Politics and Cultural Nativism in 1970s Taiwan : Youth, Narrative, Nationalism

In the aftermath of 1949, Taiwan’s elites saw themselves as embodying China in exile both politically and culturally. The island—officially known as the Republic of China—was a temporary home to await the reconquest of the mainland. Taiwan, not the People’s Republic, represented China internationally until the early 1970s. Yet in recent decades Taiwan has increasingly come to see itself as a modern nation-state. A-chin Hsiau traces the origins of Taiwanese national identity to the 1970s, when a surge of domestic dissent and youth activism transformed society, politics, and culture in ways that continue to be felt. After major diplomatic setbacks at the beginning of the 1970s posed a serious challenge to Kuomintang authoritarian rule, a younger generation without firsthand experience of life on the mainland began openly challenging the status quo. Hsiau examines how student activists, writers, and dissident researchers of Taiwanese anticolonial movements, despite accepting Chinese nationalist narratives, began to foreground Taiwan’s political and social past and present. Their activism, creative work, and historical explorations played pivotal roles in bringing to light and reshaping indigenous and national identities. In so doing, Hsiau contends, they laid the basis for Taiwanese nationalism and the eventual democratization of Taiwan. Offering bracing new perspectives on nationalism, democratization, and identity in Taiwan, this book has significant implications spanning sociology, history, political science, and East Asian studies. "Taiwan increasingly sees itself as a modern nation-state, not as the Chinese government in exile, as its official name "Republic of China" asserts. This attitude shift can be seen in Tsai Ing-wen's recent landslide electoral victory and the decreasing popularity in Taiwan of the One-China policy compromise that has allowed the PRC and Taiwan to coexist, albeit carefully, in the world arena for the last 30 years. In this book, A-chin Hsiau traces the origins of this current moment to the 1970s, when student movements and literary and cultural forces played a pivotal role in the renegotiation of indigenous identity and the renegotiation of the national imaginary"-- Provided by publisher