Taiwan History - A Constructed and Imagined Past

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1. The rule of the Kuomintang and the view of Chinese history

Before the 1980s, the narrative of Taiwan's history generally revolved around the following two aspects:

• Politically, the Kuomintang claimed that in contrast to the Communist Party, the Three Principles of the People were based on political concepts based on Chinese cultural traditions, rather than the non-Chinese theories of Western communism that the Communist Party applied.
• Culturally, the New Culture Movement advocated by the government of the Republic of China in 1966 claimed that the Republic of China was the successor of orthodox Chinese culture, in order to fight against the "Cultural Revolution" in China at that time.

The national discourse of the Kuomintang is to place Taiwan in the context of Chinese history as part of a future unification of China. Such ideological discourse also reflected the choice of sides by the extreme camps of the United States and the Soviet Union under the international situation at that time.

With the impact of local consciousness and diplomatic setbacks in the 1970s, in response to the fierce non-Party movement and the development of local consciousness. The Kuomintang authorities immediately launched measures to revive China's consciousness. Through the publication of a series of publications, such as "China's Taiwan", "Taiwan's Roots", etc., denounced the consciousness of "separatism".

Through the implementation of the National Language Movement and the control of the education system, the Kuomintang was able to consolidate and publicize Chinese historical views through these means.

As for the study of Taiwan history, under the pressure of the regime, the study of Taiwan history was marginalized, regarded as a subfield of Chinese history studies and ignored. The research on Taiwan history was dubbed "separatism", and from the 1950s to the 1980s, serious faults were formed in research.

In the 1980s, Chen Qinan's discussion of the "indigenousization" of Taiwanese ethnic groups (an exceptional research approach at the time) contrasted with Li Guoqi's "inlandization" . The former believes that the Han ethnic groups in Taiwan tended to fight with each other during the Qing Dynasty, but with the passage of time, the groups were gradually no longer distinguished by ancestral origin or blood, and more emphasis was placed on the division of ethnic groups in the region of Taiwan, which they regarded as "Indigenous". The latter believes that through the official governance of the Qing Dynasty, the tendency of Taiwan's "inlandization" has gradually increased, and traditional culture has also penetrated into Taiwan's main island at this time, so it has been able to have more connections with China, which is called "inlandization". . The discourses of the two parties can be seen from different positions and historical views.

2. The Development of Taiwan History and Taiwan Nationalism

After the February 28 Incident, overseas Chinese who were anti-KMT began to write narratives about Taiwan's history, including Shi Ming's "The Four Hundred Years of Taiwanese History" and Su Xin's "Angry Taiwan". The exclusion of the regime and the oppressed and oppressed Taiwanese national identity, etc.

After the Beautiful Island incident , "Taiwan's view of history" gradually became a topic of public discussion. In the first half of the 1980s, both "Taiwan consciousness" and "China consciousness" were at the heart of the ideological debate, and a discussion of historical discourse took place. Both sides used the other's ignorance of "Taiwan history" as a means of attack (in response to the fault in Taiwan history research mentioned in the previous article), and the construction of Taiwan history was also politicized at this time.

Based on the historical data of Japanese colonization , non-Party people tried to reconstruct the historical narrative of Taiwan, and achieved the legitimacy and action lessons of non-Party political movements by re-examining the past. Although the anti-Japanese movement ended in failure, Taiwanese gradually developed a special self-identity in the process, and due to Japan's modernization drive, the original ethnic boundaries were gradually erased, and the concept of "motherland" also changed. In other words, Japanese colonization became the nutrient for political movements and self-identification under the historical narrative of outsiders.

In order to counter the authorities' "Chinese view of history", the Party outsiders included the aborigines in the "Taiwan view of history ". While reflecting on being a descendant of the Han nationality, they also criticized the "Chinese view of history" in which China owns the "existing" of Taiwan. The narrative believes that the aborigines are the original masters of Taiwan. It further challenges the narrative of pure Han people, arguing that Taiwanese are no longer a purely Han society, and that Han people have gained a foothold in Taiwan through assimilation of the Pingpu people. Emphasizing the identity of the aborigines and challenging the "Chinese view of history" from a more "local" perspective.

