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This study applies CDA and story grammar analysis to investigate how Chinese language textbooks for primary schools foster Chinese national identity through their depiction of Chinese people struggling against foreign invaders. The analysis was conducted on 12 textbooks and the findings were based on stories featuring a range of ages, from children to soldiers and artists, who all displayed patriotic spirit and were willing to risk their lives for China. The textbooks also highlight China's past humiliation, such as the Nanjing Massacre and the loss of territories such as Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. The authors of those textbooks seek to encourage the students' national identity by promoting a sense of patriotism, sacrifice, vigilance against foreign threats, affirmation for the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and putting the interests of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ahead of personal interests. Additionally, students are expected to have a strong sense of territorial sovereignty, recognizing Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan as parts of China. However, the results also show that the portrayal of Chinese national identity is Han-centric, excluding ethnic minorities.

This paper aims to broaden the conceptual approaches to understanding the complexity of student mobility in higher education (HE) across the Taiwan Strait, thereby exemplifying a contradictory mix of collaboration and competition that involves interplay among the various forces associated with global, regional and national settings. To achieve this goal, the paper provides an abstraction of 'trichotomisation', which explains the significance of the concepts of globalism, regionalism and nationalism in understanding cross-Strait student mobility, and thus shows its threefold nature. Specifically, it considers the intensification of cross-Strait student mobility in HE and the counter-reaction as a manifestation of globalism, a form of regionalism, and an expression of nationalism.

Drawing on a recent collaborative and interdisciplinary study of East Asian Images of Japan, this article discusses contemporary Chinese portrayals of Japan, their political context, and their significance for Sino-Japanese relations. It questions some widely-held assumptions concerning the extent of "thought control" in an authoritarian state, the nature of popular protest, and the relationship between official propaganda and popular lived experience. While the main focus is on portrayals of Japan in mainland China, for comparative purposes some reference is made to Hong Kong and Taiwan. The latter part of the article also features a brief discussion of images of China in Japan, especially relating to the Second World War. This reflects particularly on the role of museums as vehicles for "peace education," focusing on two key institutions in Kyushu. China's "bases for patriotic education" and Japan's "peace museums" ostensibly embody radically different institutional missions. However while Japan's memorials to the war evince greater diversity, in harping on national victimhood and obscuring the reasons for war key sites of "peace education" arguably deliver a message that is just as nationalistic as that conveyed by their Chinese counterparts. The article concludes by arguing that, notwithstanding its "totalitarian" facade, China's social and political fragility in fact limits the scope for the authorities there to moderate anti-Japanese public discourse. In democratic Japan, by contrast, a more honest and open engagement with the national past is--or should be--far more achievable. For both moral and political reasons, scholars and educationalists in Japan therefore urgently need to consider their role in improving Sino-Japanese relations, not least through more forceful engagement in public debate over the socialization of the young.

The national curriculum reformers, regarded as members of the social elites and intellectuals, projected their vision of identity onto the curriculum which they constructed and influenced the next generation's national consciousness. In the tangled relationship between politics and education, the selection of the reformers in a sense dictates the direction of the new curriculum. This article interviewed 18 reformers, members of the latest citizenship curriculum of 2010, to investigate their individual views on identities and the monolithically-promoted Chinese configuration in the old curriculum. Although the new citizenship curriculum, renamed "Curriculum Guidelines for Civics and Society," puts nothing in writing in favour of either a Chinese or Taiwanese national identity, according to the discovery in this research, the Curriculum Committee implicitly embedded a transformed inclusive and hyphenated Taiwanese national identity in the new curriculum in the hope of accentuating Taiwan's exclusive sovereignty. The inner thinking of the reformers is uncovered to reveal their reasoning that a broadly constructed national identity can concurrently accommodate diverse personal identities and suits the society better than the previously prescribed Chinese identity. This article also records the evolution of the curriculum from the previous China-centred narratives to Taiwan-centred narratives, something that happened in line with the changes in Taiwanese society.

