1st Edition

Taiwan and Chinese Nationalism National Identity and Status in International Society

By Christopher Hughes Copyright 1997
    208 Pages
    by Routledge

    202 Pages
    by Routledge

    For China, Taiwan is next in line to be unified with the People's Republic after Hong Kong in 1997. China's claim on Taiwan is of great importance to the politics of Chinese Nationalism, and is central to the dynamics of power in this most volatile of regions. The democratic challenge from Taiwan is very potent and its status and identity within the international community is crucial to its survival.

    Taiwan and Chinese Nationalism explores how Taiwan's status has come to be a symbol for the legitimacy of the Chinese regime in the evolution of Chinese nationalism. It also demonstrates how this view has been challenged by demands for democratization in Taiwan. The KMT regime is shown to have allowed sovereignty to be practised by the population of the island while maintaining the claim that it is a part of China. The result is a "post-nationalist" identity for the island in an intermediate state between independence and unification with the PRC.

    Chapter 1 Taiwan in Chinese nationalism; Chapter 2 The crisis of Chinese nationalism in Taiwan; Chapter 3 Stretching the one-China principle; Chapter 4 National identity and democratisation; Chapter 5 Forging a post-nationalist identity; Chapter 6 Taiwan's intermediate state; Chapter 7 Conclusion;

    Biography

    Christopher Hughes is a lecturere in Chinese Politics and History at Middlesex University

    ' ... an excellent, theoretically based, history of the development of Chinese and Taiwanese nationalism and their interaction.' - NOD and Conversion, Newsletter of the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute