The arrival of the democratic era: contested sovereignty, Taiwanization, de-Sinicization and Westernization

Under the KMT's structure, Taiwanese became a regional identity. However, ever since the development of political localization and democratization in the 1970s, the dispute between different national identities - Taiwanese and Chinese – has continued to be an ongoing political argument in Taiwan, which will be illustrated in this section. Aside from the contentions of national identity, economic developments involving Westernization have also influenced the shaping of a cultural identity in Taiwan. The changes of politics and in the economy created a sandwich-type situation of Taiwanization, de-Sinicization and the Westernization of the national and cultural identity, which will be discussed further in this section.

As well as trying to Sinicize people in Taiwan, the KMT regime also attempted to declare its legitimacy as the representative of China. This representation existed in the context of the cold war, when the KMT was the recipient of US aid. In this context, the meaning of the anti-communism stance of the KMT regime not only represented its will to fight to be a legitimate representative of China, but also paradoxically reflected how it accepted the living standards and cultural values of the US, which will be highlighted further in Section 4.2.4. However, the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 of October 25, 1971, declared that only the delegation of the PRC would be allowed to represent China. In other words, with the PRC not in charge, China was no longer represented in the United Nations (Wang, 1989: 333).

As the KMT government ceased to represent China in the UN, growing numbers of young students were beginning to be concerned about social and political issues. Many criticized the authoritarianism of the KMT and demanded immediate reforms, believing the government would otherwise be unable to survive (Zhang, 1971: 18). A small group of democracy activists who dubbed themselves the 'party outsiders' advanced on local assemblies and the national parliament. Hong San-Syong, a student of the National Taiwan University, advocated that students should require their universities to be reformed first, believing that society would follow. This kind of desire for social change often stimulates the genesis of a new social atmosphere (Hong, 1973: 135). Due to

the diplomatic crisis and the growing discontent based on the unequal distribution of political and cultural power between the waishengren and benshengren, not only had the KMT government lost its international legitimacy, but its signification campaigns were also proving to no longer be capable of reaching the people of Taiwan.

In order to retrieve the public confidence lost through rampant emigration and capital outflow, the premier, Chiang Ching-Kuo²⁷, launched 10 major construction projects to upgrade the country's industry and improve general development. The construction began in 1974 and was completed by 1979. When confronted by critics and dissidents, Chiang Ching-Kuo became more open and tolerant of political dissent. There were many young professionals being trained and nurtured by his programs in the 1970s, many of them Taiwan-born citizens. When Chiang Ching-Kuo became premier in 1972, he increased the number of Taiwan-born officers in his ministry from three to seven, and these new employees were younger than their predecessors. He also chose to introduce additional members to the executive court²⁸, and began to appoint those belonging to local elite groups to important party and government posts in order to strengthen his local base.

Many Mandarin-speaking, educated Taiwanese began to appear in the middle-classes.

Accordingly, growing numbers of Taiwanese outside the KMT began to demand the full civil and political rights enjoyed by the waishengren elite. Reformers called for the government to accept the political reality that it was merely the government of Taiwan and was no longer capable of representing China. The Taiwanese sociologist Xiao A-Qin describes the 1970s generation as a 'back-to-reality' generation; these people made sense of the situation and the modern Chinese nationalism of the time and promoted a sense of duty to the country along with other members of their generation. They also attacked the prevailing mentality of isolation and advocated pragmatic ideas and socio-political reforms (Xiao, 2005: 3).

The late 1970s and early 1980s were a tumultuous time within Taiwanese politics. As mentioned previously, the KMT government's migration to Taiwan had marked the beginning of a period of martial law (1949-1987). The KMT enforced press censorship, proscribed new political parties and restricted freedoms of speech, publication, assembly and association. At the same time, the country's economy began to flourish, which allowed many Taiwanese to become members of the new middle class. Free enterprise enabled people to acquire a powerful bargaining chip in their demand for respect for basic human rights. In fact, the notion of rebellion against authoritarianism gradually began to surface and then to intensify. In December 1979, a rally in Kaohsiung organized by Formosa magazine commemorated International Human Rights Day. However, this event became a terrible conflict between demonstrators and the military police. The incident came to be known as the Kaohsiung (or Formosa) Incident. Many dissenters were arrested and condemned to long prison terms. Nevertheless, the Kaohsiung Incident was considered to be a significant turning-point for democracy in Taiwan, as it awakened the consciousness of anti-authoritarianism among the

27 Chiang Kai-Shek's son, Chiang Ching-Kuo, succeeded his father as premier of the Republic of China, holding this position from 1972 to 1978, and then the presidency from 1978 to 1988.　

28 The executive court is the executive branch of the government of Taiwan. It is headed by a president, and has eight cabinet ministers, various chairpersons of commissions, and between five and seven ministers without portfolio as its members.　

general public. After this event, numerous movements began to emerge to protest against autocracy.

The democratic movement reached a high point in the mid 1980s, and a request to lift martial law was approved by the general populace (Chen, 2007: 168). The first opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), was founded in Taiwan in 1986. Finally, in 1987, martial law was lifted by President Chiang Ching-Kuo, who liberalized the political and social systems, and even appointed Lee Teng-Hui, a native Taiwanese technocrat, to be his vice-president. In 1988, after Chiang died, Lee succeeded him as president and a new epoch dawned.