This article aims to investigate how the discourse on national identity is approached in the new Taiwanese citizenship curriculum. The differing opinions on Taiwan's relationship with China and the constant threat from this rising superpower have deterred the explicit promotion of either a Taiwanese or Chinese identity. The new curriculum follows a strategy of "intentional ambiguity", where neither identity is mentioned. In this "polysemous" form, the curriculum has been criticized for staying silent on the question of cultivating a national identity. However, the curriculum developers interviewed for this paper suggested that parents and pupils who examine the new curriculum can find support for whichever national identity they favor since it is designed in such an inclusive manner. They can then simultaneously reflect on the multiple, divergent or competing meanings behind the "polysemous texts" and this "hermeneutic" process of reasoning can then facilitate the choice of national identity with maximum acceptance.

This study examines manifestations of verbal aggression in an intergroup context between Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese on computer-mediated communication (CMC) discussion boards. We examine the role of perceptions of national identity and face in occasioning instances of aggression in Sino-Taiwanese online interactions. It will be argued that there is a fundamental difference between Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese ways of displaying aggression when discussing cross-Strait issues. While the Taiwanese use abusive terms in order to "dissociate" themselves from the Mainland Chinese, the latter tend to "associate" themselves with Taiwanese through terms that subsume Taiwanese claims to a national identity within a broader pan-Chinese identity, thereby implicitly displaying a social claim of sovereignty and cultural supremacy over Taiwan. We argue that these differences can be traced to evaluations by Taiwanese of these associative moves as threatening to their perceived national face. We conclude that this illustrates that face should be analysed not only at the level of interpersonal interaction but also at the intergroup level. (Contains 5 tables and 12 footnotes.)

The paper reviews Asia-Pacific higher education and university research, focusing principally on the "Confucian" education nations Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong China, Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam. Except for Vietnam, these systems exhibit a special developmental dynamism--still playing out everywhere except Japan--and have created a distinctive model of higher education more effective in some respects than systems in North America, the English-speaking world and Europe where the modern university was incubated. The Confucian Model rests on four interdependent elements: (1) strong nation-state shaping of structures, funding and priorities; (2) a tendency to universal tertiary participation, partly financed by growing levels of household funding of tuition, sustained by a private duty, grounded in Confucian values, to invest in education; (3) "one chance" national examinations that mediate social competition and university hierarchy and focus family commitments to education; (4) accelerated public investment in research and "world-class" universities. The Model has downsides for social equity in participation, and in the potential for state interference in executive autonomy and academic creativity. But together with economic growth amid low tax regimes, the Confucian Model enables these systems to move forward rapidly and simultaneously in relation to each and all of mass tertiary participation, university quality, and research quantity and quality.

This article reports on an ethnographic case study that explored how Chinese learners' national identities were displayed and reconstructed through their English language-learning journeys in Britain. Drawing on a variety of sources (ethnographic observations, informal conversations, diaries, and narrative interviews), the analysis focuses on the Chinese learners' raising self-awareness of being Chinese and their attitudes towards Japanese students, South Korean students, and students from Taiwan. This study found that during their English language learning journeys in Britain, the Chinese learners tended to affirm and often displayed their membership with respect to China and Chinese national imagination, which contributed to heightened senses of Chinese national identity and increased patriotism. At the same time, the experience of interacting with Japanese students, South Korean students, and students from Taiwan encouraged the Chinese learners to question and critically reexamine their own attitudes and values related to their national identities. Then, the elements that made up an individual's Chinese national identity were brought under scrutiny and negotiation. Implications for classroom practices are also discussed.

National identity is one of the most important forms of ideology that affects human behaviours. Yet, the issue of whether it influences history teachers' subject matter knowledge or teaching practice is overlooked most of the time. With regime change in Taiwan, history curriculum and textbooks are no longer dominated by a China-centred narrative; more Taiwanese history is included in the curriculum. Given the fact that the Taiwanese are split on the issue of national identity, it is important to understand if and how teachers vary in their historical knowledge and instruction. This study examines the issue by investigating the relationships between Taiwanese junior high school history teachers' national identities, their subject matter knowledge and teaching practices. The result indicates that teachers' national identities significantly relate to their historical knowledge and conceptions about history, but bear no relationship to their teaching approaches. Pro-independence teachers have significantly more knowledge in both Taiwanese and Chinese histories and have better conceptions about the nature of history, but they do not necessarily choose to provide students multiple perspectives and interpretations. The implications for democratic citizenship education and teacher education are discussed. (Contains 2 notes and 6 tables.)

This article examines the representation of Chinese identity in museums in the People's Republic of China, comparing this briefly with the portrayal of local and national identities in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In particular, the article looks at the implications for museums of the shift in emphasis within state ideology from socialism to patriotism--a shift that has been particularly marked since the early 1990s. Museums in contemporary China are officially designated as "bases for patriotic education", but the content of the "patriotism" that they are meant to promote remains in many respects vague or problematic. One of the key tensions here is that between a deep-rooted assumption of equivalence between "Chinese" and "Han" culture and history, and the multicultural reality of the contemporary People's Republic--including as it does a range of non-Han groups such as Tibetans, Uighurs and Mongols. The progressive abandonment of socialism has in some ways exposed these contradictions more starkly in recent years. Meanwhile, the homogenous and totalising official vision of Chinese identity in general, and Han identity in particular, is contested either at the popular or the official level (or both) in the largely Han communities of Hong Kong and Taiwan. In a rapidly commercialising and modernising China, the promotion of a state-centred patriotism has become a key instrument for the regime in its efforts to preserve its legitimacy, and museums represent a key element in this strategy. (Contains 7 notes.)

The Han sphere, including Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China, adopted Han characters and classical Han writing as the official written language before the 20th century. However, great changes came with the advent of the 20th century. After World War II, Han characters in Vietnam and Korea were officially replaced by the romanised "Chu Quoc Ngu" and phonemic Hangul, respectively. In Japan, the number of Han characters in use decreased, and the syllabic "Kana" system was promoted to a national status. In Taiwan, although Taiwanese romanisation was developed centuries ago, Han characters remain the dominant orthography in current Taiwanese society. This paper examines Taiwan's orthographic transition from the perspective of the Han sphere. Both internal and external factors have contributed to the different outcomes of orthographic reform in these countries. Internal factors include the general public's demand for literacy and anti-feudal hierarchy. External factors include the political relationships between these countries and the origin of Han characters (i.e. China). (Contains 5 notes.)

In recent decades, educational and curricular reforms worldwide have been designed with the goal of preparing citizens for the challenges of globalization. Globalization has been thought to require the broadening of children's occupational perspectives beyond conventional geopolitical borders and cultures. And this requirement has led to doubts about the importance of borders and nation-states and to calls for a multileveled citizenship polity. This article discusses citizenship education in detail. Sections include: (1) Globalization, Nation-State, and Citizenship Education; (2) Broadening the Global Component of Citizenship Education; (3) From Delocalization to Localization in Citizenship Education; (4) Localism in the Hong Kong Curriculum in the 1990s; (5) "Nativist" Education in Taiwan in the 1990s; (6) Redefining the National Dimension of Citizenship Education; (6) Chinese Identity Tendencies in Taiwanese Education; and (7) The Tension of Global and Local Identity in a Multileveled Community.

This article examines the reflection of national goals and ideologies in the civic education curricula of Mainland China and Taiwan. A comparison of junior secondary school textbooks from the 1950s and the 1990s shows how the curriculum embodies the states' changing national priorities and justificatory ideologies. Specifically, in the early period, the focus of the curriculum was on goals and values which distinguished each state from the other. By the 1990s, despite continuing ideological differences, there was a common focus on the importance of economic and social development. (Contains 4 tables.)

As a result of Taiwan's peculiar political situation, national identity has become a crucial and controversial issue in the history curriculum. This chapter analyzes the changing role of nationalism in the history curriculum from 1980 onwards, focusing on the ways in which politics has affected the history curriculum. In particular, it examines how, why and to what extent the focus of the curriculum has shifted from China to Taiwan. Relying on analysis of the content of official syllabuses and textbooks for elementary and junior high schools, it concludes that Chinese identity was emphasized before the 1990s, while Taiwanese identity has been given greater emphasis more recently. The emergence of the identity issue has been part cause, part consequence of the democratization process and the shift of political power away from the KMT old-guard and towards more "nativist" Taiwanese elements.

