Taiwan: Nation-State Or Province, by John F. Copper

Taiwan and its situation bring up one of those interesting examples of how what ought to be simple and straightforward definitions are not so much when they depend on the opinions of others. Is Taiwan a nation-state or a province? The answer is, quite predictably, it depends on who you ask. If you ask people around the world, so long as you are willing to go off the record, they will say that of course Taiwan is self-governing, very economically successful, and engaged in the greater world while having a distinct political and business culture of its own that is closely related to the Overseas Chinese of Singapore, for example. If you ask the Chinese government, you will be told that Taiwan is a breakaway province that will, inevitably, and perhaps by force, be integrated back into China. If you ask the people of Taiwan themselves, perhaps they would agree that they are in fact a nation-state but that it is not worth provoking China and fighting over. As one might expect if one knows anything about the trouble of identity politics within the world, identities are tricky things that often cause conflicts between people who have very different understandings of what is and what should be.

As one might expect in such a situation, appealing to history gives no unambiguous answer. Taiwan, in the period before the 16th century, was home to a variety of Austronesian tribes who had probably moved from the mainland and who later sent out colonists who eventually settled a wide area in the Indian and Pacific Ocean basis ranging from Madagascar to Hawaii and New Zealand. After that there were coastal settlements by the Spanish and Dutch as the island became part of colonial rivalries in the area, after which a dissident Ming Chinese general came to the island (along with two groups of Chinese settlers–Hakka and Fukienese, the latter being politically and economically dominant) and sought to restore China to the Mings. He failed, and decades later the island was conquered by the Manchu, who ruled over it for two hundred years before the island fell to the Japanese after the Sino-Japanese War in 1895. The Chinese Nationalist government regained the island in 1945, barely four years before having to flee to the island after losing the mainland in 1949 and giving the island its second regime ruled over by a Chinese military regime that had lost the mainland to barbarian conquest. The author seems to think that some kind of integration with China is inevitable but I am not sure that the Chinese government is subtle enough to seek to moderate its conduct and make it an appealing partner for larger supranational institutions. Only time will tell, I suppose.

In terms of its contents, this book is between 200 and 250 pages in length and is divided into seven thematic chapters. After a very brief preface, acronyms, and a map of the nation of Taiwan, the book begins with a chapter that talks about the land and the people of Taiwan (1), including ethnic groups, logistics, and tourism. After this the author talks about the history of Taiwan, which only discusses prehistory very briefly before focusing on the period when Japan ruled the island and even more so after World War II, looking specifically at the history of Taiwan under each of its presidents (2). The third chapter discusses Taiwanese society, including its social structure, ethnic issues, languages, social change, education, social welfare, and contemporary social problems (3). This is followed by a discussion of Taiwan’s unique political system, including its political culture and tradition, constitution, the national assembly and president, its unique five-branch government, local government, political parties, elections, and ideologies (4). The fifth chapter focuses on the economy, with a discussion of its early economy before 1950 briefly and then a longer discussion of the strategies Taiwan has approached towards economic growth since then. The next chapter contains a very worthwhile discussion of Taiwan’s diplomatic and military policies (6), including the relationship between diplomacy and domestic affairs, Taiwan’s national security policy and its relationship with the United States, China, and the rest of the world, including international organizations. The last chapter, a brief one, discusses the author’s view of Taiwan’s future given some basic assumptions (7). The book then ends with a selected bibliography and an index.