Taiwan and Ireland in comparative perspective

This paper looks at how Taiwan has been imagined or narrated as a national subject from the perspective of different nationalisms, using Ireland in the context of the colonized Other as a comparator.As with Irish nationalist projects, the Chinese nationalism of the KMT and the Taiwanese nationalism of the DPP were and are complex phenomena, with ethnic, cultural, and civic dimensions.However, in the cases of the KMT and of the DPP the civic dimension was either suspended or remained under-developed.This paper takes a critical view, focusing on ethnic and cultural nationalism to explore how the KMT and the DPP narrated their respective national imaginaries.The first framework examined shows how Taiwan was narrated as part of China through a particular form of Chineseness, which was imposed on Taiwan by the KMT.The second framework analyses how Taiwan was re-narrated through Taiwanization discourses as a national subject in its own right; in particular, through a post-modern primordialist turn by which the DPP used Taiwanization to stress ethnicity politics.Critical interpretations here make use of a comparative perspective, re-examining notions of national subjectivity in juxtaposition with Ireland, whose own national imaginaries have, like those of Taiwan, also emphasized ethnicity and culture.The paper concludes by suggesting a third framework, emphasizing the need to pay attention to the cosmopolitan processes of mobilization and globalization.These can help us to reconsider Taiwan and Ireland as network societies that can be narrated in the light of relationships and connections through which they have been constituted as places. Framework One: Chineseness in Taiwan in Dialogue with Britishness in IrelandIn Ireland, British colonial rule created self-consciousness in the population of being 'Other' and of being subordinate.British rule prompted resentment and resistance, leading to Irish independence in 1922.However, the situation has continued to be complicated; Ireland experienced partition, with the north of the island remaining a part of Britain.Here, in Northern Ireland, a slim majority maintains a British identity.In the case of Ireland, we see a nation become a state through resistance and independence.However, in the case of Taiwan, although Japanese rule similarly created self-consciousness in the population of being 'Other', this, as noted in the previous section, did not lead to a sense of nationhood.In contrast to the sense of nationhood that preceded statehood in Ireland, a sense of nationhood in Taiwan was imposed with the arrival of the KMT's ROC state.With Japan's defeat at the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War (from the end of 1941, part of the Second World War), the Allies gave Taiwan to the Republic of China.This was in accordance with an agreement made between Roosevelt, Churchill, and the ROC leader Chiang Kai-Shek at the Cairo Conference of 1943.The Treaty of San Francisco, which Japan signed in September 1951, included the sentence that 'Japan renounces all right, title and claim to Formosa and the Pescadores', but did not specify Taiwan's status.Chiang's KMT, meanwhile, had retreated to the island between 1947 and 1949 after losing the civil war with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on mainland China.While the CCP took control of China and established the People's Republic of China (PRC), the KMT relocated the ROC to Taiwan, planning to re-take mainland China at a later date.Although exiled to Taiwan, the KMT sought continuity with the Republican legacy on mainland China, and although de facto it had no authority beyond Taiwan it continued to assert its position as 'the sole legitimate government of all China' (Rigger 2011: 136).Analysis of KMT's ROC nationalism in Taiwan needs to be traced back to the preceding period of KMT rule in China.As noted by Benedict Anderson, 'When Chinese nationalism did finally arise, it was rather late in world-historical time' (B.Anderson 1983: 36).In fact, the Qing Dowager Empress did try, at the very end, to use Chinese identity as a form of resistance against the European and Japanese imperial powers, but the attempt was made too late and the dynasty was soon overthrown and replaced by the Republic of China following the so-called 'Nationalist' Revolution of 1911.KMT Republican nationalism was indeed itself a fairly modern invention, derived from a new notion of the 'Chinese people' ( ) which was first formulated during the last decade of the Qing dynasty by Qi-Chao Liang.In his article 'Overview of Peoples of China in History' (1905), Liang indicated that when a person encountered a foreigner, he/she immediately distinguished him/herself as 'a person of China' ().This 'person of China' was to be considered to be a member of the 'Chinese people'.He further explained that the 'Chinese people' were a product of history: all ethnic groups in The nature of KMT rule forcibly imposed on Taiwan the political structure of the ROC, as well as a Chinese nationalist culture, and was indeed a kind of 'colonialism' which was no less 'foreign' than Japanese rule.As such, from the perspective of the ruled Taiwanese the KMT's Sinicization was a prolonged 'recolonialism' following on from Japanization (Edmondson 2002; Su 1986).KMT rule provoked resistance in the name of 'de-colonization' and alternative discourses that took the form of bentuhua, or Taiwanization.Taiwanization as a political and cultural movement played a significant role in crafting Taiwanese nationalism.There are similarities here with the formation of Irish nationalism.In 1846 and 1847 there was a huge famine in Ireland caused by potato blight, a disease which destroyed the potato crop.During these years of hunger and disease, the British government still held to its strongly free market economic policies, exporting large quantities of grain from the starving island for greater profit, and refusing to intervene to feed the starving.Perhaps around a million people died, and half a million were forced to emigrate to survive, primarily to the USA.Irish bitterness at England's attitude is recorded in the popular Irish peasants' saying that 'God sent the potato-blight, but the English caused the Famine' (see Kiberd 1995: 21).Ireland since 1801 had been part of the new United Kingdom, along with England, Scotland, and Wales.This meant that Ireland was represented at the Parliament in Westminster.However, one consequence of the famine was a rise in anti-English feeling.In the decades that followed the disaster there were increased calls for 'Home Rule', meaning for laws to be decided in Ireland rather than in Westminster.There was also increasing support for this in Britain, and some reforms were made.For example, in 1871 the official church, the Church of Ireland (a province of the Anglican Church) was disconnected from the state in Ireland, in recognition that most Irish people were Catholics and not Anglicans.However, Eric Hobsbawm notes that while most nationalist movements in Europe at this time simply wanted some local autonomy, the preference in Ireland was for a sovereign state.Nationalist organizations (members of which were known generally as 'Fenians') 'demanded an Irish Republic which could not but be independent from Britain' (Hobsbawm 1990: 37).Ireland declared independence in 1919, and following a guerrilla war the Irish Free State was established in 1922 following partition the year before.Ireland was from that time divided, with Northern Ireland remaining a part of the UK.However, the Irish Free State remained within the British Empire as a 'dominion', like Australia or Canada, until 1949, when it became a Republic.In contrast, Taiwanization and Taiwanese nationalism did not really take shape until the 1970s, and it is still an ongoing process.As a cultural movement, Taiwanization needs to be understood as a prolonged but discontinuous formation beginning in the 1920s and reviving in the 1980s.On the other hand, as a political movement, Taiwanization emerged sharply after the 'Formosa Incident' in 1979 and further developed to become integral to democratic reforms in the 1990s.However, the development of political opposition needs to be seen in relation to wider changes in international and domestic politics in the two prior decades.The ROC constitution guarantees civic liberties and participation; the KMT, though, had suspended democracy, justifying its authoritarianism by claiming that it was preparing for the recovery of mainland China.The regime claimed that once it had retaken the mainland and the Chinese nation was reunited, it would allow for

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