Taiwan Independence Research Articles

Deterrent effects of targeted sanctions by mainland China on Taiwan: evidence from 2021–2 sanction events

AbstractWe investigate the deterrent effects of a firm‐targeted sanction and a politician‐targeted sanction deployed by mainland China against Taiwan to deter support for ‘Taiwan independence’. In the short run, we find that the signal sent by the targeted sanctions generated deterrence to firms that were not directly sanctioned, but were politically inclined towards ‘Taiwan independence’. Specifically, we find that those firms that donated more to the party that supports ‘Taiwan independence’, while investing in mainland China before the sanction, experienced a decrease in stock return. In terms of magnitude, for those firms entirely leaning towards ‘Taiwan independence’, their stock returns are expected to decrease by around 1.3–1.5 percentage points after the sanction events, which translates into a decrease in the overall market value of sampled firms by 0.305–0.604%. In the medium to long run, we find no evidence that firms affected by the deterrence of the sanction reduced their investment in mainland China as a behaviour response.

From Marine Culture to Ocean Literacy: Ocean Education as Taiwan's Nation‐Building Project

AbstractThis paper explores the difficulties related to the implementation of the ocean education policy in Taiwan, based on interviews. Viewing nationalism as an ethnic ideology, a primary objective of the Taiwan Independence Movement (TIM) is to establish an ethnic boundary between Taiwan's residents and the Chinese people on the mainland. One way in which the TIM is seeking to erect this boundary is to assert that Taiwan is a marine nation‐state, contrasting it with China as a continental state. Initially aimed at fostering marine consciousness and culture, Taiwan's ocean education policy later shifted toward improving ocean literacy. The government, which is aligned with the TIM, accepted this shift because its educational goals and approach can serve as a propaganda tool for demonstrating Taiwan's distinctiveness from China. In contrast, frontline educators must adapt ocean education's content to suit the local marine customs, and geographical and economic conditions, and so meet the educational requirements. A strict adherence to the national identification objectives within ocean education raises problems regarding policy implementation. By denying the existence of marine culture in Taiwan, Taiwan's ocean education policy has been assigned a utopian mission that is too radical to be achieved.

From China Lobby Activists to Blue Team Neoconservatives: The Evolution of the gop’s Views on Taiwan Since 1949

Abstract During the 1990s, American neoconservatives grew concerned over a burgeoning People’s Republic of China (prc) threatening the newly democratic government of Taiwan. They wanted the United States to bolster Taiwan’s standing in the international community, commit to defend the island, end strategic ambiguity, and prevent further entrenchment of the prc into international organizations. Some went as far as advocating for diplomatic recognition of Taiwan and Taiwanese independence. Neoconservatives frequently employed Wilsonian rhetoric to shore up support for Taiwan. Despite this liberal veneer, their foreign policy positions and thinking built on the approach of such groups as the China Lobby and New Right. This article’s analysis of neoconservative viewpoints on U.S. policy toward Taiwan shows how the neoconservatives in the United States evolved from earlier conservative positions, rather than injecting liberalism into gop foreign policy positions on Taiwan and the prc.

Options Outside Unification through Military Force

As there is no academic consensus on the effectiveness of the cross-strait integration policy, the panel study approach was adopted to present an empirical analysis. A scale to measure willingness for cross-strait integration was created based on the theory of ethnic group assimilation. Four hypotheses were derived from the social contact, social identity, and rational choice theories. The results show that cross-strait integration policy is effective. The Taiwanese students’ willingness for cross-strait integration had increased significantly after visiting Mainland China. Following their visit to the mainland, if the Taiwanese students had a better impression of China, lower perceived hostility, higher evaluation of the Chinese employment market, and weaker stand on Taiwanese independence, their willingness for cross-strait integration was considered to have increased. This study makes an academic contribution by presenting an accurate evaluation of the effects of the CPC’s Taiwan policy.

Who is Kan Bun-Kai? From the Taiwan Independence Movement in Japan to Popular Novelist in Japan

