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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Michael Turton
Published Letters: 3 Editor's Choice: 3
One of the oddities of history is that although Taiwan is separated from mainland China by only about 100 miles, the first outside power to exert political control over the island was the Netherlands.
Andrew, the Dutch arrived in 1624, the Spanish had arrived several years before. The fort in Tamshui -- which I am sure you visited -- built in 1619, still stands in Tamshui outside of Taipei, the one in Keelung has long since disappeared, I think. It was only after the Spanish and the Portugese had a falling out in 1641 that the Spanish sphere in northern Taiwan was extinguished, in 1642.
Three decades of Maoism stripped away parts of mainland China's traditional culture, but Taiwan preserves customs, festivals, and schools of thought that were extinguished across the strait...
Wow! I haven't heard this KMT propaganda chestnut in more than two decades! I had thought that one safely disposed of years ago. Which only once again confirms Darwin's dictum that wrong theories get killed immediately, but wrong facts never disappear. Taiwan doesn't "preserve" customs extinguished across the Strait -- it has developed its own versions of them + others not original to China, just as the different parts of China also have their own versions of them, constantly evolving and taking in ideas from other cultures. There's no ideal "Chinese culture" that China has fallen away from -- how could China fall away from its own culture? -- but Taiwan "preserves." Human behavior doesn't permit "preservation" of cultures -- that is strictly a bit of western ethnoromanticism, which Beijing, with its interpretation of Chinese cultural as an imperialist tool, plays to.
It's shameful that a historical scholar repeats this claptrap.
there is no doubt that Taiwan today is culturally Chinese....
An interesting claim. At random, Taiwan's "preserved" culture includes a democratic government with elected officials -- nowhere found in Chinese history -- extensive westernization in education and business, a totally different land tenure system rationalized under the Japanese and under the postwar land reforms, a profound Japanese influence in food, fashions, etc, a police structure based on British colonial systems as adopted by the Japanese, the experienced of colonization by the Chinese, Japanese, and Dutch, etc etc etc. Either you reduce culture to nothing more meaningful than a few harmless customs, or you wake up and realize that what we have here is a multicultural Pacific island state with its own past, present and future. You can't read it through a Chinese lens, any more than you can read US history through a British lens.
Michael Turton
The View from Taiwan
http://michaelturton.blogspot.com
Andrew:
Let me put it this way. When people say that "Taiwan is Chinese" they are generally referring to an imaginary idealized Chinese culture. That construction evidences itself here in the comment that Taiwan "preserves" Chinese culture, as if Chinese culture were one thing.
Taiwan certainly has A Chinese culture, just as China does. Just as France has a western culture and so do Spain and Germany. But it doesn't preserve THE Chinese culture, any more than France preserves THE Western culture. The idea of cultures "preserved" is a romantic colonialist fantasy.
The whole discussion of "Chinese culture" revolves around Beijing's deployment of Chinese culture as a colonialist tool. Under that logic, only Beijing has the right to define what "Chinese culture" means. Under that rubric, Taiwan is not a Chinese culture -- it has its own cultural identity. Imagine if the Tahitians decided they and only they could define what constituted Polynesian culture and they had the means to enforce that across a broad domain -- what do you think the Hawaiians would say? They would be given the ugly choice of either kowtowing to someone else's definition of Polynesian culture, or declaring themselves "not Polynesian" which everyone would regard as nuts. And rightfully so.
But that is the choice that confronts Taiwan today. Unfortunately the question of whether Taiwan is "Chinese culture" is a question that Beijing has chosen to load with profound political implications. As long as Beijing asserts its culture as an imperialist tool, then Taiwan will have to assert that it isn't Chinese. Because Beijing doesn't recognize a broad Chinese cultural domain.
Michael
You were absolutely right about the Dutch and their attempt to exert control over the island. I withdraw all my comments.
Michael
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