institutions. Of course, the idea of the nation is closely related to the idea of the country or the state. Even in the age of globalization, contemporary societies around the world are still primarily nation-states, i.e., ‘‘a state which identifies itself in terms of one specific nation whose people are not seen simply as ‘subjects’ of the sovereign, but as a horizontally bonded society to whom the state in a sense belongs.’’7But nation and state remain distinctive conceptually as well as empirically: not all nations are part of independent states or countries.
National identification, therefore, can be distinctive from state or country identification. In the present study, national identification refers to the extent to which people consciously regard themselves as members of the designated human population that constitutes the nation.
This study also examines the notion of pan-national identification, defined as the extent to which people in one place would regard people in various other places as belonging to the same, larger nation. In the contemporary world, pan-Arabism is one specific manifestation of pan-nationalism or pan- national identity. In the context of the present study, we are of course concerned with pan-Chinese identification. More precisely, because our research focuses on Taiwan and Hong Kong, the question of pan-Chinese identification in this article is whether Taiwanese would regard Hong Kongers as Chinese and whether Hong Kong citizens would regard Taiwanese as Chinese.8
5.Ibid., p. 7.
6.Anthony Smith, National Identity (Reno, Nev.: University of Nevada Press, 1991), p. 14.
7.Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 3.
8. One reviewer of this manuscript suggests that the term ‘‘pan-national identification’’ is equivalent to a well-established concept, ethnic identification. Ethnic identification includes both primordial (racial) and acquired (cultural) characteristics and may point to the common basis for identity in Hong Kong and Taiwan. We fully acknowledge that the whole body of literature of
Pan-Chinese identification is worth examining because it is arguably an important component in contemporary Greater China’s politics of national- ism. Pan-national identification should also be closely related to national identification. After all, whether one considers oneself a member of a nation should depend on how one conceives of the nation––which people it includes and excludes––as an essential condition. Past research on national identifi- cation in Hong Kong and Taiwan, however, has seldom examined pan- national identification. Our study will address this shortcoming.
Nationalism is not a core concept in this study, but it is still worth clarifying here how nationalism differs from national identity. For some sociologists, nationalism refers to the political principle that nations should have their own countries. When the term is used to represent people’s senti- ments, nationalism typically refers to a tendency to prioritize a nation’s interests over other social or political concerns. Nationalist sentiments are strongly related to national identification––people who lack a strong national identity are unlikely to exhibit strong nationalistic sentiments. However, a person who strongly identifies with a nation does not necessarily prioritize national interests over other political or social concerns. With this distinction in mind, this study examines national identification rather than nationalist sentiments.
One final note about terminology is the difference between ‘‘identity’’
and ‘‘identification.’’ In this article, we do not treat these two terms as substantially different from each other. The only difference is that the noun
‘‘identity’’ refers to something fixed and static at a specific moment in time,
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ethnic identification could explain phenomenon identified in this study. This perspective further suggests the existence of ‘‘sub-ethnic’’ identity in Taiwan, notably between ‘‘mainlanders’’ (waisheng- ren) and Taiwanese (benshengren).
We do not mean to reject this approach, but continue to use pan-national or pan-Chinese identification in this study for two reasons. First, pan-national or pan-Chinese does not imply the pre-existence of a Chinese ethnicity that has been well received by all Taiwan and Hong Kong people. The Great China concept is a subject for discussion or a preference that may not completely match the core idea of Chinese ethnic identity. In Taiwan and Hong Kong, it remains controversial that Chinese ethnic identity explains Taiwanese ethnic identity and that Taiwanese identity is a sub- ethnic identity. In other words, we see that to today’s Taiwan and Hong Kong residents, Chinese ethnic identity is more an option or political preference than an identity. Therefore, using pan- Chinese identification helps identify this phenomenon. Second, the concept of ‘‘sub-ethnicity’’ in Taiwan has been transforming from ‘‘mainlanders and Taiwanese’’ to ‘‘Chinese and Taiwanese’’; it remains vague and intermingled with concepts like national identification and country identification.
This is why it becomes important to distinguish these concepts in this series of studies.
whereas identification points to a process. To the extent that identities are socially constructed and constantly negotiated, it is more accurate to speak of the continual processes of identification. This is why we primarily use this term in the article. But we may also use the term identity when appropriate in order to avoid redundancy.