<p>簡文介是1956年在日本成立的臺獨運動組織「臺灣共和國臨時政府」的重要成員，在當代海外臺獨運動研究之中廣為人知。然而關於簡文介的詳細生平與具體活動資料卻極為缺乏。本研究從簡文介與邱永漢的關係、臺獨運動家身份下的活動、中國古代史小說作家「安能務」身份下的活動等三個面向，運用文獻考察、訪問調查相關人士的方法，勾勒出跨越戰前戰後，足跡往來於舊日本帝國各地的臺灣人簡文介其人生平的具體樣貌。本稿將指出，簡文介就是邱永漢小說〈偷渡者手記〉、〈香港〉主角的原型，脫離臺獨組織後以「安能務」為筆名寫小說重返日本，卻至死不曾揭露自己的真實身份；本稿將在日臺關係史的視野中分析其行動的意義。</p> <p> </p><p>Kan Bun-kai was a key member of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Taiwan, a Taiwan independence movement organization founded in Japan in 1956.And Kan Bun-kai is well known in contemporary overseas studies of the Taiwan independence movement. However, there is a dearth of information on the detailed life and activities of Kan Bun-kai. Using documents and interviews, This study will analyze three aspects of the relationship between Kan Bun-kai and Kyu Ei-kan, the Taiwan independence movement, and his activities as a writer "Ano Tsutomu", who hid his identity and worked as a writer.This study analyzes the life of Taiwanese and Kang before and after the war in Japan. This study analyzes the significance of his actions with an eye toward Japan-Taiwan relations.This study points out that Kan Bun-kai is the model for the main character in Kyu Ei-kan’s novels "Memoirs of illegal immigrant（偷渡者手記）" and "Hong Kong（香港）" and that Kan Bun-kai began his writing career under the pen name "Ano Tsutomu" after leaving the Taiwan independence movement.</p> <p> </p>

Interpret the political ideology of Taiwan independence as Beliefs in a State’s Human Ecosystem

Interpret the political ideology of Taiwan independence as Beliefs in a State’s Human Ecosystem

From “Unification” To “Independence”: The Change of Taiwan’s Authorities’ Positioning on Cross-Strait Relations under The Rise of Emerging Middle Class

After the Chinese Civil War, Taiwan went through a process of profound structural change in its economy towards industrialization, which was most characterized by the growing power of the middle class under an industrialized society, a power that in turn acted on Taiwanese society and pushed forward the process of democratization in Taiwan. Contrary to the booming economy of Taiwan, the international status of the region has been in tatters. After the Restoration of the lawful rights of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations, the Taiwan authorities have completely lost the international recognition of representing the whole of China, and the legitimacy of the martial law rule based on this has been gradually eroded. With the authoritarian rule in danger, the society of Taiwan is in urgent need of reforms. The emergence of a large and self-centered middle class became an important stimulus for Taiwan's democratic transition, and the 1980s saw the rise of social movements in Taiwan, with the idea of "Taiwan's independence" being raised more and more frequently in the course of exchanges with the Kuomintang (KMT) authorities. This paper will use stimulus-response theory to examine how the stimulus of the rise of the emerging middle class has affected the evolution of the Taiwan authorities' positioning of cross-strait relations from "unification" to "independence", and finally draw the conclusions of this paper.

Exploring ideological differences in Taiwanese perceptions of cross-strait relations

This is an exploratory research that seeks to investigate how ideology predicts Taiwanese perceptions of cross-strait relations, including attitudes toward Taiwan independence, perceptions of mainland China and Chinese people, Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and Chinese democracy. We took an inductive approach to left-right differences in Taiwan to offer a more systematic empirical understanding of ideology beyond the West. To do so, we conducted a nationally representative survey among adult Taiwan citizens (N = 1,350). Findings revealed that those who identified with the Left (vs. Right) tended to demonstrate more negative perceptions of cross-strait relations. Specifically, the political left is more negative about the outlook of Chinese democracy while favoring Taiwan independence, than the political right. Furthermore, the political left perceives both mainland China and the Chinese people more negatively than the political right. These findings underscore the role of ideology for a full comprehension of cross-strait relations, as they indicated a fundamental difference between the political left vs. right in terms of perceptions of cross-strait relations. The present research extends existing political psychology literature on ideology and international relations, particularly in the East Asian context.

When Independence Meets Reality: Symbolic and Pragmatic Politics in Taiwan

ABSTRACT In Taiwan, where relations with China define the major political cleavage, voters have distinct preferences on the issue of independence. Do Taiwanese favor a symbolic or pragmatic approach to the Taiwan independence issue? What are the factors that account for their political preferences? We identify two types of voters, symbolic and pragmatic, according to whether their preferences on independence are conditional or unconditional on China’s potential counter actions. Specifically, symbolic voters have unconditional preferences on independence, while pragmatic voters are more agreeable to independence under more favorable conditions. Using multiple wave data from the Taiwan National Security Surveys (TNSS 2002–2022), we investigate the individual- and macro-level factors and find that gender, age, education level, ethnicity, partisan strength, and economic growth rate shape the types of voters in Taiwan. This paper contributes to the study of political attitudes in Taiwan, and have important implications on the regional stability in East Asia.

Curriculum and national identity: Evidence from the 1997 curriculum reform in Taiwan

This paper examines the causal effects of textbook content on individuals’ national identity, by exploiting a curriculum reform that introduced a new perspective on Taiwan’s history for students entering junior high school after September 1997. Using a repeated nationally representative survey and a regression discontinuity design, we show that students exposed to the new textbooks were more likely to hold exclusive Taiwanese identity rather than dual identity (i.e. Taiwanese and Chinese). The effect was greater for academic track students and those living in neighborhoods where fewer people identify as Taiwanese. In addition, our results suggest that the new curriculum had little impact on people’s political preferences related to Taiwan independence. Finally, we find that the probability of reporting as Taiwanese among old textbook readers converges with that of people reading new textbooks in the long run since the perspectives of old textbooks are in conflict with the recent social trends.

