Search

In Taiwan, where relations with China define the major political cleavage, voters have distinct preferences on the issue of independence. Do Taiwanese favor a symbolic or pragmatic approach to the Taiwan independence issue? What are the factors that account for their political preferences? We identify two types of voters, symbolic and pragmatic, according to whether their preferences on independence are conditional or unconditional on China's potential counter actions. Specifically, symbolic voters have unconditional preferences on independence, while pragmatic voters are more agreeable to independence under more favorable conditions. Using multiple wave data from the Taiwan National Security Surveys (TNSS 2002–2022), we investigate the individual- and macro-level factors and find that gender, age, education level, ethnicity, partisan strength, and economic growth rate shape the types of voters in Taiwan. This paper contributes to the study of political attitudes in Taiwan, and have important implications on the regional stability in East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) (Taiwan) have taken divergent paths in the area of human rights. Since the two leaders Xi Jinping and Tsai Ing-wen came to power, the differences in the area of human rights have further increased. The paper analyses and compares their external human rights strategies based on realist assumptions and the soft and hard power resources of the PRC and the ROC. The PRC's objectives are to deflect international criticism of its human rights situation and to weaken the global human rights system and its underlying human rights norms. Taiwan's objective is to use its record as a human rights leader in Asia to expand its limited international space and to strengthen its ties with other consolidated democracies and the global civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the growing human rights gap between China on one side and the US and Taiwan on the other side and analyses its impact on cross-strait relations. Since Xi Jinping's ascent to power in the People's Republic of China in 2012/2013 and the elections of Donald Trump in the US and Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan in 2016, the relationship between China and the other two countries has worsened. The US and Taiwan have a similar view on human rights in the PRC. The increasing repression and authoritarianism of the PRC leads to a human rights gap in the Taiwan Strait that increases the divide and the tensions between both sides. The failure of the PRC to address in its proposal for a peaceful unification the concerns of the Taiwanese for their democracy and human rights pushes Taiwan further away. The similar assessment of the PRC's authoritarian threat by the US and Taiwan strengthens the bond between both, based on the shared values of democracy and human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party won the 2016 election in Taiwan, Beijing's Taiwan policies have witnessed some strategic and tactical adjustments. This article attempts to clarify the underlying changes and continuity in Beijing's Taiwan policy by addressing three vital questions. First, for Beijing, what is the prominent concern for its Taiwan policy making? Second, what is the top priority for its 'great rejuvenation' ambition? And third, what is Beijing's guideline for dealing with Taipei's reluctance to accept reunification? This paper argues that, firstly, how to prevent Taiwan's de facto independence from perpetuating has become the primary challenge for Beijing, given Taiwan's inclination to indefinitely maintain de facto independence. Second, Beijing still prioritizes the achievement of comprehensive modernization before the fulfillment of reunification within its overarching 'national rejuvenation' timetable. Third, discouraged by Taiwan's anti-China dynamics, Beijing has switched its guideline for promoting unification from 'placing hope on the Taiwanese' to 'placing more hope on the mainland itself'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

History curriculum and textbooks, as a key mechanism of constructing collective memory, play a critical role in shaping national, social, and cultural imaginations of the young. This paper analyses history textbooks in Taiwan during the martial law period (1950-1987) to explore narratives about Taiwan and examines the ways in which those narratives as collective memory created particular images of Taiwan. The analysis indicates that history textbooks delineated two threads of narrative, one is a Sinicisation narrative, namely Chinese colonisation, and the other is Chinese restoration narrative. The Sinicisation narrative constructed particular collective memory about Taiwan being of Chinese descent and an inheritor of Chinese culture, lost and restored by China after World War II. In the narrative of restoration, Taiwan was imagined as reborn to be the model child of Chinese descent that was obligated to emancipate all Chinese compatriots from Communism and to ultimately realise the goal of Chinese reunification. These narratives served for emancipating Taiwan from Japanese colonisation and constructed particular collective memory that Sinicised Taiwan for Chinese restoration. The image of Taiwan as Chinese descent, identified with Chinese culture, has endured to the present and continue to shape imaginations and discourses about Taiwan in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]