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Is Taiwan Chinese?: Comparing the Experiences of Taiwanese and Chinese

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Many people in China and the US assume that the new Taiwanese national identity is a political ploy which originated with Taiwan's government. Based on ethnographic research in both Taiwan and China, Melissa Brown argues that Taiwanese identity -- in both its ethnic and national forms -- are based on social experience. Because the people of Taiwan and China have had such different social experiences since 1895, Taiwanese identity as distinct from Chinese identity is real. The reality of Taiwanese identity poses challenges for resolving the debate over Taiwan's future relations with China, particularly in nationalistic responses due to lack of Chinese experience with Taiwanese society.

Melissa J. Brown is Assistant Professor of Anthropological Sciences and Research Affiliate at Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. She has been researching changing identities in Taiwan and China since 1991. Her books include Negotiating Ethnicities in China and Taiwan (University of California, Institute for East Asian Studies, 1996) and Is Taiwan Chinese? The Impact of Culture, Power, and Migration on Changing Identities (University of California Press, 2004).

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Melissa J. Brown Speaker Stanford University
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Once More Into the Breach: The Pentagon's 2005 Assessment of Chinese Military Power

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The July 2005 report on Chinese military power represents a major milestone in the Department of Defense's (DoD) annual assessments of the People's Liberation Army's capabilities. For the first time since the Bush Administration assumed office, the Pentagon has asserted that China possesses capabilities that threaten the region as well as Taiwan. What is the basis for DoD's new assessment, and what are the implications for future U.S. strategy towards China?

About the presenter:

Jonathan D. Pollack served as Chair of the Strategic Research Department between 2000 and 2004. He holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan and was a post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard University. Dr. Pollack was previously affiliated with the RAND Corporation, Brandeis University, UCLA, and the RAND Graduate School of Policy Studies. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

Dr. Pollack has published widely on China's political and strategic roles; the international politics of Northeast Asia; U.S. policy in Asia and the Pacific; and Chinese technological and military development. Dr. Pollack's latest publications include articles in Asia-Pacific Review, Issues and Studies, Korea National Defense University Review, Naval War College Review, Strategic Comments, Orbis, and Asian Survey; and chapters in various publications. He is the author of the forthcoming Power Shift: China and Asia's New Dynamics (forthcoming, 2005); If China Attacks Taiwan (forthcoming, 2005); and Redesigning East Asia's Strategic Map: Interests, Identity, and Power (forthcoming, 2005). He is completing a volume on Korea in the longer term, to be published in 2006.

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Jonathan D. Pollack Professor of Asian and Pacific Studies and Chair of the Asia-Pacific Studies Group Speaker The Naval War College
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Contemporary Asia Seminar Series
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Security, Community, and Democracy in Southeast Asia: Analyzing ASEAN

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Is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) a pluralistic security community (PSC)? Does community cause security in Southeast Asia? In a PSC, member states are sovereign. So are the members of ASEAN. Before concluding that the ASEAN region is a PSC, however, one should distinguish between two versions: a thin or descriptive PSC, whose members share both a sense of community and the expectation of security, and a thick or explanatory version in which community has actually been shown to cause security. Depending on how a sense of community is defined, one may say that at certain times in its history, ASEAN probably has been a thin PSC. More recently, however, the cooperative identity of regional elites may have frayed, as democratization, especially in Indonesia, has incorporated non-elites into public life. Meanwhile the proposition that the assurance of security in Southeast Asia has resulted from this sense of community, that ASEAN is a thick PSC, remains to be proven.

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Japanese Journal of Political Science
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Donald K. Emmerson

Beyond Ideology and Toward Unity

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Korea stands at a critical juncture, as it transitions from mid-level to advanced country status. Yet at this important time, Korea seems to have lost its sense of direction. Ideological confrontations, uncertainty about identity, mistrust of the political process and the government, reform fatigue, and, above all, lack of vision have become endemic. Such symptoms are not unique in this global "age of deconstruction," but they are more salient in Korea, where crushing ideological disputes, ongoing inter-Korean conflict, and fallout from of rapid, intensive modernization have put the country in crisis.