Presents a detailed study of the language planning situation in Taiwan. After a general account of the socio-historical context in which the planning activities have taken place, a brief review of what happened in terms of language planning in Mainland China under the Nationalist government between 1911 and 1945 is presented. (Author/VWL)

This article focuses on China's policy response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August 2022. Pelosi's action triggered a surge of popular nationalist sentiments in China, but the response of the Chinese government was far less tough than what many popular nationalists had expected. The article argues that the Chinese government's policy choice in response to Pelosi's visit to Taiwan did not depend on the demands of popular nationalists, but rather was based on a cost-benefit analysis according to its perceptions. The influence of popular nationalism on the government's foreign policy choices has been exaggerated owing to an overestimation of the government's reliance on nationalism for its regime legitimacy, and an underestimation of the government's control over public opinion and nationalist activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined how politics, along with familial and socioeconomic factors, influence the life satisfaction of marriage migrants in Taiwan. We conducted a social survey in Taiwan and offered a multidimensional and dynamic view on adaptation and life satisfaction among them. The results showed that in Taiwan, family relationships and socioeconomic class were significant factors of life satisfaction among mainland Chinese marriage migrants. A high level of social integration was positively related to life satisfaction, while the prejudice faced from neighbors, rather than from the media, was negatively related. Regarding political factors, political disagreement with their Taiwanese partners undermined life satisfaction among spouses from mainland China. However, those who possessed a dual identity (i.e., both Chinese and Taiwanese) and those who viewed mainland China and Taiwan as two separate entities tended to have high levels of life satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasingly popular standpoint that the rise of Taiwanese identity has transformed Cross-Strait relations. The discourses of pro-unification are regarded as the antithesis of pro-independence. Seemingly, the shift from Han Chinese identity to Taiwanese identity has been a rupture in the recent development of Cross-Strait relations. This study sheds light on Wei Yung (Wei Yong, 1936–2004) and his concept of 'multi-system nations' to reassess this standpoint. Wei wanted to assist Taipei in recalibrating Cross-Strait relations in the late 20th century. He initiated the 'multi-system nations' concept to justify Taipei's adoption of dual recognition and parallel (international) participation. Wei used this concept to defend Taiwanese political scientists' collective representation in the International Political Science Association. However, the result was not as he had wished. Although Wei's concept of 'multi-system nations' is outdated and his wishful thinking about China's unification has become a path not taken for both Taipei and Beijing, this study shows that there is in fact common ground between the sympathisers of pro-independence and the advocates of unification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops the concept of 'patriotic consumer mobilization' to explain how China uses informal boycotts as economic coercion. Patriotic consumer mobilization employs citizens as the unit of action, facilitating manipulability, uncertainty, and plausible deniability. It manages public sentiment for domestic legitimacy and foreign policy goals. Citizens are mobilized via propaganda that underscores national humiliation, frames boycotts as grassroots patriotism, and signals resolve to foreign countries. After outlining conditions for use and a case comparison with Taiwan, we draw on Chinese-language sources to examine Beijing's coercion of South Korea over a missile defense system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses how population genetics has impacted on nationalist discourses across the Taiwan Straits and affected the relationship between Taiwan and China since the 1990s. In Taiwan this cutting-edge science has helped to construct a native-based and Taiwan-centred national identity through promoting indigenous peoples' rights, rejecting a blood-based, cross-Straits nationalism, and founding a pan-Pacific indigenous peoples' community through genetic links and cultural affinity. In China, after subverting the nationalist myth of Peking Man (a Homo erectus group believed to be the common ancestor of the Chinese) by analysing genetic data, the same group of Chinese genetic scientists have constructed another nationalist myth of a genetically homogenous nationhood. Such a discourse not only valorizes Chinese nationalism through claiming a DNA-based Chineseness across ethnic distinctions but also asserts genetic links between China and Taiwan, therefore providing a 'scientific' basis for China's nationalism in the new century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article analyses the relationship between Taiwanese national identity and the opening ceremony of the 29th Summer Universiade in Taipei City under the shadow of China. This event was an opportunity for Taiwan to host an international sports event and project its national identity on the global stage. Based on Critical Discourse Analysis, this article explores how national identity was a fundamental narrative in the opening ceremony, one which showcased Taiwan as a single territory enriched by a process of historic transformation and modernization, and one with significant aboriginal roots. This article analyses how the discourse of the opening ceremony sought to establish ideas of national cohesion based on a narrow vision of identity. The article concluded that the opening ceremony, significantly influenced by the international context, was designed to showcase a unique and distinct Taiwanese identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the interplay between homophobia and nationalism by analyzing online comments on the ruling of legalizing same-sex marriage in Taiwan. Drawing on methods from critical discourse analysis, I focus on the framing of this ruling by members from a Chinese antigay community online. I show that they frame this ruling as (1) in opposition to public opinion, (2) promoting 'Westernization' and 'Independence', (3) seeking immorality and self-destruction. I find that within these frames, they evoke nationalist discourses that represent supporters of this ruling as the 'Other' who attempt to split with China, thereby associating LGBT equality movements in China with this political threat. I argue that these nationalist discourses are used in a way that reinforces and legitimizes discourses of homophobia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do citizens in authoritarian countries support democracy more than the status quo? Modernization theory, the theory of redistribution, and the culturalist approach all focus on state-level social structural changes or on historical legacies. However, in this article, we bring international factors into the discussion and suggest that the "democratic demonstration effect" of global democracies, in addition to the two mechanisms of "coercion" and "competition", is the key reason behind the strengthening of the wishes