Homogenizing Ethnicity and Diversifying Nationalism: Taiwan's North-South Divide

• In Event: Citizenship in the Peripheries: Identities in SE Asia (Mini-Conference 3/3)

Abstract

Despite a shared ethnic Han Chinese identity, why is there a north-south cultural division in Taiwan? In this paper, I answer this question by shifting the ethnic marker away from phenotype to common ancestry and language and by tracing the nationalist policies of the Kuomintang (KMT). I argue southerners are more likely to be descendants of those originating from southern China – namely Fujian – during the Qing dynasty and before the Japanese occupation. Related, because of this common ancestry, southerners are more likely to speak Min Nan – a vernacular that is mutually unintelligible from Mandarin Chinese – the vernacular of northern China and the official language of the Republic of China. These divisions in ethnicity has resulted in differences in the conceptualization of nationalism. I argue Kuomintang – i.e., northern – efforts to standardize the island under an ethnic umbrella of Han Chinese has resulted in the southerners looking to define Taiwanese in a civic, pluralistic tradition that includes not only the Taiwanese aborigines but also Southeast Asian migrants.

Author

• Chun-Ying Wu