T H E T A I W A N C O N T E X T
Beginning from the Ching Dynasty’s defeat at the hands of the Japanese in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, the identification issue in Taiwan has become increasingly complex. Taiwanese people have experienced, in turn, Japanese colonial rule, the governance of Chiang Kai-shek’s (Jiang Jieshi) ROC begin- ning in 1945, and the transition from dictatorship to democracy from the 1970s to the 1990s. ‘‘Taiwan’’ has not only been regarded as the name of a region but has been promoted as the name of a state, particularly since the 1980s. Given the unique geographical, historical, ethnic, cultural, and dem- ocratic characteristics of both Taiwan and ROC sovereignty, people on this set of islands have developed a unique national identity that distinguishes them from people from Hong Kong and mainland China.9While a growing number of citizens identify as Taiwanese, the number of individuals with conflicting country identification (‘‘Am I a citizen of Taiwan or the Republic of China?’’) has also soared. The conventional wisdom held by most scholars of Taiwanese politics is that national identification in Taiwan is primarily a reflection of sub-ethnicity: ‘‘Minnanese people, i.e., local people whose ancestors came from southeast China, tend to think themselves as Taiwanese;
Mainlanders tend to think themselves as Chinese; and Hakka tend to waffle in between.’’10
Driven by history and geography, multiple layers are embedded within the complex country identification of the Taiwanese—for example, national, partisan, and cultural identification—and a significant number
9.See Jean-Pierre Cabestan, ‘‘Specificities and Limits of Taiwanese Nationalism,’’ China Perspectives 62 (November/December 2005), <http://chinaperspectives.revues.org/2863>; Chu Yun-han and Jih-wen Lin, ‘‘Political Development in 20th-Century Taiwan: State-building, Regime Transformation, and the Construction of National Identity,’’ China Quarterly 165 (March 2001), pp. 102–29.
10.Lin Tse-Min, Chin-En Wu, and Feng-Yu Lee, ‘‘‘Neighborhood’ Influence on the Formation of National Identity in Taiwan: Spatial Regression with Disjoint Neighborhoods,’’ Political Research Quarterly 59:1 (March 2006), pp. 35–46.
of individuals have become ambivalent regarding (or independent of) such identifications.11
One of the most important forces disrupting the increasingly stable con- sensus on national identification, i.e., ‘‘We are Taiwanese,’’ is an increasingly bi-polar party system, with both major parties expressing different sentiments regarding country identification. After years of democratization, people in Taiwan have gradually developed a historical and geographical identification that deviates from what Kuomintang (Nationalist Party, KMT) officials historically taught them.12 This new identity further developed with the emergence of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and affiliated parties.
Party elites in the pro-DPP camp perceive that the KMT is originally rooted in mainland China and has been staying in Taiwan as a guest (‘‘we have been
‘another’ country’’); support for this ideology and political camp peaked during the Chen Shui-bian administration from 2000 to 2008.
The pro-KMT camp, composed of the KMT and other smaller parties that split from it, perceives mainland China and Taiwan as the same country: ‘‘We are free Chinese in Taiwan.’’13Additionally, having won the presidential elec- tions in 2008 and 2012, elites of the pro-KMT camp are attempting to (re)- construct an ‘‘ROC’’-oriented country identification, maintaining that both the mainland and Taiwan are regions of the ROC. Given these multiple driving forces in country identification, information drawn from polls about voters’
preferences on pro-unification or pro-independence has been constrained by a variety of conditions. These include whether respondents can choose to iden- tify as both Taiwanese and Chinese, or are forced to choose one or the other.14
11. See Cal Clark, ‘‘The Paradox of the National Identity Issue in Chen Shui-Bian’s 2004 Presidential Campaign: Base Constituencies vs. the Moderate Middle,’’ Issues & Studies 41:1 (March 2005), pp. 53–86; Wu Yu-Shan, ‘‘Taiwanese Nationalism and Its Implications: Testing the Worst- Case Scenario,’’ Asian Survey 44:4 (July/August 2004), pp. 614–25; and Liu Frank C. S., ‘‘When Taiwan Identifiers Embrace ROC: The Complexity of Country Identification in Taiwan,’’ Issues &
Studies 48:2 (June 2012), pp. 1–34.
12.Richard W. Wilson, Learning to Be Chinese: The Political Socialization of Children in Taiwan (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] Press, 1970).
13.Gunter Schubert, ‘‘Taiwan’s Political Parties and National Identity: The Rise of an Over- arching Consensus,’’ Asian Survey 44:4 (July/August 2004), pp. 534–54; Gunter Schubert and Stefan Braig, ‘‘How to Face an Embracing China? The DPP’s Identity Politics and Cross-Strait Relations during and after the Chen Shui-bian Era,’’ in Taiwanese Identity in the 21st Century: Domestic, Regional, and Global Perspectives, eds. Gunter Schubert and Jens Damm (New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 72–94.
14.A poll released on June 3, 2013, by a well-known TV news station on national/ethnic identification (N ¼ 1,018 with sampling error + 3.1%) reveals that 50% assert themselves to be
T H E H O N G K O N G C O N T E X T
After World War Two, Hong Kong quickly developed into a refugee society as people fled there from mainland China, spurred by civil war and other political and natural disasters after the establishment of the PRC. The early refugees did not develop a strong sense of local identity; they still considered themselves Chinese, and the city was largely considered a ‘‘borrowed place living on borrowed time.’’15 A strong sense of local Hong Kong identity started to develop in the 1970s as the early refugees’ children started to come of age and the economy took off. The rise of the local media industry and popular culture in the same period of time gave the ‘‘imagined community’’
of Hong Kong a means of articulation and self-expression, thus reinforcing the growth of a local identity.16As a result, when local researchers started to examine the question of local vs. national identity among Hong Kong’s people in the 1980s, they found that a substantial proportion of Hong Kong citizens considered themselves to be Hong Kongers rather than Chinese (59.5% vs. 36.2%).17
Throughout the transition period (1984–97), Hong Kong society was deeply concerned about the uncertainty surrounding future Chinese rule.
