Taiwanese localization movement
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The Taiwanese localization movement (traditional Chinese: 臺灣本土化運動; simplified Chinese: 台湾本土化运动; pinyin: Táiwān běntǔhuà yùndòng; Pe̍h-oē-jī: Tâi-oân pún-thó͘-hòa ūn-tōng) is a political term used within Taiwan to emphasize the importance of Taiwan's culture rather than to regard Taiwan as solely an appendage of China. This involves the teaching of history of Taiwan, geography, and culture from a local perspective, as well as promoting languages locally established in Taiwan, including Hoklo, Hakka, and aboriginal languages.
Originally part of the Taiwan independence movement, its aims are now endorsed by some supporters of Chinese reunification on Taiwan. In its rejection of a monolithic, officially-sponsored Han Chinese identity in favor of one rooted in local culture, it bears some resemblance to the Xungen movement in mainland China.
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[edit] Effects
The localization movement has been expressed in forms such as the use of language or dialect in the broadcast media and entire channels devoted to aboriginal and Hakka affairs.
Textbooks have been rewritten by scholars to more prominently emphasize Taiwan. The political compromise that has been reached is to teach both the history of Taiwan and the history of mainland China.
Some locally-owned companies or organisations established in earlier times have names containing the words "China" or "Chinese". They have been encouraged in recent years to change the word "China" in their names to "Taiwan" as an act of localization. This campaign for changing the names is known as "the Campaign for the Correction of Names" (traditional Chinese: 正名運動; simplified Chinese: 正名运动; pinyin: zhèngmíng yùndòng) or "Taiwan Name Rectification". Many Taiwan-based companies in international sectors already identify themselves as "Taiwan"-based for clarity's sake. This keeps international customers from confusing them with a China-based enterprise. Other Taiwan-based companies decline to change to a "localized" name because of expense or the political views held by important clients and company leaders.
[edit] History and development
The roots of the localization movement began during the Japanese rule of Taiwan from 1895 to 1945, when groups organized to lobby the Imperial Japanese government for greater Taiwanese autonomy and home rule. Before the Kuomintang (KMT) entirely retreated to Taiwan, the Taiwan home-rule groups were decimated in the wake of the 228 Incident of 1947. The Kuomintang viewed Taiwan primarily as a base to retake the mainland and quickly tried to subdue potential political opposition on the island. The Kuomintang did little to promote a local identity; often mainlanders working in administrative positions lived in neighborhoods where they were segregated from the Taiwanese. Others, especially poorer refugees, were shunned by the Hoklo Taiwanese and lived among aborigines instead. The mainlanders often learned the Taiwanese language. However, since Mandarin was enforced as the official language of the Republic of China and Taiwanese was not allowed to be spoken in schools, the mainlanders who learned Taiwanese found their new language skills to diminish. As Taiwanese, or any language other than Mandarin, was forbidden in the military posts, many mainlanders whose family lived in martial villages only spoke Mandarin and perhaps their home language (e.g. Cantonese). The promotion of Chinese nationalism within Taiwan and the fact that the ruling group on Taiwan were considered outsiders by some were the reasons cited for both the Taiwan independence movement and localization.
In the 1970s and 1980s there was a shift in power away from mainlanders to local Taiwanese. This, combined with cultural liberalization and the increasing remoteness of the possibility of retaking the mainland, led to a cultural and political movement which emphasized a Taiwan-centered view of history and culture rather than one which was China-centered or even, as before 1946, Japan-centered. Localization was strongly supported by President Lee Teng-hui.
The Bentuhua or localization/indigenization movement was sparked in the mid-1970’s with the growing expression of ethnic discontent due to unequal distribution of political and cultural power between mainlanders and local Taiwanese people. Beginning in the 1960’s, Taiwan was enveloped by the problems of rapid industrial development, rural abandonment, labor disputes and the uneven distribution of access to wealth and social power. These changes, combined with the loss of several key allies, forced the KMT regime to institute limited reforms. The reforms permitted under Chiang Ching-kuo allowed indigenization to increase as leading dissidents generated a response to the government’s failures. The dissident groups, united under the “dangwai”, or “outside the party” banner, called for the government to accept the reality that it was only the government of Taiwan and not China. The key demands of the "dangwai" involved instituting democracy and seeking international recognition as a sovereign state. Taiwanese demanded full civil rights as guaranteed under the R.O.C. constitution and equal political rights as those experienced by the Mainlander elite.
The Taiwanese cultural elite fully promoted the development of Xiang tu literature and cultural activities, including rediscovering Taiwanese nativist literature written under Japanese colonial rule. The dangwai movement revived symbols of Taiwanese resistance to Japanese colonial rule in the effort to mobilize ethnic Taiwanese. The opposition to the KMT’s China-centered cultural policies resulted in dissidents crafting new national-historical narratives that placed the island of Taiwan itself at the center of the island's history. The Taiwanese emerged as a frequently colonized and often oppressed people. The concept of bentuhua was finally expressed in the cultural domain in the premise of Taiwan as a place with a unique society, culture and history. This principle has been largely adopted for understanding Taiwan’s cultural representation and expressed in a variety of cultural activities, including music, film and the literary and performing arts.
The pressures of indigenization and the growing acceptance of a unique Taiwanese cultural identity have met opposition from more conservative elements of Taiwan society. Critics argue that the new perspective creates a “false” identity rooted in ethnic nationalism as opposed to an “authentic” Chinese identity, which is primordial and inherent. Many mainlanders complain that their own culture is marginalized by bentuhua. Many initially expressed fear of facing growing alienation in their own land. In the past decade these complaints have subsided somewhat as Taiwan increasingly views itself as a pluralistic society that embraces many cultures and recognizes the rights of all citizens.
