Author Jeff Jacoby visited Taiwan, talked with Taiwanese students, did additional research and writes about his conclusions for the Boston Globe. Hat tip to RealClearWorld for the link. Jacoby observes that today Taiwan is not a part of China, if perhaps it once was.
The Taiwanese no longer feel themselves to be Chinese, even though their ethnicity is the same as most mainlanders - Han Chinese. He asks us to remember that the British who founded the U.S. made the same transformation, for some of the same reasons, when they became Americans.
I’d add my own observation about Taiwan, from several brief visits over the past 30 years, including one coincidentally during the brutal attack in Tienanmen Square. Taiwan is the one place in Asia, conquered by the Japanese during World War II, which retains some positive feelings toward Japan.
Everywhere else in Asia - especially China - holds quite negative attitudes toward their former Japanese occupiers, and thus toward today’s Japan. I hypothesize this difference occurs because Imperial Japan, acting in its own geopolitical interests, treated the Taiwanese as a unique nationality, as not-Chinese.