Hong Kong and Chinese identities therefore also entailed political signifi- cance. Survey research from the 1980s to the 2000s repeatedly showed people who regarded themselves as Hong Kongers held more-liberal and more-pro- democratic attitudes.18 Nevertheless, unlike in Taiwan, independence was never considered a realistic or legitimate option in Hong Kong. After 1997, the people of Hong Kong generally accepted the PRC as the sovereign ruler.
In other words, while the question of country identification in Taiwan has both a cognitive component (whether the country is called either Taiwan or
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Taiwanese, 4% claim to be Chinese, and 43% claim to be both Chinese and Taiwanese. If respon- dents are forced to choose between Chinese and Taiwanese, 73% of respondents select Taiwanese and only 15% Chinese. This pattern is quite consistent with the institute’s polls since 2008. For the reports (in Chinese), see <http://www1.tvbs.com.tw/FILE_DB/PCH/201306/g672fwasoc.pdf> for the June 2013 poll; <http://www1.tvbs.com.tw/FILE_DB/PCH/201210/0p4v11j38l.pdf> for the Octo- ber 2013 poll; and <http://www1.tvbs.com.tw/FILE_DB/DL_DB/even/200806/even-20080610175239.
pdf> for the June 2008 poll.
15.Richard Hughes, Borrowed Place, Borrowed Time (London: A. Deutsch, 1968).
16.Eric K. W. Ma, Culture, Politics, and Television in Hong Kong (London: Routledge, 1999).
17.Siu-kai Lau and Hsin-chi Kuan, The Ethos of Hong Kong Chinese (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1988), p. 178.
18.Francis L. F. Lee and Joseph Man Chan, ‘‘Political Attitudes, Participation, and Hong Kong Identities after 1997,’’ Issues & Studies 41:2 (June 2005), pp. 1–35.
the ROC) and an affective component (to what extent a person feels attached to the state), the question of country identification in Hong Kong is primarily one of affective attachment.
Where national identification is concerned, the problem facing Hong Kong’s citizens is that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has attempted to promote and shape their national identification through government pol- icies, the mass media, and grassroots patriotic events.19The PRC attempted to impose on Hong Kong’s people a notion of national identity that conflates the nation and the country: loving the country equals supporting the CCP government. In response to this top-down concept of national identification, the society has struggled to articulate an alternative form of national identity that clearly distinguishes between the nation and the state.20The latter effort is most conspicuous during the annual rally on June 4 commemorating the 1989Tiananmen Incident in China. The event serves as a platform for Hong Kong’s people to reconfirm their concerns over the past, present, and future of the Chinese nation while presenting a strong critique of the current regime.
R E S E A R C H D E S I G N A N D M E A S U R E M E N T
The above description of issues related to country identification in Taiwan and Hong Kong provides a basis for modeling their state and national iden- tification. This section provides a conceptual and operational definition of the key concepts to be used in the analysis: country identification, national identification, and cultural identification.
Country Identification
Having a country identification means that one identifies one’s self with a sovereign entity, not just with a government. This concept can be operationalized as being able to identify a country label to which a respondent feels emotionally attached. Specifically, in our survey, Taiwanese respondents were asked to evaluate the following three statements, using a five-point scale:
19.Malte Philipp Kaeding, ‘‘Identity Formation in Taiwan and Hong Kong: How Much Dif- ference, How Many Similarities?’’ in Schubert and Damm, eds., Taiwanese Identity in the 21st Century, pp. 258–80.
20.Eric K. W. Ma, Desiring Hong Kong, Consuming South China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011).
‘‘You feel proud of being a citizen of the Republic of China.’’
‘‘Some people have said that our country’s name is ‘Republic of China’.’’
‘‘Some people have said that our country’s name is ‘Taiwan’.’’
By asking these questions separately and emphasizing the concept ‘‘country’’
(guojia) during the interviews, it is expected that respondents will reveal their country identification in a straightforward manner and will not consider asso- ciated concepts such as nation, culture, or partisanship in giving their answers.
In the subsequent binary logistic regression, these variables are trans- formed into categorical variables in primary models, where they serve as dependent variables (and are used as dummy independent variables in other models). Answers of four or five points are re-coded as 1 and the rest are re- coded as 0.
National Identification
National identification refers to the labels of a group to which individuals feel emotionally attached, and by which they can distinguish ‘‘we’’ (in-group people) and ‘‘others’’ (out-group people). Under this definition, national identification is not necessarily limited by language or inter-state boundaries.
In practice, respondents were asked the following three questions. The first is a conventional question used in most surveys in Taiwan:
‘‘Do you think you are Chinese, Taiwanese, or both?’’
