And Taiwan wasn’t one of those regions. From 1894-1945, Taiwan was part of Japan, and probably still would be, had Japan not lost the war. The Chinese didn’t take the island from the Dutch until Koxinga took it in 1662, and his son ruled it pretty much independently for the next 20 years. It didn’t really become part of China until the 1680s. China has this tendency to consider every place the Chinese ever governed or administrated fundamentally part of China; Taiwan, Tibet, Mongolia, both Inner and Outer, Manchuria, Tanna Tuva, Arunachal Pradesh, etc.
A lot of truth in what you say. Technically, I believe Koxinga, usually referred to as a 'pirate" who conquered Taiwan, would have been seen, in 17th-18th century Western terms, as a privateer for the beleaguered Ming dynasty. Remember that it was at this point that the Manchus were overthrowing the Mings. Taiwan really was a part of China only from about 1687 until 1894, when China lost it to Japan, and for a year or two after WWII. when it was returned to the KMT.
Yes, but let’s remember that that “only” refers to a period of a little over 200 years, only about a quarter century less than the entire history of the United States ;).
We were pretty touchy when South Carolina tried it. And as that example showed, if one state leaves then others want to try it.
True, but South Carolina hadn’t been de facto independent for the past 60 years. For all intents and purposes, Taiwan already is independent. China just doesn’t want to accept it, Taiwan is too afraid of a Chinese invasion to declare it and the rest of the world is too afraid of upsetting China and cutting off trade to recognize it.
Taiwan may not always have been governed from Beijing, but it is part of China in an ethnocultural sense, that is, the majority of its people are Han-Chinese and have been for centuries. The non-Han aborigines make up only 2% of the population.
Not to disagree – I don’t have the facts either, but my impression is that Han peoples (largely Cantonese and Hakka, IIRC) were settled there in a colonization effort during relatively modern (i.e., since the Renaissance) times, and that the Austronesian aboriginals were the majority ethnic group before then. This may be something I “learned” that is not factual, though.
Fujianese, not Cantonese. Otherwise, that is correct. Also, **BG **should keep in mind that Mandarin wasn’t spoken much on Taiwan until the Nationalists (largely Mandarin speakers) arrived when they fled the mainland.
It still isn’t spoken much as a first language. Most Taiwanese speak Hoklo or Hakka, and most of the people who identify themselves as Hoklo or Hakka. What’s more, most of the people who identify themselves as Hoklo have some aborigine ancestors, and a lot of the Hakka speakers are ethnic aborigines who assimilated, took Han Chinese names and started speaking Chinese languages.
Not my experience. Most people in Taiwan, when I was traveling there regularly about 10 years ago, spoke Mandarin, even if it was not the “street language”. My business associates also told me that school instruction was mostly in Mandarin. Not sure if that has changed in the last decade or so…
Taiwanese-American here. John Mace is correct on all counts.
Mandarin is indeed the street language there although you’ll find pockets of people from the older generation who will only speak Taiwanese and Japanese. In the last 10 years or so, there is a resurgence in Taiwanese and aboriginal pride and you’ll hear Mandarin, Taiwanese, and English on the MRT (the metro in Taipei) announcements. From what my dad told me, the preponderance of Mandarin is due to the policies of the KMT after the 1950’s. Kids who didn’t speak Mandarin in class were often corporally punished.
From my understanding, the makeup of the Taiwanese people is pretty mixed, or at least, they would consider more subgroups than a foreigner might see initially. There are the Nationalists, who are the Han Chinese who came with Chiang Kai-Shek after WWII. Then there are the Taiwanese who have lived in Taiwan since the 1600-1700’s. They’re mostly comprised of Fujianese and some enclaves of Hakka. The ethnic Fujianese are the ones who speak Taiwanese while the ethnic Hakka speak Hoklo/Hakka. Further complicating things linguistically is that Taiwanese, while similar to the Fujian dialect, it also includes many borrowed Japanese words as well as the standard language drift. I have heard from people who visited the Fujian province that people who know Taiwanese can be understood by the locals. Hakka as a dialect also has 6 subdialects. This is all without taking the Aboriginals (now a small percent of the total population) and their cultural customs and language into account.