Frontier in the Far East: George H. Kerr’s historical narrative of the Ryukyu Islands

George H. Kerr (1911–1992) is an American historian who authored Ryukyu: Kingdom and Province before 1945 (Kerr 1953a), the sole general history of theislands in English; he was also a Taiwan specialist in the military and government whose book won him the reputation as the ‘father of Taiwanese independence’ (Lu 2006). He rearranged fragmented memory and recorded it in such a way as to justify a separate people, the Ryukyuans or the Taiwanese, from the nation-state to which they may belong—Japan or China—so that the United States could strategically exploit their home islands. While mainly focusing on Kerr in the Ryukyus and unveiling the process of his writing, this paper offers a bridge to Kerr in Taiwan and addresses the question of a common interpretive framework underneath his historical narratives.
 
 Keywords: Cold War, historiography, politics of collective memory, Ryukyu (Okinawa), Taiwan (Formosa)

Signposts Signify Troubled Waters Ahead for Taiwan-U.S. Relations

The issue of Taiwan's independence and protection is reminiscent of Poland’s position in the late 1930s, facing unbridled aggression from Nazi Germany. Great Britain and France promised to declare war if Germany attacked Poland. However, after Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, neither Great Britain nor France deployed troops to Polish soil to rebuff the attack and restore Poland’s sovereignty. The promise of assistance was an empty promise that the Polish people paid dearly. History teaches us that an ambiguous assistance policy will not stop naked aggression. A firmer stance and a more transparent approach are warranted from a diplomatic standpoint. This article is an essay that sets forth and supports the premise that the United States should clarify and strengthen its position of support for Taiwanese independence.
 
 Preprint (November 18, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3939120

The Xi Jinping Regime’s Maneuvering against Taiwan: Characteristics and Prospects

This article summarizes the characteristics of the Xi Jinping regime’s policies toward Taiwan and analyzes how they have changed over the course of the reelection of President Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan, the outbreak of the Novel Coronavirus, and the change of administration in the United States. The first result of the analysis is that Xi Jinping’s policy toward Taiwan has increasingly relied on military power as a means to an end. In addition, its purpose and nature have evolved from warning against Taiwan independence and US-Taiwan cooperation to changing the status quo in the Taiwan Strait to his own advantage. Second, in non-military United Front operations toward Taiwan, Xi Jinping has focused on unilaterally promoting reunification as an established fact without being influenced by trends in Taiwanese politics or public opinion.

Explaining change in independence–unification views in Taiwan: a within-between model

ABSTRACT Independence–unification (IU) views have been profoundly influential in Taiwan politics. This study uses the rally ‘round the flag effect to explain the increase in support for Taiwan independence after President Tsai Ing-wen rejected China's ‘one country, two systems' proposal. Taking advantage of within-individual differences in panel data, we can estimate the probability of IU views given a set of certain characteristics compared with other values of those characteristics and ascertain the influence of change in variables such as approval of the president's handling cross-Strait relations at different time points. Our preliminary results show that Taiwanese people indeed change their IU views due to the external and domestic environment. People who perceive that the economy has improved and whose views on President Tsai have become more favorable tend to flock towards the independence side. People whose views of President Tsai’s handling of cross-Strait relations have become more favorable also move towards independence. If we only consider differences between individuals, feelings about the KMT and DPP stand out as significant predictors of IU views.

The Potentials and Occlusions of Zhonghua Minguo/Taiwan: In Search of a Left Nationalism in the Tsai Ing-wen Era

Abstract Tsai Ing-wen has consistently referred to the nation that she governs as 中華民國台灣 (The Republic of China Taiwan), the term representing a major rhetorical feature of her administration. Breaking from the exclusively Taiwan-centered discourse which traditionally defined DPP politics, Tsai has seemingly created an entirely new name for the state she governs. This article examines both the discursive potentials, but also the occlusions, of this newly coined neologism. It argues that the term is defined by a lack of materialist critique, in which essential questions regarding labor exploitation and private property regimes remain unaddressed. While Tsai has successfully combined the ROC’s old Cold War raison d'etre (Chinese humanism as anti-Communism) with the Taiwanese independence movement’s desire for global recognition through the nation-state form, what has been lost is any real commitment to a politics of working-class empowerment, which is reflected in the Tsai administration’s abandonment of progressive labor law reform in 2018, as well as increasing trade liberalization policies with the US introduced in 2020. Returning to the roots of Taiwanese socialist discourse, this article will examine the possibility that “ROC-Taiwan” as a political project could still have a socialist future, despite its markedly capitalist past and present.