The other two questions are evaluations (also using a five-point scale) about two statements:
‘‘Taiwanese people and Chinese people belong to the same nation (minzu).’’
‘‘Hong Kong people and Chinese people belong to the same nation (minzu).’’
These questions are designed to apply the core concepts of social identity theory, ‘‘in-group’’ and ‘‘out-group,’’ and to avoid mentioning the PRC, ROC, or any government symbols. The goal is to capture how comfortable respondents are with the idea of sharing a common nationality with main- land Chinese, and the idea of Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese sharing a common nationality.
In addition, we add cultural identity to the two types of identification as a control variable in the Taiwan survey. It is expected that those living in Taiwan who identify strongly with elements of traditional Chinese culture such as language, Chinese characters (hanzi), or festivals, are more likely to see themselves as Chinese when it comes to national identification. Cultural identification is operationalized in the questionnaire as feeling proud of a specific culture associated with a group of people, lifestyle, or way of thinking. We designed this question with the particular concern that mea- suring this concept should be linked to pride or emotion, but not bound to a specific nation or state. The question selected to create this measure asks the respondent to evaluate the following statement on a five-point scale: ‘‘Our culture is the authentic Chinese culture’’; high scores (four or five) indicate pride in preserving traditional Chinese culture.21
Data
Our surveys of Taiwan and Hong Kong were conducted in November 2011, a few months before Taiwan’s presidential election in January 2012 and the Chief Officer election in Hong Kong in March. Note that the surveys were conducted in local languages: Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese were used in the Taiwan survey, while Cantonese was used for Hong Kong.
The Taiwan survey was conducted from November 15 to 25, 2011, by a survey center of a national research university in Taiwan. The population was eligible voters above 20. Sampling was based on the telephone book published by Chung-Hua Telecom in 2010. To ensure that the sample was random and could be treated as representative of Taiwan voters, the sample was chosen using a computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) system.
The system takes the numbers listed in the phone book, removes the last two digits of all telephone numbers, and replaces them with a full set of 100
21.Demographic control variables included sex, age, and education. Education was measured in terms of the highest level of educational achievement attained. For the purpose of this analysis, an individual’s educational level was coded into a five-point scale ranging from 1 ¼ primary school or below to 5 ¼ university education in both surveys. The income variable is available in both surveys, but because over one-fifth of Taiwanese respondents refused to answer this question, this variable is dropped from all the models to preserve sample size for analysis and allow for comparisons across models. The decision of dropping this variable is also based on the results of the initial specification of the models, where income is never a statistically significant explanatory variable in any of the models.
double-digit figures from 00 to 99. Specific numbers were then randomly selected from the database by computers. By contacting respondents using this method, the survey collected 1,074 completed interviews. The response rate was 17.8% following the American Association of Public Opinion Re- search’s (AAPOR) Formula 1. Using a raking adjustment, proper weights were applied to the sample to ensure the distribution of age, gender, educa- tion level, and geographical location did not substantially differ from those of the population.
The Hong Kong survey was conducted in October and November 2011 by a research center at a public university in Hong Kong. The population was all Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong residents with ages ranging from 18 to 70.
Sampling began by compiling all telephone numbers from the residential telephone directories in 2005, 2007, and 2009. The same CATI procedure was used. The survey received 845 completed interviews. The response rate was 42.0% following AAPOR’s Formula 3. As is typical in surveys on political topics in Hong Kong, the sample does not differ substantially from the population in terms of gender ratio and age distribution. However, educated individuals are overrepresented in the sample. The sample was therefore weighted according to education when we conducted the analysis.
Note that the question sets in the surveys are not identical. Because the set of country identification questions used in Taiwan was not applicable to Hong Kong, only one of the three questions regarding country identification was asked in Hong Kong: ‘‘I feel proud of being a citizen of the People’s Republic of China.’’ Second, Taiwan’s and Hong Kong’s party systems dif- fer—Taiwan is a semi-presidential system characterized by two competing political camps, while Hong Kong has a parliamentary system with multiple political parties and surveillance of political activities and policy proposals by the central government in Beijing. Therefore, the set of questions about party identification was not applied to the Hong Kong models.
A N A L Y S I S A N D F I N D I N G S
Identification Patterns of Taiwan Voters
An initial inspection of the data shows that a number of Taiwanese citizens feel comfortable with selecting between two country identities (ROC and Taiwan): 82.5% (856) of respondents reported that they believe the ROC is the formal name of Taiwan, equal to four or five on a five-point scale. A total
of 82.7% (858) are proud of being citizens of the ROC, i.e., four or five on a five-point scale. Interestingly, in a separate question, 68.8% (690) reported that their country’s name is ‘‘Taiwan’’ (four or five on the scale).
