Taiwanese nationalism: Situation dependency and elite games

The thesis provides a comprehensive understanding on Taiwanese identity and Taiwanese nationalism by analyzing contextual and elite factors. The multiple dimensions and levels of nationalism could be utilized, discovered or awakened by political and intellectual elites in response to the situations. The elites interpret the empirical fact of non-existence of national identity, of its variability in space and time as the result of oppression and subjugation. The different levels of Taiwanese identity have been pulled out in the long span of its history. Local identities such as Zhangzhou and Quanzhou as well as Hakka and Holos were salient when they first arrived in Taiwan in the 18th century. After Japan seized Taiwan in 1895, the once unclear Han identity began to transform into civic Taiwanese, as opposed to ruling Japanese. When the KMT restored Taiwan and oppressed Taiwanese self-governance, Mainlanders were viewed as the enemies and oppressors. After democratization and the native party DPP's inauguration since 1990, both ethnic and civic identities have been framed by new narratives of Taiwanese nationalism. Dependent upon different historical and political situations, the styles of imagining Taiwanese are very different. Ethnic Taiwanese nationalism emphasizes native narratives and domination while civic Taiwanese nationalism tries to construct territorial identity. Settler nationalism gets its inspiration from other post-colonial nationalisms while secession nationalism tries to break away from China's de jure claim on Taiwan's status. All these discourses are instrumentalist and constructivist the same time. They are instrumentalist because they often serve as political ideology or mobilize mass support for certain political causes, and they are constructivist because they re-interpret histories, rediscover the traditions and re-imagine political communities. Both Israeli nationalism and Croatian nationalism exemplify the mechanism of nationalism in which situation dependence determines the content of the discourse, and elites are the key agents. Meanwhile, such nationalist discourses can also be seen as the independence of the settlers and secession movements engaged in real politics. A win-win policy is offered to curb the conflicting nationalisms across the Taiwan Strait.