If Korea is to move forward, politics and government must regain the confidence of the people. The country cannot become an advanced nation if its ideological obsessions remain entrenched. Creative, pragmatic leadership will bring outcomes-oriented vision, inclusiveness, and focus to the goal of sustainable development on the Korean Peninsula.

A period of historic uncertainty often ushers in an era of progress, and the current crisis presents a tremendous opportunity. Now is the time for Korea's leaders to learn from the past, embrace pragmatism, and make history.

Goh served as the Acting President when the current President, Roh Moo Hyun, was indicted for impeachment by the National Assembly on March 12, 2004 and his powers, including those of Commander-in-Chief, were transferred to Prime Minister Goh until Roh was acquitted by the Constitutional Court in May of the same year. As Acting President, Goh was widely acclaimed for his crucial role in restoring South Korea's stability, handling foreign affairs skillfully, and managing the central government effectively.

Goh has served as the 30th Prime Minister (1997-1998), twice as the Mayor of Seoul, (1998-2002, 1988-1990), Minister of Home Affairs (1987), Member of the National Assembly (1985-1988), Minister of Agriculture and Marine Affairs (1981-1982), Minister of Transportation (1980-1981), and Chief Secretary of Political Affairs to the President (1979-1980).

He holds the record as the youngest Governor in South Korea. At the age of 37, he became the Governor of Jeonnam Province in 1975. He was appointed by the President to lead a national agricultural modernization program called the New Village Movement, which transformed South Korea's agricultural sector into one of the most modernized and productive in Asia.

Between government posts, Goh has served as the Chairman of Transparency International in Korea to fight corruption in South Korea, a life-long cause for Goh. He has also served as the Co-President of Korean Federation for Environment Movement and president of Myong Ji University. He is a 1960 graduate of the Seoul National University. He was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University in 1983 and a Visiting Professor at MIT in 1984. He is married with three sons.

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Goh Kun 35th Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea Speaker
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Asia-Pacific Leaders Forum

APARC's Don Emmerson urges Muslim understanding in America

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Donald K. Emmerson
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In the post-9/11 world there is an urgent the need for Americans to understand the Muslim world, and vice versa. Yet precisely when they should be visiting Muslim countries, Americans are kept at home by fears of terrorism. War zones aside, those fears are overblown. It is time their government and their media helped would-be American travelers gain a more realistic understanding of the typically minor risk of anti-U.S. violence that awaits them in the Muslim world.

Recently my wife and I spent a week strolling the streets of Beirut and traveling by bus in its hinterland. The trip was a fool's amusement in the scary light of official and media images of the Middle East as a dangerous place. Yet everywhere we went we felt welcomed.

I own a t-shirt that spells out "CANADA" in large letters beneath a maple leaf. Before leaving California I thought, only half-facetiously, of bringing it along. I'm glad I left it behind. The Lebanese we met were hospitable not hostile.

I am not advising naivete; Lebanon's horrific civil war in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s destroyed much of this city. Washington intervened. More than 200 American soldiers died in a building shrunk to rubble, apparently by Hezbollah -- a self-described Party of Allah that the U.S. still considers a terrorist organization. Beirut became a synonym for mayhem.

Echoes of Beirut's frightening reputation were heard this year in a series of bombings that killed nearly two dozen Lebanese, including Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in February, scholar-journalist Samir Kassir in May, and opposition politician George Hawi on 21 June, only two days after we had left the country.

An American visitor's initial impressions of Beirut today are ambiguous. Inspiring confidence are the relaxed atmosphere at the new, ultra-modern, and just-renamed Rafiq Hariri Airport and, seen through taxi windows, the attractively renovated downtown area. But then one's taxi skirts the burned-out hulk of the St. George Hotel and, alongside it, behind police tape and armed guards, the twisted carcasses of cars -- detritus from Hariri's assassination.