of the masses in autocracies to "imitate" democracies. Furthermore, due to greater "soft power" and successful "public diplomacy", we believe that democratic superpowers, as well as democracies in neighbouring states, will have a greater chance to stimulate the aspirations for democracy of the citizens in authoritarian countries through their own democratic practices. At the same time, however, we also believe that patriotism and nationalism will weaken the "democracy demonstration effect" on popular support for democracy. To illustrate our theory and test our hypothesis, we take Mainland China, the United States, and Taiwan as cases of authoritarian regimes, democratic powers, and democratic neighbours, and analyze three waves of public opinion data conducted in Mainland China in 2011, 2015, and 2019. We show that differences in democratic quality assessment between Mainland China and its democratic counterparts significantly raises people's liberal and democratic values, and reduces their preference for one-party regimes. In addition, we have found that the patriotic and nationalistic sentiments of the Chinese people tends to neutralize the demonstration effects of the United States and Taiwan on popular support for democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When discussing Chinese food in the People's Republic of China, the concept of culinary regionalism appears everywhere. Scholarly and popular accounts alike systematically list the same four (eight, ten, or twelve) "great" regional cuisines (sidacaixi, badacaixi, etc.), asserting that the designation of the original four great regional cuisines (Lu from Shandong Province, Yue from Guangdong Province, Chuan from Sichuan Province, and Huaiyang from Jiangsu Province) arose during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). This article argues that the standardized concept of a four- (or more) part culinary system is likely a much later historical development, possibly even of the post-Mao reform era. It draws upon different historical definitions of "Chinese" food, using the food writings of Yuan Mei (1716–98), Xu Ke (1869–1928), Lin Yutang (1895–1976), and Qi Rushan (1875–1962). How can a better understanding of the historical dynamics of culinary regionalism affect our understanding of "Chinese" food? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the impact of the dissociated feminine principle resulting from the trauma of cultural displacement in a young Chinese woman keen to embrace a modern Western identity. A case study illustrates the outcome of the client both consciously and unconsciously rejecting the traditional stereotypical Chinese feminine identity and instead embracing the distorted, yet seductive, image of the Western (Caucasian) woman as independent, intellectual and confident. Her defensive denial of the traditional feminine was dealt with by intellectualising both personal and professional relationships. Then, unconsciously, the dissociated traditional feminine was projected into a separate aspect of her identity that held the traumatised feelings. The intellectualisation was eventually understood as being a necessary defence to cope with the cultural as well as geographical dislocation trauma. And with this realisation a space was created to accept and integrate the denied feminine-in a literal as well as a symbolic manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past three decades political relationships between mainland China and Taiwan have fluctuated precariously between warm peace and cold war. Instead of playing the role of the biblical peacemaker, Christian theologians on both sides have developed irreconcilable nationalist theologies in order to sanctify their respective nationalist programs: Chinese unification versus Taiwanese independence. For the purpose of constructing peace across the Taiwan Strait, a new political theology needs to be built on the centrality of religious freedom to be found in the Bible, democratic values, and the actual politics of both China and Taiwan. The second section of this article analyzes the biblical sources of a Chinese unification theology and a Taiwanese independence theology. The third and fourth sections introduce the historical development of nationalism and nationalist theology in both societies. The fifth section concludes by proposing a democratic union theology that builds on the centrality of religious freedom in the Bible, democratic values, and actual politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing national identity theories and survey data in Taiwan, this article explains national identity shift in Taiwan. Descriptively we find that most Taiwanese people reject being called ‘Chinese’ (zhongguoren) when asked about their national identity. However, they do not deny their ethnic and cultural Chinese identity. What they object to is being called Chinese nationals, especially this China which is internationally recognized as the People’s Republic of China. In other words, most Taiwanese people do not identify themselves with the mainland Chinese state even though they still associate themselves with the Chinese nation. It is also noted that there is no consensus with regard to national identity in Taiwan, since close to one third of the population still do not object to be called zhongguoren. The author’s analytical findings further confirm that external sovereignty-related factors are related to the Taiwanese national identity shift. Specifically, a changed state boundary, separation desire from mainland China, and recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign state, not the distinctive cultural reconstruction inside Taiwan, contribute to the national identity shift in Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After nearly half a century of authoritarianism characterized by Chinese nationalism and Mandarin promotion, democratization in 1990s Taiwan was accompanied by a Taiwanization movement featuring calls for the revitalization of local languages and the promotion of linguistic equality. To that end, the government began planning for local language education, and, starting in 2001, children have had to attend one weekly hour of mandatory local language education. This curriculum, which is often referred to as ‘mother tongue education’ in Taiwan, has been criticized as being of little value for language acquisition and transmission. Squeezed between Mandarin – the language of instruction, public affairs and increasingly language of home – and English – the international language – the so-called Taiwanese mother tongues are increasingly being learned, taught and used as second languages. Based on a review of secondary sources, public document analysis and interviews with Taiwanese public officials and language revivalists, this paper offers an overview of local language education policy and planning in Taiwan, with a special focus on the respective influences of democratization, human rights promotion and identity politics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the role of Taiwan in the national identity of China. Taiwan is governed by a Chinese power structure and has its own military capabilities. It has an ocean buffer sufficient to provide options not available to Hong Kong, China and Macao. According to China, by competing with it for the diplomatic recognition of small nations in the Third World and desiring entry into organizations from the United Nations to the World Health Organization, Taiwan has subjected it to repeated embarrassment.

