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This article charts the impact of Chinese and Taiwanese identities on popular songs in Taiwan in three major historical periods: the Japanese colonization between 1895 and 1945; the Kuomintang (KMT) rule between 1945 and 1987; and the cultivation of Taiwanese identity since the 1980s. By exploring the historical processes of nation-building on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, this article demonstrates how socio-political transformations have produced, reproduced and mediated both Chinese nationalism and Taiwanese identity, and the role of popular songs in that process. It shows how, since 1895, the themes of popular songs have developed through processes of ‘de-Japanizing’ to ‘de-Sinolizing’ to ‘Taiwanizing’. The political and cultural forces which have affected both Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese identities are evident in the changing market for Taiwan’s popular songs. At a period when questions of political and cultural identity are still hotly debated in Taiwan, popular songs now seek to integrate its multiple identities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the early twentieth century, the Japanese colonial government initiated an island-wide malaria eradication campaign in Taiwan, resulting in not only a rapid decline in malaria across time but also elimination of disparity across regions. Exploiting variations in malaria deaths caused by the campaign, we estimate causal effects of malaria exposure around birth on the health of elderly born in the colonial period. To mitigate potential biases caused by measurement errors and omitted confounders, we employ climatic factors to instrument for malaria deaths. Our findings suggest that people who were exposed to a high malaria risk around birth tend to have a higher likelihood of cardiovascular diseases and worse cognitive functions at old age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Japanese policymakers and intellectuals approached national classification in colonial Taiwan by looking into the policy and discourse of intermarriage between Japanese and Han Taiwanese. Despite its rarity in practice, intermarriage as an idea frequently appeared in political debates on the integration of Taiwan into the Japanese empire. Narratives on intermarriage shed light on how ethno-national consciousness was formed and how citizenship was distributed in the empire, revealing tensions between imperial expansion and nation building. In the process of colonial control, racial nationalism emerged to play a role in opposition to intermarriage, which was officially encouraged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author focuses on how China viewed Taiwan and the people of Taiwan between 1931, the year Japan invaded Manchuria, and 1941, the year the U.S. entered World War II. Some of the subjects considered include nationalism, Chinese identity, Chinese political thought, and the ideology of nation-building and cultural identity. An overview of the historiography of competing Chinese and Taiwanese national identity exemplified in the writings of historians Emma Jinhua Teng, Alan M. Wachman, and Steven E. Phillips, is presented.