Taiwanization - Support and Opposition

Support and Opposition

Significant outcries surfaced both within Taiwan and abroad opposing the concept of Taiwan localization in the early years after President Chiang Ching-kuo's death, denouncing it as the "independent Taiwan movement" (Chinese: 台獨運動). Vocal opponents are primarily the 1949-generation Mainlanders, or older generations of Mainlanders living on Taiwan that had spent their formative years and adulthood on the pre-1949 mainland Republic of China, and native Taiwanese who identify with a pan-Han Chinese cultural identity. They included people ranging from academics like Chien Mu, reputed to be the last prominent Chinese intellectual opposing the conventional wisdom take on the May Fourth Movement, politicians like Lien Chan, from a family with a long history of active pan-Chinese patriotism despite being native Taiwanese, to gang mobsters like Chang An-le, a leader of the notorious United Bamboo Gang.

The opposing voices were subsequently confined to the fringe in the mid 2000s Taiwan itself. Issues persist, particularly supporters of the Pan-Blue coalition, which advocates retaining a strong link to mainland China, dispute over such issues as what histories to teach. Nonetheless both of the two major political forces in Taiwan reached a consensus, and the movement has overwhelming support among the population. This is in part due to the 1949-generation Mainlanders have gradually passed on the scene, and politicians supporting and opposing the Taiwanese independence movement both realize a majority of Taiwan's current residents, either because they are born in Taiwan to Mainlander parents with no collective memories of the ancestral homes, or they are native Taiwanese thus feeling no historical connotations with the entire pre-1949 Republic of China on mainland China, support the movement as such.

On mainland China, the PRC government has on the surface adopted a neutral policy on Taiwanization and its highest level leaders publicly proclaim it does not consider the Taiwanization movement to be either a violation of its One China Policy or equivalent to the independence movement. Nonetheless, the state-owned media and academics employed by organizations such as universities' Institutes of Taiwan Studies or the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) periodically release study results, academic journal articles, or editorials denouncing the movement as "the cultural arm of Taiwanese independence movement" (Chinese: 文化台獨) with the government's tacit approval, showing the PRC government's opposition stance towards Taiwanization in truth.

Nowadays another front of significant opposition to the Taiwanization movement remains in the overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia and the Western world, who identify more with the historic pre-1949 mainland Republic of China or pre-Taiwanization movement ROC on Taiwan that oriented itself as the rump legitimate government of China. A great many number are themselves refugees and dissidents which fled mainland China, either directly or through Hong Kong or Taiwan, during the founding of the People's Republic of China and the subsequent periods of destructive policies such as the Land Reform, the Anti-Rightist Movement, Great Leap Forward, or the Cultural Revolution, Hong Kong anti-Communist immigrants who fled Hong Kong in light of the Handover to the PRC in 1997, or Mainlanders living in Taiwan who moved to the West in response to the Taiwanization movement. Conversely, the current population of Taiwan regard these overseas Chinese as foreigners akin to Singaporean Chinese, as opposed to the pre-Taiwanization era when they were labeled as fellow Chinese compatriots. The PRC has capitalized on this window of opportunity in making overtures to the traditionally anti-Communist overseas Chinese communities, including gestures in supporting traditional Chinese culture and dumping explicitly Communist tones in overseas communications. This results in a decline of active political opposition to the PRC from overseas Chinese when compared with the times before the Taiwanization movement in Taiwan.

In Hong Kong, Taiwanization movements have pushed localization or pro-Chinese Communist tilts among the traditionally pro-Republic of China individuals and organizations. A prominent example is Chu Hai College, which the Hong Kong SAR government officially recognized its academic degree programmes in May 2004, and registered as an "Approved Post-secondary College" with the Hong Kong SAR government since July of the same year. It has since been renamed the Chu Hai College of Higher Education (珠海學院) and no longer registered with the Republic of China's Ministry of Education. New students from 2004 have been awarded degrees in the right of Hong Kong rather than Taiwan.