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Title: ‘The War Over Identities: How China Has Transformed the Meanings of Taiwan Independence’

Chair: Dr Ming-Sung Kuo, University of Warwick Law School

Abstract: Geopolitics shape identity and ethnic politics and profoundly influence a country’s paths to democratization and industrialization. Taiwan constitutes a unique, though not singular, case of how geopolitics affects domestic politics. Taiwan belongs to a genre of sovereignty-contested states and has consolidated democracy under conditions of thin de jure nationhood. This paper explores how Taiwan, as a sovereignty-contested state, has achieved democracy, while China, as a challenger, has contrarily pushed forward the process by suppressing the contested state’s national identity. Remarkably, despite lacking statehood, Taiwan’s democratization has given rise to a new and robust national identity, further strengthening its stateness. By revisiting the stateness theory proposed by Linz and Stepan, this paper explains how Taiwan has achieved democratic consolidation despite national identity splits and constant external threats, and how the meanings of Taiwan independence have fundamentally changed from introversion (against the KMT émigré regime during the authoritarian era) to extroversion (against an assertive irredentist China claiming Taiwan’s sovereignty) in the process. This paper analyzes changes in the constellation of identities with quantitative and qualitative data, including the rejuvenation of Taiwanese independence supporters and the KMT’s response to the advent of the “Republic of China (Taiwan)” discourse espoused by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (2016-). The rection by the KMT's pro-China faction indicates its resistance to an emerging Taiwanese national identity by continuing to hold Chinese nationalism consistent with China's sovereignty claim over Taiwan. The case of Taiwan carries significant theoretical implications, shedding light on the interaction between statehood and stateness. For instance, a democratic sovereign state can suffer from a severe stateness problem, as Ukraine did prior to the Russian invasion in February 2022. Taiwan contrasts with Ukraine, which enjoys de jure statehood, but faces serious flaws in stateness. This themed section can contribute to the theory of contested states regarding the origins of contested sovereignty and their consequences.

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