In the mid-to-late 1990s the gestures of localization were increasingly adopted by pro-unification figures who, while supporting the Chinese nationalism of Chiang Kai-shek, saw it as appropriate, or at least advisable, to display more appreciation for island cultures. Pro-unification politicians such as James Soong, the former head of the Government Information Office who once oversaw the limitation of local dialects, began speaking in Hoklo on semi-formal occasions. Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou, a mainland native and then chairman of the KMT, used Taiwanese for a portion of his address at the 2-28 Peace Park on 2005-02-28.
[edit] Support and opposition
Significant outcries surfaced both within Taiwan and abroad opposing the concept of Taiwan localization in the early years after President Chiang Ching-kuo's death, denouncing it as the "independent Taiwan movement" (Chinese: 獨台運動). Vocal opponents are primarily the 1949-generation Mainlanders, or older generations of Mainlanders living on Taiwan that had spent their formative years and adulthood on the pre-1949 mainland Republic of China, and native Taiwanese who identify with a pan-Han Chinese cultural identity. They included people ranging from academics like Chien Mu, reputed to be the last prominent Chinese intellectual opposing the conventional wisdom take on the May Fourth Movement, politicians like Lien Chan, from a family with a long history of active pan-Chinese patriotism despite being native Taiwanese, to gang mobsters like Chang An-le, a leader of the notorious United Bamboo Gang.
The opposing voices were subsequently confined to the fringe in the mid 2000s Taiwan itself. Issues persist, particularly supporters of the Pan-Blue coalition, which advocates retaining a strong link to mainland China, dispute over such issues as what histories to teach. Nonetheless both of the two major political forces in Taiwan reached a consensus, and the movement has overwhelming support among the population. This is in part due to the 1949-generation Mainlanders have gradually passed on the scene, and politicians supporting and opposing the Taiwanese independence movement both realize a majority of Taiwan's current residents, either because they are born in Taiwan to Mainlander parents with no collective memories of the ancestral homes, or they are native Taiwanese thus feeling no historical connotations with the entire pre-1949 Republic of China on the mainland, support the movement as such.
On the mainland, the PRC government has on the surface adopted a neutral policy on Taiwanese localization movement and its highest level leaders publicly proclaim it does not consider the localization movement to be either a violation of its One China Policy or equivalent to the independence movement. Nonetheless, the state-owned media and academics employed by organizations such as universities' Institutes of Taiwan Studies or the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) periodically release study results, academic journal articles, or editorials denouncing the movement as "the cultural arm of Taiwanese independence movement" (Chinese: 文化台獨) with the government's tacit approval, showing the PRC government's opposition stance towards Taiwanese localization in truth.
Nowadays another front of significant opposition to the Taiwan localization movement remains in the overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia and the Western world, who identify more with the historic pre-1949 mainland Republic of China or pre-localization movement ROC on Taiwan that oriented itself as the rump legitimate government of China. A great many number are themselves refugees and dissidents which fled mainland China, either directly or through Hong Kong or Taiwan, during the founding of the People's Republic of China and the subsequent periods of destructive policies such as the Land Reform, the Anti-Rightist movement, Great Leap Forward, or the Cultural Revolution, Hong Kong anti-Communist immigrants who fled Hong Kong in light of the Handover to the PRC in 1997, or Mainlanders living in Taiwan who moved to the West in response to the Taiwanese localization movement. Conversely, the current population of Taiwan regard these overseas Chinese as foreigners akin to Singaporean Chinese, as opposed to pre-Taiwan localization era where they were regarded as fellow Chinese compatriots. The PRC has capitalized on this window of opportunity in making overtures to the traditionally anti-Communist overseas Chinese communities, including gestures in supporting traditional Chinese culture and dumping explicitly Communist tones in overseas communications. This results in a decline of active political opposition to the PRC from overseas Chinese when compared with the times before Taiwanese localization movement in Taiwan.
In Hong Kong, Taiwanese localization movements have pushed localization or pro-Chinese Communist tilts among the traditionally pro-Republic of China individuals and organizations. An prominent example is Chu Hai College, which the Hong Kong SAR government officially recognized its academic degree programmes in May 2004, and registered as an "Approved Post-secondary College" with the Hong Kong SAR government since July of the same year. It has since been renamed the Chu Hai College of Higher Education (珠海學院) and no longer registered with the Republic of China's Ministry of Education. New students from 2004 have been awarded degrees in the right of Hong Kong rather than Taiwan.
[edit] Role in politics
Even though it is a broad consensus currently regarding the overall ideology of Taiwan localization, there are still deep disputes over practical policies between the three main political groups of Taiwan independence, Chinese reunification and supporters of Chinese culture. Pro-independence supporters argue that Taiwan is and should be enhancing an identity which is separate from the Chinese one, and in more extreme cases advocates the removal of Chinese "imprints". Meanwhile, some would argue that Taiwan should create a distinctive identity that either exists within a broader Chinese one or link strongly back to the original Chinese one. Those who support Chinese reunification call for a policy of enhancing the Chinese identity. Groups that support Chinese reunification and Chinese nationalism have emphasized the distinction between localization and what some perceive as desinicization and argued that they do not oppose the promotion of a Taiwanese identity, but rather oppose the use of that identity to separate itself from a broader Chinese one. On the other hand, a few apolitical groups have pointed out that most of the political factions merely use these points to win support for elections.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
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