A Taiwanese identity emerges

A strong sense of Taiwanese identity has come hand in hand with the flourishing of democracy. The crux of this evolution: Taiwan emphatically prefers peace. 

In this week’s cover story, our Beijing Bureau Chief Ann Scott Tyson files a dispatch from Taiwan, where she explores how residents are coming to understand themselves as, specifically, a Taiwanese people.

They emphatically prefer peace, Ann tells us. The strong sense of a Taiwanese identity has come hand in hand with the flourishing of democracy, she says.

The feeling has only grown as China continues to pressure Taiwan with frequent shows of its military and economic might.

It hasn’t always been this way. Taiwan still officially calls itself the Republic of China. The vast majority of its residents are ethnically Han Chinese. And until the late 1980s, the government was a repressive dictatorship, insisting it was the sole legitimate ruler of all of China.

Today, Taiwan remains in a kind of diplomatic limbo. Since the 1970s, the United Nations, the United States, and many other countries have switched their diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China to the People’s Republic of China. The U.S. acknowledges Beijing’s “One China” policy, while also continuing to provide Taiwan with military assistance.

Media outlets often define the island of 23 million people simply in relation to the interests of the superpowers. Ann’s story explores the aspirations of the Taiwanese – how they view themselves, how they want to live and be treated. Many stressed that they value the freedom and democracy they’ve built on Taiwan, and believe China should respect that.

Many younger, outward-looking Taiwanese are proud of their identity, and say they feel particularly irked by China’s efforts to exclude them from formal diplomatic spaces.

“A lot of being Taiwanese is figuring out how to be Taiwanese in the world when you have the China factor,” the American-educated podcaster Emily Wu, co-founder of Ghost Island Media, tells Ann. Ms. Wu is annoyed at constantly finding Taiwan listed as a “province of China.”

“They are equivalent to microaggressions. Some seem tiny, but they matter a lot,” she says at her startup’s Taipei office. “In the long term, we want to have space and a say and standing internationally.”

China continues to insist that Taiwan is a breakaway province from “One China,” and threatens to reunify by force, if necessary. The Taiwanese people, now part of a vibrant and prosperous democracy, hope for a peaceful resolution to this long-standing state of limbo. But mostly, they want to preserve the kind of life they’ve worked so hard to build.