A closer examination of the distribution of the two questions reveals that 41.5% (409) of those who identify with the labels ROC and Taiwan in the two separate questions gave the same score to the two labels, suggesting a clear pattern of dual country identification. A total of 95.3% of those who gave the same score to the state name questions ranked either four or five, meaning that they are comfortable with both identities. We then highlight those with dual country identification by re-coding those awarding four or five points to both labels as 1 and the rest as 0.
Regarding national identification, a substantial number of voters reported dual feelings of allegiance. In the conventional national identification approach commonly used in Taiwan surveys, ‘‘Do you think you are Chi- nese, Taiwanese, or both?’’ 51.2% (535) of respondents reported that they are Taiwanese, not Chinese; 5.7% (58) were Chinese, not Taiwanese; and 42.2%
reported both (433). This dual national identification pattern is echoed in the distribution of another question, ‘‘Taiwanese people and Chinese people belong to the same nation.’’ Of the respondents, 62.5% (636) strongly agreed with this statement, garnering four or five points on a five-point scale.
Regarding cultural identification, 69.7% (677) agreed with the statement
‘‘Our culture is the authentic Chinese culture’’ (rating four or five points), while 21% (233) disagreed. The distribution of party identification indicates that 30% (322) of respondents identify with the pro-KMT political camp (including the KMT, People First Party, and New Party), while 18.8% (202) identified with the pro-DPP camp (including the DPP, Taiwan Solidarity Union, and Taiwan Independence Party). The other 51.2% who did not reveal their party identification in this telephone survey are categorized as unidentified.
Identity Patterns of Hong Kong Citizens
Although country identification is not and cannot be a salient issue in Hong Kong, the national identification issue is as salient as in Taiwan: 60.3% (505) report that they are both Hong Kongers and Chinese, while 20% insist that they are Hong Kongers and not Chinese, and 19.7% say they are Chinese not Hong Kongers. In the country pride question, 53.8% agree or strongly agree
with the statement ‘‘I am proud of being a citizen of the PRC’’ (four or five on a five-point scale). Although this percentage is not as high as that of Taiwan regarding their feeling about the ROC, Hong Kong citizens exhibit a much higher level of nationalism: 81.8% (687) agreed that Hong Kong people and Chinese (on the mainland) belong to the same nation.
Explaining Taiwan’s Country Identification
Logistic regression analysis is applied in the following sections to explain the patterns presented above and to compare Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The analysis results confirm that Taiwanese citizens’ preferences regarding the name of the state, either ROC or Taiwan, are well explained by their national identification and partisanship, controlling for their perceptions of being a citizen of the ROC, the level of country pride, and other demographic variables. As the first two models of Table 1 show, it is likely that respondents t a bl e 1 . The Taiwan Model of Country Identification
ROC Taiwan Both
Being a citizen of ROC .47*** –.06 .10
Proud of being a citizen of ROC .56*** –.08 .14
National identification as a Taiwanesea –.93** 1.14*** .23 National identification as a Chinesea .85 –1.10** –.89*
Taiwanese and Chinese belong to the same nation .32*** –.04 –.01 Support for the pro-KMT political campb .70* –.55** –.29þ Support for the pro-DPP political campb –.05 .91** –.05 Proud of preserving traditional Chinese culture .14 .13 .21**
Education .09 –.56*** –.21*
Gender (male) .08 –.23 –.14
Age .01 –.03*** –.03***
(Intercept) –2.88** 4.20*** .24
AIC 540.64 860.27 1,105.8
N 858 832 864
SOURCE: By the authors.
NOTE: ***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05; þp < .10.
aDummy variable: the base is ‘‘both’’ or those of dual national identification.
bDummy variable: the base is those having no party identification and those whose party identity is not identifiable.
would support using the state name ‘‘Republic of China’’ if they (1) do not identify with Taiwan as a nation (weak Taiwan nationalism), (2) support pro- KMT political parties, and/or (3) perceive the people across the Taiwan Strait as belonging to the same nation.
Moreover, this study predicts respondents will identify with Taiwan as an independent state if they (1) have a stronger sense of Taiwanese nationalism, i.e., perceive themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese, (2) reject Chinese nationalism, (3) dislike pro-KMT political parties, and/or (4) support pro- DPP political parties. The above analysis is consistent with both conventional wisdom and empirical studies about Taiwanese politics but also suggests that national identification is a driver of one’s country identification: Taiwanese citizens raised in an atmosphere of Taiwanese nationalism will be more likely to identify with Taiwan than the ROC as the name of their country. Sim- ilarly, Taiwanese citizens raised in an atmosphere of Chinese nationalism will be more likely to identify with the ROC than with Taiwan as the name of their country.
The third model explains how voters develop a dual country identification.
As Table 1 indicates, respondents will have dual country identification if they (1) strongly identify with Chinese culture, i.e., are proud of living in a society that preserves traditional Chinese culture, and (2) have a higher education level, but (3) dislike ‘‘Chinese’’ as a national label or hold negative views about being labeled as Chinese people (zhongguoren).
