Taiwan's nationalistic politics and its difficult 'status quo'

Abstract

Taiwan's growing calls for independence have provoked China and heightened the risk of military conflict in the region. This paper addresses two issues: first, it seeks to provide a short historical overview of the development of Taiwanese nationalistic self-assertion; second, it questions the commonly held notion of keeping the 'status quo', which is in effect always changing and dynamic. The paper uses a historical-institutional framework for its interpretation. It explores the origin and rise of Taiwanese nationalism in its relationship to Taiwan's past, and the changing geo-political contexts in which it is situated. It then analyses the importance of electoral institutions and the struggles to broaden political participation and legitimation. Several disparate sources of Taiwanese identity are also discussed, namely: (i) Taiwan as a frontier territory of the Manchu Empire, which was later colonized and modernized by the Japanese; (ii) unification with the Republic of China under authoritarian rule since 1945; and (iii) the transformation of the ROC regime, its indigenization and grounding in Taiwan in the context of its long separation from China and its international isolation. This indigenization process has been gradually accomplished through electoral struggles and by revising the electoral system and the constitution.