These socio-political reforms induced a cultural movement towards Taiwanization. This movement began to emphasize a Taiwan-centered view of history and culture rather than a China-centered version thereof. The Taiwanese cultural elite promoted the development of nativist literature and culture. Beginning in the 1970s, many novelists wrote stories based on labourers, farmers and the daily lives of common people in order to capture their experiences and illustrate social transformation. The novelist Huang Chun-Ming²⁹, for instance, wrote novels that focused on describing the lives of rural Taiwanese people, and the characters in his books were mostly native Taiwanese fishermen and villagers. His stories are full of neighbourhood temples and references to folk religion under a blazing tropical sun. Many of these stories illustrate the tragic, humorous and genuine lives of ordinary Taiwanese people. Nativist literature gradually grew to become mainstream Taiwanese literature in the 1970s (Lu, 1990: 34). An unprecedented awakened Taiwanese identity and concern for society began to take shape (Lin, 1987: 239). The KMT's China-centered cultural policies were repeatedly challenged, with movements crafting new national-historical narratives that placed the island of Taiwan at the centre of the nation's history.

As mentioned previously, favouring the Chinese or Taiwanese national identity had become a matter of dispute that had been argued by different groups in Taiwan since the late 1980s. Not all supporters of a Taiwanese national identity advocated for the country to be an independent nation-state. However, the movement towards Taiwanization led to Chineseness being downplayed to a certain degree. Before 1992, 52％ of the population in Taiwan considered themselves to be Chinese, while 26 ％ regarded themselves as both Chinese and Taiwanese, and 55 ％ tended to see the unification of Taiwan with China. By 1996, the percentage of the general public in Taiwan who considered themselves to be Chinese had fallen to 21 ％ , with the political elites who regarded themselves as Taiwanese making up nearly 60％ of the population by this time (Lin, 2002: 93).

Lee Teng-Hui was the key actor promoting Taiwanese nationalism. After he became the president of Taiwan and the chairman of the KMT, he sidelined some waishengren in the KMT party and began the Taiwanization process. This caused these sidelined waishengren politicians to split from the KMT and, in 1993, form the Chinese New Party (CNP), beginning an ideological battle between a Taiwanese and Chinese national identity. This national identity clash reflected the party support of Taiwanese voters. Before 2000, those with stronger Taiwanese identities were more likely to vote for the DPP, while those who considered themselves to be Chinese were more likely to vote for the KMT or CNP (Wu, 1993). After 2000, these national identities were further polarized into two political factions. Today, these are the pan-blue and the pan-green coalitions. The plan-blue

29 Huang Chun-Ming, who was born in Taiwan in 1939, is an influential Taiwanese literary figure and teacher. He was also hailed as a representative of the nativist literature movement.　

coalition believes in a pro-Chinese identity and includes the KMT and the New Party, while the pan-green coalition includes the DPP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU)³⁰.

Although political democratization and localization led to the rise of a Taiwanese national identity, the influence of Westernization in terms of cultural control in Taiwan should not be overlooked. The impact of Westernization has been felt in Taiwan since the KMT received US aid in the 1950s. Then, a consumer society formed in the 1970s, while economic developments and liberalization in the 1980s also enhanced the impact of Westernization in the country. As a result of the KMT's retreat to Taiwan, the island was faced with a lack of goods and materials, the economy was in recession, and inflation was high. The US Congress passed the Mutual Security Act in 1951 to provide a legal basis for extending aid to Taiwan. Under this legislation, the US government provided military supplies which played an indispensable role in Taiwan's economic recovery. US aid helped the KMT to establish certain valuable institutions and practices of good government (Ngo and Chen, 2008: 24). The intimate cooperation between the KMT and US governments during the cold war led to the pursuit of Western living standards and cultural values, and this will be examined in more detail in Chapter 4.

The US began to cut back its aid in the 1970s, and the uncertainty about its commitment accelerated Taiwan's economic shift from subsidized import-substitution in the 1950s to export-led growth. Development moved from cheap, labour-intensive manufacturing to an expansion of heavy industry in the 1970s. By maintaining exceptionally high growth rates and rapid industrialization between the 1960s and 1990s, Taiwan was named one of the Four Asian Tigers³¹. Unsurprisingly, this economic development helped in the formation of a consumer society. According to an analysis by the Taiwanese scholar Chen Guang-Xing (2002), opportunities for Taiwan's consumer society emerged during the oil crisis of the early 1970s, where the contraction of international markets caused a drastic decline in exports. Manufacturers then turned to the domestic market, and the resulting economic development produced new business opportunities. Statistics show that the average expenditure on entertainment, culture and education quadrupled for each household every month in the 1970s, and a consumer society began to take shape. The 1980s were a period of expansion for this consumer society; consumption grew exponentially with the flourishing economy.

During this time, the national income increased, living standards improved and travelling abroad was permitted. More international brands and products were imported to and introduced in Taiwan.

The liberalization of markets in the country brought more influence from the West into society.

Moreover, in 2002, Taiwan became one of the members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which spurred further economic liberalization, as will be highlighted in later chapters.

30 The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) is a political party that was established in 2001. The party advocates independence for Taiwan.　

31 The term 'Four Asian Tigers' refers to the highly industrialized economies of Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore.