民進黨執政時期之臺灣民族主義發展政策：2000-2008

Abstract

Since Taiwan accelerated democratization in the early I 990s, the Taiwanese people's native and sovereign consciousness has risen rapidly. No later than the mid-1990s, a rising Taiwanese nationalism had formed in Taiwan. In March 2000, the DPP won the presidential election. As the DPP had always pursued Taiwan's sovereign status, there was widespread concern over the new Government's policy on Taiwan's future and cross-Strait relations. On 20 May 2000 President Chen Shui-bian released his inaugural speech and proposed the ”five noes” policy, in which he pledged not to announce Taiwan's independence. In response, the PRC made every effort to downgrade Taiwan's international status. On 3 August 2002, Chen claimed that there were two countries on either side of the Taiwan Strait. In the same time, he also urged the Taiwanese people to seriously consider the necessity of enacting a referendum law. Under the DPP Government, Taiwan did adopt a referendum law in December 2003, and implemented a defensive referendum in March 2004.In March 2004, Chen Shui-bian won his second term and the DPP Government adopted a series of policies that could stress Taiwan's sovereign status, including: enacting a new Constitution, rectifying the official name of many Taiwan's state-owned enterprises, abolishing the Guidelines for National Unification, and entering the UN under the name of Taiwan. During this period, Taiwanese nationalism also increased steadily. Not only most polls showed that the Taiwanese people's Chinese identification dropped drastically, but the demand for establishing a Republic of Taiwan also increased. The most notable was that in October 2007 a referendum proposal for entering the UM under the name Taiwan collected more than 2.72 million signatures, a sign showing how anxious the Taiwanese wanted Taiwan to be an normal sovereign state recognized by the international community.This research argues that the main purpose of the DPP Government's above policies was to protect Taiwan's sovereign status from being denied by the PRC, which also promoted the growth of Taiwanese nationalism.