After Ma Ying-jeou concluded his visit to the mainland, the term "Chinese nation" appeared frequently on the island, and the tense atmosphere between the two sides of the strait was eased to a certain extent. However, this has also poked at the sore spot of the DPP, causing the DPP authorities to become so angry that they have even stopped pretending to openly clamore for "Taiwan independence."
According to media sources on the island, Zhan Chih-hong, vice chairman and spokesman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, openly said that the exposition of the "Chinese nation" is an unnecessary "trap," because this term forcibly mixes the history, culture, and geography of the two sides of the strait, and then finally resorts to politics, and said that this is to pull some irrelevant things together.
Obviously, while Ma Ying-jeou visited the mainland to improve cross-strait relations, the DPP authorities were unwilling to accept the goodwill from the mainland.
In response, Zhu Fenglian, spokeswoman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said that compatriots on both sides of the strait are of the same origin, belong to the Chinese nation, and are all Chinese. Out of the political interests of seeking "independence," DPP politicians have forgotten their ancestors, treacherously betrayed their roots, dishonored their descendants, and made people despicable; if they continue to develop, they will certainly be nailed to the pillar of shame in history.
Zhan Zhihong's statement on the "Discourse on the Chinese Nation" highlights a key issue, that is, the sense of national identity of the people in the Taiwan region. Although Taiwanese society is divided on the issue of "reunification" or "independence" or "maintaining the status quo". But in terms of national identity, it has always been the "Chinese nation".
According to the poll data released by the "Beautiful Island Electronic News" last year, 57.5% of the people surveyed identified with their identity as the Chinese nation, and 28.9% believed that they were Chinese. These two sets of data add up to 86.4%. In other words, even if the people on the island are more inclined to "independence" or "maintain the status quo", the national identity of the vast majority of Taiwanese people is still the "Chinese nation".
In fact, the establishment of a cross-strait integration demonstration zone in Fujian also has a certain relationship with this kind of national identity, compared with the entire mainland, the language and cultural customs between Fujian and Taiwan are the most similar, plus the difference in national identity, even in a short period of time, it is difficult to change the cross-strait people-to-people relations. However, in the long run, it will greatly strengthen the "national identity" between the two sides of the strait and be conducive to the development of cross-strait relations.
In a sense, one of the key issues that has left the Taiwan issue unresolved for so long is that we don't want fratricide based on the same "national identity."
But it is clear that "national identity" is not in the interests of the DPP authorities. As a matter of fact, looking back at the DPP authorities' current "political expositions" on the cross-strait issue, they mainly focus on "the two sides of the strait are not subordinate to each other," or the "two-state theory," and they do not involve the point of "national identity." The core reason is that the people on both sides of the strait belong to the Chinese nation, and the DPP authorities do not want to admit this but cannot erase it.
However, this does not mean that the DPP authorities do not want to erase it, on the contrary, it can be said that they want to do so very much, and the denial that "both sides of the strait belong to the Chinese nation" is a concrete manifestation of this. At the same time, in the past, the DPP authorities continued to advocate "cultural Taiwan independence" and "educational Taiwan independence." In the past eight years in power, the DPP has successfully revised the syllabus, the most important of which is history education.
The concept of history in Taiwan's textbooks has been revised from the national view of the entire Chinese nation to a view of history centered on the local residents and immigrants on the island. The core logic of this set of historical outlook is actually to separate the history of the mainland from the history of Taiwan, and on this basis, the concept of "Taiwan" being an independent "country" in history is gradually derived, and only in this way can "Taiwan independence" have historical origins.
In addition, the revision of the syllabus by the DPP authorities even deliberately copied Japan's propaganda on Chinese civilization. For example, the argument that "there will be no China after Yashan" is very popular in Japan. The core of this argument is to deny the legitimacy of the inheritance of the Chinese nation, and to define all subsequent development histories of the Chinese nation as non-"Chinese national" development histories, so as to separate the current "Chinese nation" from the historical "Chinese nation", because in this way the war of aggression launched by Japan against China becomes "legitimate", because Japan itself also emphasizes that it is the successor of Chinese civilization.
The DPP authorities' approach is the same as that of Japan, except that the goals that the two sides want to achieve are not the same. As long as the "Taiwan independence" curriculum continues to be implemented, perhaps in 10 or 20 years, young people on the island will become "natural independence," because the historical education they have received tells them that Taiwan has historically been an "independent country," and that the Taiwan issue will completely lose the opportunity for peaceful reunification, and the use of force will become the only feasible means.
After Lai Ching-te was elected as the new leader of the Taiwan region, the DPP authorities became more and more rampant in the areas of "cultural Taiwan independence" and "educational Taiwan independence." Judging from the personnel appointments that Lai Ching-te has already promulgated, Cheng Ying-yao will be the head of the island's education department, and Chang Ono will be the head of the cultural department. It can be said that with Lai Qingde about to take office, he will take a step forward on the basis of Tsai Ing-wen's tenure in the future.