Two awards for contribution to the study of Sinology were announced on Monday.
The first was for British art historian Jessica Rawson, named this year’s winner of the Tang Prize in Sinology. The Tang Prize was established in 2012 by Taiwanese entrepreneur Samuel Yin (尹衍樑).
The second was for Slovenian Sinologist Jana Rosker, who won the Taiwan-France Cultural Award — established by the Ministry of Culture and the Institut de France’s Academy of Moral and Political Sciences — for her work introducing Taiwanese philosophy to Europe. Rosker said that Taiwan has integrated Western philosophy and Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism into a “unique” philosophy that keeps Chinese culture and philosophy alive.
Observers unaware of Taiwan’s past might wonder why a Taiwanese entrepreneur and Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture were recognizing contributions to Sinology, the study of all things Chinese. Does Taiwan not have its own distinct culture worth celebrating?
When tourists come to Taiwan, they will probably visit the National Palace Museum (NPM), home to the imperial collection of China and brought to Taiwan by the Chinese National Party (KMT) government fleeing the Chinese communists after World War II.
To experience local religious culture, they might visit temples or join a Matsu pilgrimage, both of which are Chinese in origin.
Taiwan’s renowned tea culture is a combination of Chinese and Japanese tea traditions, introduced to Taiwan over time, starting three centuries ago with the arrival of Chinese immigrants and merchants.
Tourists might also visit Yingge (鶯歌) to buy ceramics. Many of the potters originally came from China following the KMT in exile, having learned their craft and their techniques in various regions of China, and training the next generation of potters in Taiwan.
Painted ceramics produced in Yingge until China opened up its markets in the late 1980s were in many cases imitation Chinese imperial wares for export.
The presence in Taiwan of the NPM collection is a direct result of the war and the KMT’s exile. Matsu culture evolved over time; tea culture, too, comes from a more long-standing evolution, with hodgepodge collections of treasured tea-related paraphernalia gradually accumulated by merchants and recent immigrants, an example of a distinctly Taiwanese bent on an essentially imported culture. The aftermath of the war and the immigration of skilled potters simply sped up a process that had been evolving naturally.
There is nothing unusual about a nation absorbing elements of other cultures, fertilizing cultural hybridization over time. However, Taiwan’s fragmented and complicated colonial past has meant that culture has been forced upon the local populace for ideological reasons, and all but eradicated the traditional culture of the indigenous communities that existed in Taiwan for millennia prior to successive waves of immigration from China.
This happened with the Kominka movement (皇民化運動) of assimilation during the Japanese colonial period and the de-Japanization and Sinicization of Taiwan under the KMT, which not only wanted to transplant Chinese culture and identity on Taiwan, but also to forge identification with and loyalty to the Republic of China (ROC).
The Sinicization gave Taiwan a legitimate claim to be the world’s representative of traditional Chinese culture and therefore an important tool for developing soft power that the KMT and the pro-localization Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have used for their own benefit.
Taiwan does, of course, have its own culture, but a distinct culture requires time and space to evolve. Taiwanese writers and artists have expressed their lived experiences through their works, but past KMT governments had a vested interest in suppressing those elements and emphasizing traditional Chinese culture.
Pro-localization means allowing Taiwanese to evolve their own culture, unconstrained by ideological demands, while simultaneously interpreting absorbed Chinese cultural elements such as tea, ceramics, art and philosophy.
The global chip shortage last year caused an unprecedented supply-chain crisis, affecting many key industries, including the auto industry. Europe, Japan and the US began to realize the indispensability and ubiquitous dominance of Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing industry. At the same time, amid the US-China trade war, Beijing’s military aggressions against Taiwan became increasingly blatant and provocative. In light of these developments, Europe, Japan and the US are formulating new policies to rebuild their domestic semiconductor manufacturing base, so as to mitigate the enormous geopolitical and economic risks involved. Last year, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) commanded 56 percent of the global
An April circular by the Chinese Ministry of Education on student admission criteria at Tibetan universities has been harrowing and discriminating to say the least. The circular said that prospective students must state their “political attitude and ideological morality” to be considered for admission. It also said that students should not be involved in religious movements and students who are proficient in Marxist theory should be preferred. Since Beijing started occupying Tibet, it has meticulously introduced policies to dismantle the Tibetan education system, which is closely tied to its rich monastic tradition, and has even pulled students from Afghanistan and eastern
Opinion polls show that Taiwan’s judicial system and law enforcement “enjoy” low approval ratings among Taiwanese. In spite of data showing low crime rates, many Taiwanese drivers have faced aggressive driving, unprovoked road rage, road blocking and unmotivated police officers. Some criminals seem to consider themselves above the law, which is not completely wrong. Reports about so-called “road blocking” can be found in newspapers or on YouTube. An example of this is when “road rowdies” block a vehicle on a road, get out of their vehicle and start to attack the occupants of the blocked vehicle — often attacking in a
When I was teaching in Lesotho in southern Africa during the 1980s, I taught a class on comparative foreign policy. The course included trips to the US embassy, the Soviet embassy, the British embassy and the newly established Chinese embassy. The students could ask the ambassadors and staff questions about foreign policy, and would then write a report as their final term paper. The Chinese ambassador felt that the US-style education I delivered was unique and invited me to go to China to teach. At the time, China was planning to open up to the world, and it needed professors versed
RSS