Two conclusions can be drawn from this pattern. First, factors (1) and (3) denote contradicting values, implying that this may cause a substantial amount of dual country identification in Taiwan. Second, as shown in Table 1, regard- less of whether the respondent identifies Taiwan as either a state or a national label, this is not statistically associated with such ambivalence in country iden- tification. This implies that Taiwan-identifiers experience less ambivalence about finding a country identity. This pattern further suggests that those who identify both the ROC and Taiwan as alternative labels to the PRC see the country label ‘‘PRC’’ as equated with the concept of China and Chinese; they can no longer consider it an acceptable option for the name of the country.
An additional interesting finding from the Taiwan and Both models is that the demographic variables of age and education function as important control variables. The significantly negative signs of the two coefficients suggest that the older and more-educated citizens are less likely to remain ambivalent about their country identification and are less likely to select Taiwan as the
name of their country. This implies that both country and national identi- fication are solidified as one ages.
E X P L A I N I N G T A I W A N ’ S N A T I O N A L I D E N T I F I C A T I O N
As discussed at the beginning of this paper, national identification and coun- try identification are endogenous concepts in Taiwan. Although the two concepts explain each other, they may not completely overlap. As Table 2 indicates, country identification (but not country pride) explains a respon- dent’s choice of claiming to be Taiwanese, Chinese, or both. An important exception is that identifying with ROC as being the name of the country does not influence an individual reporting his or her national identification as Chinese (the second model). Rather, identifying with ROC as being the name of the country explains an individual’s dual national identification of being both Taiwanese and Chinese (the third model).
t a bl e 2 . The Taiwan Model of National Identification
Taiwanese Chinese Both
Being a citizen of ROC .07 –.13 –.05
Proud of being a citizen of ROC –.23þ .03 .19
State identification with ROCa –.87** 1.31 .81**
State identification with Taiwana 1.20*** –1.52*** –.61***
Taiwanese and Chinese belong to the same nation –.71*** .35* .61***
Support for the pro-KMT political campb –.62** –.56 .65***
Support for the pro-DPP political campb .62* –1.66 –.43þ Proud of preserving traditional Chinese culture –.02 .16 .04
Education .02 .03 .03
Gender (male) .15 –.11 –.13
Age .007 .04 –.02*
(Intercept) 1.83* –6.01*** –1.56*
AIC 829.66 316.9 919.30
N 827 827 827
SOURCE: By the authors.
NOTE: ***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05; þp < .10.
aDummy variable: the base is ‘‘both’’ or those of dual state identification.
bDummy variable: the base is those having no party identification and those whose party identity is not identifiable.
This pattern is also supported by the significant coefficients of another national identification variable, ‘‘Taiwanese and Chinese belong to the same nation.’’ This implies that claiming ‘‘I am both Chinese and Taiwanese’’ in Taiwan is more likely to be a ‘‘politically correct’’ statement because people in Taiwan are aware that ‘‘Chinese’’ as a label denoting nation refers to citizens of the PRC or people from mainland China, not people in Taiwan. There- fore, individuals embracing ROC as the name of the country tend to identify as ‘‘both Chinese and Taiwanese’’ as a means of distinguishing themselves from mainland Chinese.
A similar pattern is also found for party identification variables. Partisan support for the DPP (and concomitant lack of support for the KMT) reflects the embracing of Taiwanese identity. Consistent with the results obtained in the above section regarding country identification, this pattern of national identification helps explain respondents who choose both (i.e., dual national identification) but not who choose Chinese. In other words, those favoring the KMT and associated political parties tend to claim that they are both Chinese and Taiwanese, rather than simply Chinese.
E X P L A I N I N G H O N G K O N G ’ S N A T I O N A L I D E N T I F I C A T I O N
The Hong Kong models focus on two variables: the influence of country pride and the perception that Hong Kongers and Chinese belong to the same nation (note: not country). As Table 3 shows, both variables significantly and consis- tently explain the selection of Hong Konger, Chinese, and ‘‘both.’’ Interest- ingly, both are positively associated with the choices of Chinese and ‘‘both,’’
a pattern suggesting that Hong Kongers who are proud of being a citizen of the PRC are likely to identify as either (1) Chinese but not Hong Konger, or (2) both Hong Konger and Chinese. Hong Kong citizens who hold negative attitudes about these two variables will insist on the Hong Kong identity.
Education is the key variable that differentiates the second and the third model. After controlling for all of the important variables mentioned above, individuals with a higher level of education are less likely to say that they are Chinese alone; they are likely to identify as both Chinese and Hong Konger.
This implies that being proud of Hong Kong’s core values (free market, rule of law, etc.) drives Hong Kong elites to embrace dual nationalism as a means of conforming to the pressure that Hong Kongers face to acknowledge the legitimacy of the PRC.
C O M P A R I S O N S O F I D E N T I F I C A T I O N P A T T E R N S B E T W E E N T A I W A N A N D H O N G K O N G
On the basis of the above analysis, two direct comparisons between Taiwan and Hong Kong can be made regarding (1) country pride and (2) perceptions regarding Chinese nationalism. In addition to previous empirical findings regarding Taiwan’s and Hong Kong’s politics, we believe that Chinese nationalism might play an interesting role in, or be applied to, future Beijing-Hong Kong-Taipei dynamics.
