However, I do appreciate your insight and opinion. Understanding this topic is never ending, for those of us who aren’t Taiwanese and even those who are. Thank you for your comment.

-ray lee

The Chinese then governed the island for another two hundred years before losing it to the Japanese in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895).

The Manchus were not Chinese.

The Taiwanese are not denouncing their roots but embracing them. All of the pre-1945 population has aboriginal genetic markers, thanks to intermarriage. “ethnically” chinese is simply a political construction; Taiwanese are ethnically Taiwanese, but this identity was suppressed by the KMT when they occupied the island in 1945, and especially after 1949 when they lost mainland and retreated to taiwan. An idealized and stereotyped Chinese culture was substituted for the local one, and thus the Taiwanese were made into Chinese.

Michael

regarding the language comment by Doug, most of the Chinese that came to Taiwan whether during the Han, Ming, or Chi’ing Dynasty, come from Fujian, which is the coast side province closest to Taiwan. these people speak the Hokkien dialect (kinda like how the Hong Kong people speak the Canton dialect of GuangDong), which is now what we generally refer to as “Taiwanese”. this has been used by the Democracy Progression Party (our current ruling party) as a source of identity that we are Taiwanese and we should therefore speak the Taiwanese language as an official language. which is completely misleading, since it is a Chinese dialect of Fujian anyway. just to be clear, almost every single province in China has a dialect of their own. In fact, in different cities of the provinces, the dialects also sound different to each other. Just as Taiwanese may sound slightly different in pronounciation of some words to the Hokkien Dialect, but it’s still based on the same dialect. The SiChuan people speak SiChuan dialects, the ShangHai people speak ShangHainese, there are also Hunan Dailects, and even the BeiJingers have ther own dialect, which is a very strong Beijing accented dialect, not to mention the well known Cantonese, which is in fact, a Chinese Dialect as well.
however, after the war in 1945, and the KMT (ROC) government fled to Taiwan, they forced the people to speak Mandarin under all circumstances, making it our primary language now. it is similar in most areas of China (apart from maybe Hong Kong), as the official language on TV, Radio, News, etc is also Mandarin; but people mostly speak their dialects at home.

I personally consider my roots Chinese, as I speak, read, write, and sometimes think in that language. I’m also very proud of my roots, and I admire the Chinese culture and history. however, when asked about my nationality, I definitely would answer that come from Taiwan. this is firstly because I am not completely Chinese, as there has been a lot of intermarriage, etc. secondly, Taiwan was where I was born and raised, and I definitely do not deny that it is my home.
I would also not be very happy if Taiwan was a colony or part of China, only because of the Communist ruling, how the people are repressed, and the media and government system controlled too much - I am basically against that. and we know how the road down the “one country two systems” policy ends. we would just have that name of having two different systems, but still remotely (if not directly) controlled and manipulated by the Communist government anyway. everyone knows that the biggest mafia in China is in fact the Communist party.
if the government of China had been different, I probably would not mind being part of a country so large and diverse, and with so much potential of well development. although I am also proud of being from Taiwan.

it is a shame that the international community refuses to acknowledge the existance of Taiwan as a country, (even though some may argue that Taiwan never was a country). and even though it is internationally known that China is controlled way too much by the Communist party, they would still rather stand on the side of China when dealing with the TW-CN issue, since China is so large (both in population and land), and the economic market is so big, and a large development potential, etc. even though Taiwan’s economy seemed well before, it is obviously not developing as well as other Asian countries recently, such as Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Indonesia, etc, especially after the DPP/Chen Hsui-Bian government overtook Taiwan. and when compared to China, the market potential in Taiwan is just nothing.
and it’s not our fault, or maybe it is. if we developed enough reputation internationally, things would not be this way, even though we are just a small island. HK and Singapore are relatively small (even compared to Taiwan), and yet they are doing fine with international recognition.

that’s also why I stand against Taiwan declaring independence, although sometimes I even wonder, “what from?” obviously Taiwan is not part of China now, so why do we need to declare anything? and even if we declare independence, it is just going to show how small Taiwan stands in the international community.
and I always laugh when people say that they are going to war with China, because what the hell? China could easily smash Taiwan underneath their feet, but they don’t even have to do that by going to war. all they have to do is economically lock out Taiwan - “if you do business with TW, I don’t do business with you” - Taiwan would lose everything. everything would be gone.

why don’t the Taiwanese just be happy with what we already have, look up and learn from other well-developed countries, and work hard on developing our own international reputation first, before we even try to “declare independence” or whatever? and along that path, recognizing our Chinese roots wouldn’t hurt so much, either. there’s nothing wrong with being partly Chinese, it helps build who we are, what we are, and it is what makes us special, what makes us different from the Chinese themselves.

I’m confused. I’m not sure if you are directing those comments at me or to people in general. Because if they are at me, I think you haven’t read my article too clearly.

-ray lee