Taiwan’s international visibility in the twenty-first century: A suggestive note
| Published date | 01 March 2017 |
| Author | Mun Suk Ahn,Young Chul Cho |
| Date | 01 March 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020702017692608 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essays |
Scholarly Essay
International Journal
2017, Vol. 72(1) 79–90
! The Author(s) 2017
Taiwan’s international
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
visibility in the
DOI: 10.1177/0020702017692608
journals.sagepub.com/home/ijx
twenty-first century:
A suggestive note
Young Chul Cho
Jimmy Carter School of International Studies, Chonbuk National
University, Deokjin-gu, Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea
Mun Suk Ahn
Department of Political Science and Diplomacy, Chonbuk
National University, Deokjin-gu, Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do,
South Korea
Abstract
This paper provides a critical check to the ongoing, dominant blue/green debate about
Taiwan’s identity vis-a`-vis China. The colour blue is associated with those who support
closer ties with China and green with those who support Taiwanese independence. The
state-centric debate over unification, independence, or the status quo in cross-strait
relations is closely tied to Taiwan’s national aspirations to enhance its international
standing in the twenty-first century, a standing which is arguably diplomatically under-
recognized. Based on a critical discussion of the blue/green debate, this paper presents
two pragmatic ways of augmenting Taiwan’s international visibility through global
recognition without jeopardizing national security or regional stability in East Asia.
Keywords
Taiwan, unification, independence, international visibility, global recognition
Background: Divided Taiwan
Along with South Korea, Taiwan (the Republic of China; ROC) has been an
excellent showcase for successful democratization with rapid socio-economic devel-
opment in the non-Western world after the end of the Cold War. At the same time,
Corresponding author:
Mun Suk Ahn, Department of Political Science and Diplomacy, 567 Baekje-daero, Deokjin-gu, Jeonju-si,
Jeollabuk-do, 54896, South Korea.
Email: ahnms@jbnu.ac.kr
80
International Journal 72(1)
Taiwan’s democratization profoundly changed its political identity and began an
irreversible process of Taiwanization that diverges from the Chinese mainland.1
During the period of authoritarian rule, until the early 1990s, only one exclusive,
government-led narrative for Taiwan’s identity was seen as legitimate. That nar-
rative claims that Taiwan embraces not only the island but also the mainland,
carrying the torch for the whole Chinese nation. In this sense, making a unified,
greater Chinese nation-state is the sublime national task of people in Taiwan.2 This
unification narrative, which nurtures pan-Chinese nationalism, still operates in
Taiwan today. Given its history, culture, language, and geography, it is impossible
for Taiwan to make a clean break from China. Indeed, the official name of Taiwan
is the Republic of—not Taiwan—but China. In spite of Beijing’s assertion that
Taiwan is an indispensable segment of China (the People’s Republic of China;
PRC), the Taiwanese unification narrative alludes to China as a part of Taiwan
(ROC). This unification narrative has traditionally provided an ideological basis
for the blue faction, which is one of the two major political coalitions in Taiwan.
Broadly speaking, the blue coalition contains the Kuomintang (KMT), the People
First Party, and the New Party, among others. The blue faction tends to favour
Chinese national and cultural identity over a separate Taiwanese identity and pro-
motes an engagement policy for greater economic and cultural ties with China,
such as the Taiwan–China Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement signed
in 2010. In recent years, the blue coalition has shifted its stance toward preserving
the status quo relationship between Taiwan and China, recognizing its inability to
realize reunification with much stronger China on its own terms and increasing
Taiwanization at home. Furthermore, today few blue supporters truly seek reuni-
fication with mainland China, in spite of the many ways the blue coalition empha-
sizes closely connected, vibrant cross-strait relations.3 KMT-based former
President Ma Ying-jeou’s ‘‘Three Noes’’ statement—no independence, no reunifi-
cation, and no use of force—captures today’s blue stance. However, that is not to
suggest that the blues have totally discarded unification or integration. While being
critical of reunification with the Chinese Communist Party’s China, the blue coali-
tion continues to ‘‘endorse a modified form of the ‘one China’ idea.’’4 Presumably,
in the blue understanding of Taiwan, PRC can be rejected, but not China as a
civilization or culture. The deep blue faction in particular holds that, morally and
culturally, Taiwan should unify with China in the long run. Thus, from the blue
viewpoint, Chinese-ness is essential to understanding Taiwan’s identity.
On the other hand, by permitting criticism of the top-down unification narrative
of the past, Taiwan’s democratization has allowed its people to imagine and
produce a different understanding of what it means to be Taiwanese, one that
emphasizes the island itself and excludes the Chinese mainland. This green
1.
Malcolm Cook, ‘‘Taiwan’s identity challenge,’’ SAIS Review 25, no. 2 (2005): 83–92.
2.
John F. Copper, Taiwan: Nation-State or Province? (Boulder: Westview Press, 2009).
3.
Peter Hays Gries and Jenny Su, ‘‘Taiwanese views of China and the world: Party identification,
ethnicity, and cross-strait relations,’’ Japanese Journal of Political Science 14 (2013): (1) 73–96.
4.
Cass R. Sunstein, ‘‘Taiwan’s fragile success story,’’ Korea Joongang Daily, December 2015.
Cho and Ahn
81
narrative strives for de-sinicization of Taiwan’s independence at home and abroad5
and constitutes the major opposition to the blues. Broadly speaking, the green coali-
tion contains the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Taiwan Solidarity Union,
among others. One extreme example of the green viewpoint is the Taiwan
Independence Party, inaugurated in 2015, whose political aims are ‘‘to promote
Taiwanese identity and to achieve the nation’s independence by [not only rejecting
the PRC, but also] overthrowing the Republic of China (ROC) regime.’’6 It appears
clear that many on the green side pursue de jure independence, although they some-
times disguise their intention for fear of Chinese military aggression toward Taiwan.
President Tsai Ing-wen, from the DPP, maintains that the status quo with China,
which means no mutual recognition and no unilateral change of status, is the basic
foundation of her party’s China policy.7 Currently, the green coalition seems to be
adopting a tactical approach. Particularly among the deep green proponents,
Taiwanese-ness, which is basic to Taiwan’s national identity, is most clearly defined
by opposing Chinese-ness, which is what Taiwan is not and what Taiwan should fear.
The logical goal following from such an identity is to make Taiwan a de jure state, a
sovereign, independent state in the Westphalian world.8
Given their ideological stances toward China—unification/integration or inde-
pendence—the identity narratives of both the blue and green factions are very
state-centric. Politically, both camps are obsessed with the state-centric questions
of how to secure and shape Taiwan’s statehood in the face of China’s insistence
that Taiwan is its renegade province. Furthermore, both sides want to enhance
diplomatically unrecognized Taiwan’s international standing in the twenty-first
century, since the world seems to favour an evermore powerful China. Although
both camps currently maintain the status quo position vis-a`-vis China for different
tactical reasons, they seem incompatible in their national identity construction of
Taiwan—Chinese-ness and unification (blue viewpoint) and Taiwanese-ness and
independence (green viewpoint). In reality, the two camps coexist in Taiwan in
many conflicting ways on a daily basis.9
It is against this backdrop that Taiwanese public discussion of Taiwan’s identity
has been dominated by the state-centric blue/green debate vis-a`-vis China.
Individuals often feel compelled to choose either Taiwanese-ness or Chinese-ness
as their national identity, and independence is considered the antithesis of...
To continue reading
Request your trial