Sovereignty and identity

Abstract

Much of the scholarly literature in IR couches explanation of Taiwan’s territorial claims in the South China Sea (SCS) in terms of economic and strategic interests. We argue, however, that more attention should be paid to the ‘ontological security’ of Taiwan – the need to maintain a stable and continuous sense of self against threats to this identity. Claims about Taiwan’s sovereign rights in the SCS are as much efforts to maintain the coherence of competing stories about Taiwan’s identity as they are expressions of material interest, and reflect a wider crisis of ontological security faced by successive governments in Taiwan. The claims on the SCS under Chiang Kai-shek’s regime were initially driven by the ontological need to gain the legitimacy associated with the Republic of China (ROC)’s identity in its fight against communist China. Since the 1990s, Taiwan’s narratives have diverged. Those who wish to maintain the legitimacy of the ROC claim that all waters within the U-shaped line published in 1947 are under Taiwan’s sovereignty. On the other hand, those who wish to jettison ‘ROC’ believe that the narrative in which the historic waters of the SCS come under the sovereignty of Taiwan on account of its historical ties with China adversely and paradoxically undermines the ‘sovereignty’ of Taiwan. Analysis of the controversies surrounding the SCS from the Taiwanese perspective must reckon not only with the material interests at stake, but also with the broader concerns about ontological security at play in regional and domestic politics, and the narratives of identity through which these concerns are expressed in domestic and international politics.