First, individuals in Taiwan and Hong Kong differ with respect to country pride. Table 4 shows the causes of country pride. Taiwanese people are likely to be proud of the ROC if they (1) recognize the legitimacy of the ROC, (2) identify with the ROC as the name of the country, (3) support the KMT or pro-KMT political parties, and/or (4) strongly identify with traditional Chi- nese culture. Negative signs for regression coefficients suggest that Hong Kong’s people are likely to be proud of the PRC if they (1) are less proud of and do not adhere to a Hong Kong (civil/national) identity, (2) agree that they and mainland Chinese belong to the same nation, and/or (3) are less educated.
Note the role of age in both models. Older people in Taiwan are less likely than their younger counterparts to be proud of the ROC, while older people in Hong Kong are more proud of the PRC. Our preliminary explanation for this phenomenon is that older Taiwanese people are more aware of the t a bl e 3 . The Hong Kong Model of National Identification
Hong Konger Chinese Both
Proud of being a citizen of PRC –1.69*** .61** .47**
Hong Kong people and Chinese belong to the same nation
–.62*** .30* .36***
Education .05 –.23** .14*
Gender (male) .14 –.17 .05
Age .01 .08 –.06
(Intercept) 1.34* –2.43*** –1.68**
AIC 653.56 783.57 1,066.7
N 827 827 827
SOURCE: By the authors.
NOTE: ***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05; þp < .10.
limitations of the ROC and more concerned about its power and legitimacy.
The younger generation in Hong Kong, who witness the contrasts between people in Hong Kong and those from the mainland regarding lifestyles, attitudes, behavior, and core values, are less likely to be proud of the PRC.
Combining these pieces of evidence, we argue that Taiwanese people and Hong Kongers could drift away from ‘‘China’’ emotionally when (1) the legitimacy of the ROC is weakened in Taiwan, (2) Taiwanese people establish a unique Taiwanese cultural identity and no longer base their national pride on traditional Chinese culture, (3) the KMT loses ground to DPP, or (4) Chinese nationalism loses support in Hong Kong. This interpretation could be considered from the opposite direction, and one can see how the KMT, t a bl e 4 . Comparison of Country Pride between Taiwan and Hong Kong
Proud of ROC Proud of PRC
Being a citizen of ROC .88*** n/a
Country identification with ROCa 1.41*** n/a
Country identification with Taiwana –.06 n/a
National identification as a Hong Kongerb n/a –1.65***
National identification as a Taiwaneseb –.29 n/a
National identification as a Chineseb .09 .30
Taiwanese and Chinese belong to the same nation –.14 n/a Hong Konger and Chinese belong to the same nation n/a .82***
Support for the pro-KMT political campc .76* n/a
Support for the pro-DPP political campc –.60* n/a
Proud of preserving traditional Chinese culture .56*** n/a
Education –.09 –.30***
Gender (male) .0002 .15
Age –.03* .14*
(Intercept) –1.40 –3.07***
AIC 468.34 910.16
N 827 827
SOURCE: By the authors.
NOTE: ***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05; þp < .10.
aDummy variable: the base is ‘‘both’’ or those of dual country identification.
bDummy variable: the base is ‘‘both’’ or those of dual national identification.
cDummy variable: the base is those having no party identification and those whose party identity is not identifiable.
Chinese cultural identity, and Chinese nationalism could contribute to resur- gence of greater connectedness between the people in mainland China, Tai- wan, and Hong Kong.
Taking advantage of the two surveys, we inspect the role of Chinese nationalism to a greater extent and assess its influence on connections between Taiwanese and Hong Kongers. We began with the question, ‘‘How do Hong Kongers see Taiwanese, and vice versa?’’ Taiwan respondents who agree (awarding four and five points on a five-point scale) with the statement
‘‘Hong Kong people and Chinese people belong to the same nation’’ were coded as 1; otherwise, 0. The same coding scheme was applied to the Hong Kong survey using a similar statement: ‘‘Taiwanese people and Chinese people belong to the same nation.’’
As Table 5 shows, a respondent’s Chinese nationalism is the only variable that leads him or her to agree with the statement; country, national, cultural, and party identity do not explain the perceptions of people from the other political entities. That is, Taiwanese and Hong Kongers who exhibit Chinese nationalism tend to perceive one another as members of a common ‘‘in- group.’’ Additionally, analysis suggests that male respondents in Taiwan (compared to their female counterparts) and female respondents in Hong Kong (compared to their male counterparts) are more likely to adopt this Chinese nationalist way of thinking.
C O N C L U S I O N A N D D I S C U S S I O N
Faced with the rise of the PRC’s economic and political power, influenced by the ROC legacy, and having experienced decades of democratization, Tai- wanese society has nurtured multiple country and national identifications.
Similarly in Hong Kong, a political entity with unique colonial experiences and an independent civil identity, society also faces challenges regarding (re)identifying with the PRC.