This juxtaposition of alarm and assurance has become the unnerving natural condition of American travel to and in Muslim or mostly Muslim countries. Survey research shows approval of the United States among the world's billion-plus followers of Islam near an all-time low. The U.S. is viewed unfavorably by 58 percent of Lebanese, according to a just-released Pew Research Center opinion poll. Lebanon and other Muslim-majority societies account for more than half of the 29 countries to which the State Department discourages American travel. Yet in these mainly Muslim destinations the odds that a prudent American tourist will become a casualty of terrorism remain infinitesimal.

I went to Lebanon to do research, to lecture at the American University of Beirut, and to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of my high-school alma mater, the American Community School. For decades, Arab sons and daughters have vied for entry into these and comparable institutions elsewhere in the Middle East, including the American University in Cairo. In Lebanon, in the upland village of Deir al Qamar, I found a small photo shop whose owner had proudly posted a sign identifying himself as a "U.S.A. GRADUATE, BOSTON."

These signs of American popularity must seem incomprehensible to Americans fearful of Muslim wrath. But what really makes no sense is the apocalyptic vision of the Muslim world that America's media tend to purvey, a vision that encourages would-be travelers to stay in Indiana and skip Indonesia.

Overseas Muslims in my experience have a split-level view of America. Most of them dislike -- some detest -- U.S. policy while simultaneously admiring the freedom and openness that Americans, at their best, represent. Many Americans feel the same way. Meanwhile, security concerns have encircled U.S. embassies with enough protective barriers and identity checks to make diplomacy resemble self-imprisonment.

As relaxed interactions at the official level have become a casualty of the war on terror, people-to-people contacts have become more vital than before. The fewer Americans Muslims meet, the less contested will be the image of the U.S. as a cruel montage of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

A task force ought to brainstorm ways of overcoming unrealistic fears of travel. The Bush administration has acknowledged the need to win Muslim hearts and minds abroad. It is time to win back overfearful American hearts and minds as well.

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Stanford Summer Workshop on Korea 2005

The Korean Studies Program at the Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) in the Stanford Institute for International Studies will host summer workshop on Korea 2005 from June 27-July 1, 2005.

This workshop will focus on the genesis and evolution of globalized mass culture in Korea. Of particular interest will be the conflict engendered in Korea as state authority and conservative elites attempted to control hybrid cultural forms linked to global flows of mass culture.

Participants

Yoon S. Choi, University of California, Irvine

Rachael Joo, Stanford University

Jong-young Kim, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Ki-young Shin, University of Washington

Kyoim Yun, Indiana University

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Michale Robinson Moderator Indiana University

Gi-Wook Shin

Shorenstein APARC
Encina Hall E301
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
(650) 724-8480 (650) 723-6530
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor of Sociology
William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea
Professor, by Courtesy, of East Asian Languages & Cultures
Gi-Wook Shin_0.jpg PhD

Gi-Wook Shin is the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea in the Department of Sociology, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the founding director of the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) since 2001, all at Stanford University. In May 2024, Shin also launched the Taiwan Program at APARC. He served as director of APARC for two decades (2005-2025). As a historical-comparative and political sociologist, his research has concentrated on social movements, nationalism, development, democracy, migration, and international relations.

In Summer 2023, Shin launched the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL), which is a new research initiative committed to addressing emergent social, cultural, economic, and political challenges in Asia. Across four research themes– “Talent Flows and Development,” “Nationalism and Racism,” “U.S.-Asia Relations,” and “Democratic Crisis and Reform”–the lab brings scholars and students to produce interdisciplinary, problem-oriented, policy-relevant, and comparative studies and publications. Shin’s latest book, The Four Talent Giants, a comparative study of talent strategies of Japan, Australia, China, and India to be published by Stanford University Press in the summer of 2025, is an outcome of SNAPL.