Economic integration in the Taiwan Strait has become increasingly stronger recently. Economic integration should have led to stronger political convergence. Why hasn't it occurred? I argue that democracy in Taiwan and the continuation of the single-party rule in China have created two very different social experiences. These different social experiences have formed two different identities. People in Taiwan are increasingly thinking of themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese. The growing level of popular nationalism in China has also altered the political identity of mainland Chinese. Such change could force Beijing to accommodate citizens' demand to act more toughly towards Taipei. Further political integration is still possible, but it would require another norm change, perhaps already in the making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study, based on analysis of survey data collected in 2011 in Taiwan and Hong Kong, shows that cultural identification explains the choice of country and national identities and that Chinese nationalism emerges as an important factor connecting the minds of people in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the theory of social construction of reality deriving from the writings of Max Weber, Alfred Schutz, Thomas Luckmann and Peter Berger to explain the origin of national identity and hence the emergence of a nation. It argues that social construction of national reality originates from everyday life experience taken for granted during the process of socialization. Individuals make sense out of the external world. Experiences taken for granted become actor's stock of knowledge. A common scheme of knowledge shared by the community serves to differentiate in-group (nationals) and out-group (foreigners). Collective consciousness thus defines national identity and hence a nation. Unless people (both in-group and out-group) interact with and learn from each other, different stocks of knowledge taken for granted will create political tension. This theory will be applied to understand the tensions in Tibet and along the Taiwan Strait. The paper further argues that Taiwan can hardly separate from mainland China in the future, while strong Tibetan consciousness continues to defy against powerful Chineseness, resulting in endless upheavals in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainstream views in China tend to believe that lower popular support for the DPP shown in the 2008 presidential election indicates parallel declining support for the Taiwan Independence Movement (TIM). However, this study shows that during the DPP administration of 2000–2008, popular support for the DPP and the TIM has become divergent: at the aggregate level, popular support for the DPP has generally declined since 2000, but that for the TIM has actually increased and then remained stable; at the individual level, Taiwanese people's dissatisfaction with the DPP administration significantly reduced their support for the DPP in 2008, but had no independent effect on their nationalist sentiment. Further analysis of the TIM's support base shows that the supposedly pro-status-quo pan-blue camp actually provided an increasing number of Taiwanese nationalists, which stabilized popular Taiwanese nationalism and weakened the DPP's monopoly of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination into cross-Strait relations between Taiwan and China as of 2012, focusing on the paradoxes seen in the overlap shared between domestic and foreign policies of Taiwan. Four paradoxes are named, including the difficulties created by Chinese aggression in the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995, internal polarization in Taiwanese politics regarding nationalism, Taiwanese economic dependency on Chinese trade and investment, and rapprochement since 2008. Each of these four issues are discussed in turn, citing how each shows both promise for continued relations and continuing difficulties between the two nations.