My family is ethnically Fujianese and as such, my sister and I were brought up with both Taiwanese and Mandarin. I have relatives however, who insist on speaking only Taiwanese at home as a political statement. There’s a real political divide between those who speak only Mandarin (the Mainlanders) and those who also speak Taiwanese, and I think in political debates about the future of Taiwan, you’ll find that the wishes of the ethnic Taiwanese (those here before the KMT) are often elided. Because of the brutal KMT policies towards the ethnic Taiwanese during the 1950’s through the 1960’s, they don’t have much love for mainland China or whoever claims to rule it. Their politics align with the currently out of power Green party who does not offer any pretense of being the true leader of China, but instead, wish that Taiwan was an independent country.
From hearing my parents and other ethnic Taiwanese talk, they acknowledge that with the direction things are going right now, eventual unification might be inevitable in 25-50 years due to the co-mingling of commerce, but they sure aren’t happy about that.
Your little pun wasn’t wasted. I rather enjoyed it.
I can offer some perspective on Mainland China’s view, at least my interpretation of it…
First off, Chinese politics and Western politics are not the same and do not have the same goals. In China, national pride is of primary importance when it comes to international relations. China desperately wants to be seen as powerful country. And they think that any slight to their pride will get in the way of that. And time and time again they fail to realize that occasionally acknowledging you are not perfect may in the end lead to more prestige.
Chinese students are taught that China is the superior civilization. They are the oldest, most sophisticated, most refined, most artistic, most advanced civilization on this earth and always have been. When student learn about the Roman Empire, for example, they learn about it in the context of Chinese history (and how the Roman Empire was inferior to Chinese cultures of that time.)
But then came China’s “period of humiliation”, when barbaric foreigners of all kinds barged in and made them look stupid (according to them.)
Now, Chinese people believe they are on their way to regaining their rightful place as “number one nation”, even if few people have any concept of what that might mean. They just know that is what they want. But Taiwan remains as a reminder of their “period of humiliation.” Because it is all so absolute, China feels like they cannot let this remain. They MUST regain Taiwan in order to restore their national pride. Anything less would be a slight to Chinese civilization as a whole.
And you must understand, these feelings are deeply personal. Many ordinary Chinese people feel deeply personally slighted. They don’t understand why Taiwan doesn’t want to rejoin the greatest culture on earth. They feel like they are being personally insulted. People get into tears about this. People don’t think about it in terms of economics, politics and diplomacy. They think of it in family terms. And so they think Taiwan is still rejecting and insulting them, just like they were rejected and insulted in the past few centuries.
Here is the web site for the Legislative Yuan. I don’t see any representation purporting to be for areas on the mainland.
Thanks for the incredibly enlightening posts, JohnMace, TheTerribleTako, and even sven.
It’s a bit worrying that the PRC almost appear to be taking the GLaDOS approach to
Diplomacy wrt Taiwan, though.
“Oh, so you want to declare independence? WELL I WON’T LET YOU! How does that feel?” I’m surprised they haven’t tried Companion Cubes as some sort of deal sweetener.
Still, an interesting insight into why the odd situation persists!
damn, ate my post. Hope Koxinga and other taiwan based posters join in.
Re: elected legislators. Long story short, legislators elected in China in 1947 were kept in place after fleeing to Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek (CKS) used these duly elected representatives in Mainland China to help justify his rule. They were to hold new elections whenever they retook the Mainland. When I lived in Taiwan in the 1980’s, you would see dozens of these electors being wheeled in on key votes in their hospital beds and accompanied by doctors.
Here’s the Wiki version: The current Constitution of the Republic of China came into effect on December 25, 1947 and the first Legislative session convened in Nanking on May 18, 1948 with 760 members. The first Legislative Yuan was to have been elected for a term of three years ending in 1951; however, the fall of the Mainland made it impossible to hold new elections. As a result, the Judicial Yuan decided that the members of the Legislative Yuan would continue to hold office until new elections could be held on the Mainland. In effect, these legislators (and members of the ruling KMT) held their seats for life, in a one-party system.
The Republic of China also still claims Outer Mongolia. Here’s a wikipedia link
I recall reading something to the effect that they were actively maintaining that claim too, opening an embassy or KMT office or something there too…
I saw a cite for a KMT “trade” office a few years ago. KMT Trade Offices in HK at least act as defacto embassies and do things like issue visas and other stuff. Dunno if that’s the case for Mongolia but it probably could be.
Fun fact, the nonChinese head of state language prize go’s to the Mongolia president followed by the Australian PM.