Using survey data collected in Taiwan and Hong Kong prior to the most recent general elections in each, this paper demonstrates that cultural iden- tification provides an explanation for the choice of country and national identities. The findings on Taiwan can be summarized into five points. First, national identification and country identification are related but separate concepts. Individuals’ strong national identification as Taiwanese explains why they would identify as citizens of the Taiwan Republic but not as citizens
of the ROC (country identification). Second, individuals’ strong national identification as Chinese explains why they would not identify as citizens of the Taiwan Republic, and/or why they would remain ambivalent with respect to country identification (see Table 1). Third, individuals’ strong identification with the Taiwanese state explains the high likelihood of claim- ing to be Taiwanese and not identifying as Chinese (or both). Fourth, t a b l e 5 . Comparison between Taiwan and Hong Kong Regarding Chinese Nationalism
Taiwan Hong Kong
Being a citizen of ROC –.19 n/a
Proud of being a citizen of ROC .06 n/a
Proud of being a citizen of PRC n/a .11
Country identification with ROCa –.16 n/a
Country identification with Taiwana –.02 n/a
National identification as Hong Kongerb n/a .40
National identification as Taiwaneseb –.34 n/a
National identification as Chineseb .17 .37
Taiwanese and Chinese belong to the same nation .80*** n/a Hong Konger and Chinese belong to the same nation n/a 1.36***
Support for the pro-KMT political campc .34 n/a
Support for the pro-DPP political campc .42þ n/a
Proud of preserving traditional Chinese culture .02 n/a
Education .25 .21*
Gender (male) .32* –.45*
Age .006 .13
(Intercept) –1.76* –4.71***
AIC 785.8 610.16
N 777 822
SOURCE: By the authors.
NOTE: The dependent variable of the first model is agreeing with the statement that ‘‘Hong Kong people and Chinese belong to the same nation,’’ while the dependent variable of the second model is agreeing with the statement that ‘‘Taiwanese and Chinese belong to the same nation.’’ ***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05;
þp < .10.
aDummy variable: the base is ‘‘both’’ or those of dual country identification.
bDummy variable: the base is ‘‘both’’ or those of dual national identification.
cDummy variable: the base is those having no party identification and those whose party identity is not identifiable.
individuals’ country identification with the ROC explains why they would be unlikely to identify as Taiwanese and be very likely to hold dual notions of national identity (see Table 2). Fifth, identifying culturally with traditional Chinese culture explains pride in the ROC and ambivalence with respect to country identification.
The findings about Hong Kong confirm that Hong Kongers face a conflict between preserving their national/civil identity and Chinese nationalism. The Hong Kong data exhibit the same pattern as the Taiwan data regarding the influence of national identification on country pride. Differences between the findings for Taiwan and Hong Kong can be summarized in two points: First, education is found to be an important factor in determining national iden- tification in Hong Kong; more-educated citizens are more resistant to the Chinese nationalism defined by the CCP, and are more likely to embrace dual national identities. Second, pride in the PRC is (re)shaping Hong Kongers’ national/civil identity. We do not see any influence of country pride on other identification variables in the Taiwan models. But the fact that country pride stands out as a significant explanatory variable in the Hong Kong models (see Table 4) suggests that the ‘‘Greater China’’ concept or image transmitted through the mass media facilitates the concurrent engi- neering and (re)construction of Chinese nationalism in Hong Kong. We predict the prevalence of Chinese nationalism would be likely to motivate those who currently insist on maintaining Hong Kong identities ultimately to claim dual identities (see Table 3).
The most important message that can be drawn from the comparison is that Chinese nationalism, not necessarily as defined by the CCP but in its broadest definition, emerges as the only variable found in this study that has potential to connect the minds of people in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Taiwanese citizens who perceive themselves as belonging to a broader Chinese community (62.5% in the sample) are likely to perceive citizens of Hong Kong as members of the same ‘‘in-group.’’ Similarly, Hong Kong citizens who perceive themselves as belonging to a broader Chinese community (78.2%) are likely to feel connected to Taiwan.
One should note that the findings of this study cannot be seen as an extension of any other time but the period of data collection in 2011. Inter- pretation of the findings should be made with caution because political issues regarding the relationships between the PRC, Hong Kong, and Taiwan evolve rapidly. The emotions and feelings of people in Hong Kong and
Taiwan hence are also extremely dynamic. Still, we see that the theoretical framework and variables identified and presented in this study provide hints to better capture such dynamics.
Given our findings, we expect future research will extend from this stream of inquiry that explores the formation of dual national identification, dual country identification, and cultural identification. Research will perhaps also probe more deeply methods of capturing and confirming the changes in these types of identification. In addition to providing long-term comparisons between Hong Kong and Taiwan—two similar (but not identical) societies that use traditional Chinese written characters—future study of such com- parisons is suggested in order to provide more systematic surveys on broader identity types such as civic identity characterized by market, rule-of-law, and democratic values.