The article discusses national identity in Taiwan as of September 2012, focusing on an analysis of the nation's identity politics and democratization process which reportedly began in 1987. The institution of general political elections in Taiwan is addressed, along with an examination of the cross-Strait relations between mainland China and Taiwan. The cultural origins of China are assessed, as well as the evolution of socio-political developments in both Taiwan and China. Former Chinese President Lee Teng-hui is also mentioned.

The present study examined longitudinal changes in Asian (i.e. Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan) school students’ national identity before, during and after the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Participants were 946 secondary students aged 12–17 years from Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. This study revealed that residence, especially the hosting city, acted as the most significant factor in longitudinal changes and contribution to the national identity among the three regions. The time factor (before, during and after the Games) was only significant when it interacted with residence. These findings suggest that residence (hosting city) provided the greatest contribution in national identity before, during and after the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the relationship between sport and politics in 20th-century China following the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) rise to power. According to the authors, CCP authorities created sport organizations and movements such as the All China Sports Federation (ACSF) and Great Leap Forward (GLF) of Sport in order to train its citizens for national defence and labor. Particular focus is given to the influence of the Soviet Union on Chinese sport. It is suggested that the Soviet Union played a significant role in China's relationship with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and helped facilitate Chinese nationalism and patriotism in its athletic competition against the West. Other topics include the 1952 Olympic Games and the role of Taiwan in the the Olympic movement.

This paper evaluates the Tibet question through the looking glass of Taiwan, by considering four dimensions of comparative dynamics between the two cases of Taiwan and the Tibetan government-in-exile (TGIE) in relation to China: territorial, economic, ethnic and cultural. Of the four, the paper argues, Taiwan has high convergence with China in the economic, ethnic and cultural dimensions, and managed divergence in the territorial dimension. The TGIE, on the other hand, has high divergence with China in all four dimensions: territorial dispute, economic incongruence, ethnic estrangement, and cultural gulf. Further, the TGIE is ideologically and sentimentally charged by this divergence and thrives by exploiting it. It therefore should have few incentives to see the lessons of Taiwan applied in resolving the Tibet question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines and analyses the political character of Taiwan’s relationship with international sport, and in particular with the Olympic movement. In so doing, it seeks to add to the understanding of the links between sport and the formation and reproduction of national identities, with specific reference to the various cultural and ethnic identities of Taiwan, and to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between ethnic and civic nationalism. The idea of the ‘New Taiwanese’ involves an ethnically divided people coming to see themselves as a cohesive group (Wong, 2001). Success in international sport can contribute to this process as it has in other post-colonial settings. Precisely how national identity formation in Taiwan will further develop, however, is difficult, if not impossible, to predict. What is certain, however, is that sport will continue to play a significant role in the unfolding process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]