Democratic Progressive Party Chairman Yu Shyi-kun recently coined the term Chinese Taiwanese, to describe himself and others in Taiwan. In addition, Insight City Guide: Taipei, a tour book published by a German company in May, but partially sponsored by the Taipei City Government, claimed that the term "Taiwanese" made some Mainlanders feel uncomfortable.
These incidents stirred up a lot of opposition. It is clear that identity is important to people in Taiwan in terms of both political gains and self worth. Samuel Huntington of Harvard University summarized in his 2004 book Who Are We? that there are six primary sources of identity: one, Ascriptive, Cultural, Territorial, Political, Economic and Social.
Moreover, in 2004 Melissa Brown of Stanford University described in her book Is Taiwan Chinese? The impact of Culture, Power, and Migration on Changing Identities that several assumptions and concepts about Han (
One, Han ethnic identity is linked to Chinese national identity.
Two, Chinese national identity is linked to Han culture.
Three, Chinese national identity has a clear border, and a person or a group is located on one side or the other. This border separates Chinese from non-Chinese, Han from non-Han. All of these assumptions and concepts, some derived from Confucian "culturalist" principles, have serious problems in "stamping" others' identity. However, based on her excellent field work in Taiwan and in China, Brown theorized and successfully demonstrated that the following points were true:
One, identity is based on social experience, not cultural ideas or ancestry. Two, cultural meanings and social power constitute two distinct -- though interacting -- systems that affect human behavior and societies differently. Three, demographic forces such as migration affect human behavior and society in other ways.
I am an active board member in the St. Louis chapters of both the Taiwanese Association of America and the North America Taiwanese Engineers' Association. In these organizations, we call ourselves Taiwanese and Taiwanese Americans.
However, because of this, the organizations and its members were often labeled by Chinese Americans as "Taiwan Independence groups" and "exclusive."
They sometimes prescribe a remedy that asks us to be "inclusive." This kind of characterization is not only overly simplistic, but also mean-spirited. The root cause I think for this mischaracterization is their premeditated bias and agenda.
The term "Chinese" in English means "Zhongguo ren (
However, the meaning of "Zhongguo ren (
But, on the other hand, I often wonder what the problems are for those who were born in Taiwan, grew up in Taiwan and were educated in Taiwan that make them so fearful or uncomfortable to be identified as Taiwanese or Taiwanese Americans?
Instead, they are most comfortable calling themselves and others "Zhongguo ren" -- people of China, a country that is authoritarian, barbaric and most of all, extremely hostile to Taiwan.
Most ironic of all, when others want to be called Taiwanese or Taiwanese Americans, they are now labeled as "exclusive."
They should learn to be "inclusive." It is sad and pitiful. I maintain that striving for a de jure independent Taiwan and inclusiveness are not at all mutually exclusive.
Donald Shengduen Shih is a materials scientist at the Boeing Company.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017