What Exactly is it that the Taiwan Greens Want? Extracting “Taiwan Subjectivity” from the Liberty Times Newspaper

AbstractOne source of the idea that Taiwan independence would be politically desirable is belief in the concept of “Taiwan subjectivity,” which indicates that Taiwan is not an appendage of China but instead an autonomous actor charting its own course – or trying to do so in the face of huge difficulties. The ruling (since 2016) Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) pledges fealty to the goal of ultimately realizing subjectivity but cannot aggressively pursue the agenda because of opposition from the People's Republic of China (PRC), the United States, and some in Taiwan itself. What might that agenda be? Using a Structural Topic Model, we excavate the subjectivity discourse as it developed from 2008 to 2020 in the mainstream DPP-supporting newspaper, the Liberty Times. We find fourteen topics associated with the concept, the most prevalent of which in recent years warn of threats to subjectivity's realization in the political and sociocultural spheres.

Reactions to China-linked Fake News: Experimental Evidence from Taiwan

AbstractChina is accused of conducting disinformation campaigns on Taiwan's social media. Existing studies on foreign interventions in democratic societies predict that such disinformation campaigns should lead to increasing partisan polarization within Taiwan. We argue that a backlash effect, making Taiwan's citizens more united against China, is equally plausible. We conduct a survey experiment exposing participants to a real-life rumour and rebuttal to test these competing hypotheses. We find, at best, mixed evidence for polarization. Although neither rumour nor rebuttal mention China, there is consistent evidence of backlash against China. Most notably, participants across the political spectrum are more inclined to support Taiwanese independence after viewing the rumour rebuttal. These findings indicate that citizens may put aside partisanship when confronted with false news that is plausibly linked to an external actor. We conclude by discussing the broader applicability of our theory and implications for cross-Strait relations.

O legado colonial japonês e suas atuais implicações políticas no estreito de Taiwan

Although the majority of Taiwan’s population is descended from Chinese settlers who immigrated to the island between the 17th and 19th centuries, the Taiwanese independence movements refuse to accept unification with China, that since its founding in 1949 has claimed Taiwan as its own territory, and insist on designating Taiwan as a separate independent political entity from China. However, the existence of these independence movements is relatively new and begun in the mid-twentieth century, after the end of the fiftieth year of Japanese colonization in 1945. This article aims to analyse how the Japanese colonial and post-colonial experience played an important role in changing the perception of national identity in Taiwan, and currently is the main source of tension in relations with China. The article concludes that the fifty years of Japanese colonization and the violent Chinese repression in the post-war period were essential for the formation of a Taiwanese national identity distinct from the Chinese one and for the emergence of the Taiwanese independence movements.

Dividing without Conquering: Generation, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism in Taiwan’s 2016 Presidential Election

Based on the literature about the role of rising nationalism in recent world politics, this paper proposes a nationalism-oriented causal model to explain the voting choices of different social groups. With an interest-identity framework, this generic model is applied to Taiwan’s 2016 presidential election to examine whether and to what extent 11 causal mechanisms influence the voting choices of four groups defined by generation, class, and ethnicity. The findings not only reveal generational, class-based, and ethnic differences in Taiwanese voting behavior; they also show that the election was largely one of identity politics centered around the issues of national identity and democratic identification, making the “interest card” played by Beijing less effective in swaying voter choices. This explains why Beijing’s divide-and-conquer economic policy successfully divided Taiwanese voters but failed in the end to prevent the pro-independence candidate from winning the election. The findings also indicate that the economic concerns of voters promoted both their Taiwanese identity and support for Taiwan independence, while identification with Taiwan’s democracy contributed directly to the former and only indirectly to the latter. Overall, the model presents a more fine-grained analysis of nationalist politics and may be applied to the studies of other political behaviors involving nationalism.

Taiwan: Can a perfect storm be averted?

Tsai Ing-wen’s election as the leader of the Taiwan authorities in 2016 set off a series of negative interactions across the Taiwan Strait. Donald Trump’s election and his efforts to undermine the US “one-China policy” made things worse. While Taipei felt encouraged to challenge Beijing’s red line, Beijing believed it was necessary to exert even more pressure on Taipei. With greater capabilities and under increasing popular pressure, Beijing has taken a more proactive approach to address the perceived challenge of Taiwan independence. The process of vicious interactions between Taipei, Beijing, and Washington resembles the forming of a perfect storm. This paper reviews how this three-way interaction evolved over time, identifies the major factors shaping this situation, and speculates on future developments by analyzing the major factors involved. It argues that while a perfect storm is indeed taking shape, it is still possible to avert it. For this to happen, however, the three sides need to take a rational and pragmatic approach to managing their demands and desires.