Suffering and resistance can be said to be the nature of the Taiwanese nation constructed outside the Party. In literature, the authors of the two publications "Li" and "Taiwan Literature and Art", influenced by the non-Party movement, began to construct anti-KMT literature and historical discourses, making Taiwanese literature more localized . Academically, with the liberalization of politics, the study of Taiwanese nationalism began to rise. Influenced by the ideology of non-Party and Taiwan independence, Taiwan history research has merged with it. In Zheng Qinren 's article "Review of Taiwan History Research and Historical Consciousness", he listed a number of directions and categories of Taiwan history research, and presented the prototype of "Taiwan History View". Its views are as follows:

1. Interpret Taiwan history from the perspective of world history, not from the perspective of Chinese history.
2. The abandonment of the political view of history advocates the historical staging based on subjectivity.
3. Pay attention to the value of Taiwanese humanities.
4. Historical research in the past has been too centralized, thereby ignoring the importance of place.
5. Separating the monistic narrative of Taiwan and China, Taiwan and China have different national identities due to different geographical factors.

The research on Taiwan history is then reinterpreted from the perspective of "bottom-up" , and the historical interpretation is based on the subjectivity of Taiwan as the narrative basis. Professor Chen Fangming also incorporates Taiwan's subjectivity into his historical discourse, and believes that through the construction and development of Taiwan's subjectivity, the existing discourses in the past can be broken.

The revival movement of the Pingpu people was also in full swing in the second half of the 1980s. Some Hakka people or Holocaust people began to identify with their former Pingpu identity. At the same time, with the popularization of concepts such as "four ethnic groups" and "community of destiny", the discussion of the Pingpu people gradually merged into the narrative of Taiwan's historical view. Under such a narrative, the establishment of Taiwan's view of history revolves around both "ethnic diversity" and "bottom-up", thus opposing the narrative form of China's view of history.

In addition to incorporating the aborigines into Taiwan's historical narrative, the re-excavation of the February 28 Incident has also become an important political event in the establishment of Taiwan's historical outlook. For forty years since the February 28 incident, this incident has been a taboo topic. It was not until the second half of the 1980s that the ban was "lifted" after the "228 Peace Promotion Association". People outside the party demanded that the Kuomintang take responsibility, and the Kuomintang responded with a conservative attitude. As the opposition grew louder and louder, the Kuomintang set up a special team to investigate in 1991.

For historians who support Taiwan's independence, the February 28 Incident reflects the category of "oppression and the oppressed" in Taiwan's nationality. At the same time, they begin to cite oral history and the way of visiting the fields, the "bottom-up" form. Under the collective memory of the "national trauma" that shaped Taiwanese, Taiwan's historical view can be discussed with a clear focus.

3. Conclusion

Since Formosa, the political action aroused by the non-Party movement has spread like ripples to every corner of Taiwanese society. The establishment of Taiwan's view of history can be said to be a part of the non-Party movement, and it can also be regarded as two aspects that complement each other. The narrative of Taiwan's historical outlook includes forms such as "oppression-resistance", "ethnic diversity", and "bottom-up", and re-calls and recalls the past such as "Japanese colonization", "228 Incident", and "aboriginal people". restate. However, under such historical discourse, the relevant memory in the Chinese view of history has not disappeared. Events such as the World War, the Civil War between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party are still the discourse category of Chinese consciousness, and they also exist in Taiwanese society and form a confrontation with the Taiwanese view of history. field. Secondly, with ethnic diversity as the core discourse, discourses such as "Hakka nationalism" and "Hokaku nationalism" are inevitable, and such challenges are also the problems faced by Taiwanese nationalism.

(This article is a summary of the reading Bar reading club)

Discussion of book club topics:

1. What are the historical narratives of Taiwan in your eyes? For example, is Taiwan a history of oppression and oppressed nations? Sea nation? …
2. What other "collective memories" do you think are under the narrative of Taiwan's history, for example?
3. Do you have Aboriginal ancestry? Does Aboriginal blood make you proud?
4. What does the 228 incident mean to you?

references

Hsiao A-Qin, "Reconstructing Taiwan: The Cultural Politics of Contemporary Nationalism" (Taipei: Lian Jing, 2012).

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