Shin is also the author/editor of twenty-seven books and numerous articles. His books include The Four Talent Giants: National Strategies for Human Resource Development Across Japan, Australia, China, and India (2025); Korean Democracy in Crisis: The Threat of Illiberalism, Populism, and Polarization (2022); The North Korean Conundrum: Balancing Human Rights and Nuclear Security (2021); Superficial Korea (2017); Divergent Memories: Opinion Leaders and the Asia-Pacific War (2016); Global Talent: Skilled Labor as Social Capital in Korea (2015); Criminality, Collaboration, and Reconciliation: Europe and Asia Confronts the Memory of World War II (2014); New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan (2014); History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia: Divided Memories (2011); South Korean Social Movements: From Democracy to Civil Society (2011); One Alliance, Two Lenses: U.S.-Korea Relations in a New Era (2010); Cross Currents: Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast Asia (2007);  and Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy (2006). Due to the wide popularity of his publications, many have been translated and distributed to Korean audiences. His articles have appeared in academic and policy journals, including American Journal of Sociology, World Development, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Political Science Quarterly, Journal of Asian Studies, Comparative Education, International Sociology, Nations and Nationalism, Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey, Journal of Democracy, and Foreign Affairs.

Shin is not only the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, but also continues to actively raise funds for Korean/Asian studies at Stanford. He gives frequent lectures and seminars on topics ranging from Korean nationalism and politics to Korea's foreign relations, historical reconciliation in Northeast Asia, and talent strategies. He serves on councils and advisory boards in the United States and South Korea and promotes policy dialogue between the two allies. He regularly writes op-eds and gives interviews to the media in both Korean and English.

Before joining Stanford in 2001, Shin taught at the University of Iowa (1991-94) and the University of California, Los Angeles (1994-2001). After receiving his BA from Yonsei University in Korea, he was awarded his MA and PhD from the University of Washington in 1991.

Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL)

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Director of the Korea Program and the Taiwan Program, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Director of Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab, APARC
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We Are All Pingpu: Notes on the Pingpu Identity in Contemporary Taiwanese Society

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Since the 1980s, simultaneous trends in Taiwan toward globalization and localization have contributed to people's construction of a past promoting local solidarity. Such rewriting of Taiwanese consciousness has relied heavily on a "rediscovery" of cultural traditions corresponding to Pingpu identity. (Pingpu identity is debated as an indigenous or a mestizo identity and used to claim that Taiwan is not Chinese.) Professor Pans examination of the development of Pingpu identity over the past ten years focuses on the 1996 event "We are All Pingpu" and uses both ethnographic and historical materials to analyze the role of Pingpu identity in rewriting Taiwanese conscious-ness.

Dr. Pan's research addresses the following questions: Who are the Pingpu? Why do some Taiwanese choose to be identified as Pingu while others do not? What is the significance of Pingpu identity for present-day Taiwanese consciousness? How has Pingpu identity been constructed? How and why do people rewrite the past when an identity is being created?

This is the final seminar in the Taiwan Seminar Series hosted by Shorenstein APARC.

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Inghai Pan Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taipei,Taiwan
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Cross-straits Youth Identity in Taiwan

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Part of the Taiwan Seminar Series hosted by Shorenstein APARC.

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Shelley Rigger Brown Associate Professor of East Asian Politics Davidson College
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Indigenous vs. Native Identities: Finding a Place for Aboriginal Formosa in Taiwan's New Constitution

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Since the beginning of President Chen Shui-bian's second term in 2004, there has been great controversy about plans to rewrite or revise the national constitution and what that new constitution should include. Although it is largely seen as a declaration of Taiwanese sovereignty, one important area of constitutional reform concerns human rights for the 450,000 Aboriginal people of Austronesian descent on the island and their communities.

In the summer of 2004, a series of public consultations were held at the Indigenous Peoples Council in Taipei to debate how indigenous rights should be incorporated into the new constitution. After a long process of debate in Taiwan, as well as studies of similar cases in Canada, Latin America, New Zealand and elsewhere, a series of clauses on indigenous rights were drafted and submitted for deliberation at higher levels. These included demands on such issues as return of traditional lands, regional autonomy, and increased representation in the central government.

Professor Simon will discuss the relationship between the indigenous social movement and the Taiwan Independence Movement. How do there interest merge; and where do they differ? What does aboriginality mean for the evolving Taiwanese national identity?

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Scott Simon Associate Professor of Sociology University of Ottawa
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