ASIAN AND AFRICAN STUDIES
Journal of the Department of Asian and African Studies University of Ljubljana - Faculty of Arts
Special Edition on Taiwan
Volume XV, Issue 2 Ljubljana, October 2011
ASIAN AND AFRICAN STUDIES, Volume XV, Issue 2, Ljubljana, October 2011
Editor-in-chief: Jana S. Rošker
Guest editor: Saša Istenič
Managing and layout editor: Nataša Visočnik
Copy editor: Chikako Shigemori Bučar
Editorial Board: Andrej Bekeš, Jana S. Rošker, Chikako Shigemori Bučar, Andrej Ule, Mitja Saje, Maja Lavrač, Takemoto Takahashi, Yuriko Sunakawa, Wang Yi, Raul David Findeisen, Gou Chengyi, Nataša Vampelj Suhadolnik, Tamara Ditrich, Nikolai Jeffs, Nataša Hrastnik, Mateja Petrovčič, Kristina Hmeljak Sangawa, Nataša Visočnik, Nagisa Moritoki, Luka Culiberg
© University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, 2011. All rights reserved.
Published by: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani/Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana
For: Oddelek za azijske in afriške študije/Department of Asian and African Studies
For the publisher: Andrej Černe, Dean of Faculty of Arts
Ljubljana, 2011, First edition
Number printed: 200 copies
Graphic Design: Mare Kovačič
Printed by: Birografika Bori, d. o. o.
Price: 7,00 EUR
ISSN 1408-5429
This publication is indexed in the Cobiss database. This journal is published three times per year. Yearly subscription: 18 EUR, (Account No.: 50100-603-40227) Ref. No.: 001-033 ref. »Za revijo«
Address: Filozofska fakulteta, Oddelek za azijske in afriške študije, Aškerčeva 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija tel.: +386 (0)1 24 11 450, +386 (0)24 11 444 faks: +386 (0)1 42 59 337
This journal is published with the support of the Slovene Book Agency (JAK).
CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana
308(529)(082)
SPECIAL edition on Taiwan / [editor-in-chief Jana S. Rošker]. -1st ed. - Ljubljana : Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete = Faculty of Arts, 2011. - (Asian and African studies, ISSN 14085429; vol. 15, issue 2)
ISBN 978-961-237-458-7
1. Rošker, Jana S.
257988864
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Saša ISTENIČ
Introduction.............................................................................v-viii
Chao-Ying LEE
Taiwan's Appearance in the 18th Century Travelogue: Taking the
Text of Histoire générale des voyages by Prévost.................................1-20
Yoann GOUDIN, Oliver STREITER, Jimmy Chun HUANG, Ann Meifang LIN
Digital Anthropology and the Renewal of Waishengren Studies:
From Digitized Tombs to Identity Claims..............................................21-45
Wenchuan HUANG
Street-naming and the Subjectivity of Taiwan:
A Case Study of Taipei City.........................................................47-58
Jérôme SOLDANI
Contested Representations of Taiwanese Baseball: Political Interpretations and Moral Values of a National Sport.......................59-75
Cal CLARK and Alexander C. TAN
Political Polarization and Gridlock as the Result of an Institutional Imbroglio in Taiwan.................................................................77-99
Jana S. ROŠKER
The Ideological Foundations of Taiwanese Modernity: Mou Zongsan's New Moral Philosophy...........................................................101-122
iv
UDK: 93/94(529) COPYRIGHT ©: SAŠA ISTENIČ
Introduction
Saša ISTENIČ*
Exactly hundred years ago, in the aftermath of the October 1911 Revolution (Xnhai Geming A^^^), the Republic of China (ROC), founded by the Nationalist Party (Guomindang	KMT), succeeded the Qing dynasty
and made a landmark end to China's protracted imperial era. After losing the civil war to the Chinese Communist Party (Zhongguo Gdngchandang ^H^^^, CCP) in 1949, the KMT transferred the ROC government to Taiwan. Since then, the ROC has undergone momentous social and political transformations and managed to survive on the island of Taiwan in the face of formidable international and domestic challenges. Despite the lack of full international recognition, Taiwan has come to play an indispensible role in world affairs. Ranking among the 20 largest economies in the world, engineering a world-leading high-tech industry and posturing high on the rankings of a variety of international indexes monitoring core human values, Taiwan undeniably serves as a proof that peaceful democratization and remarkable development within a short period of time is possible. What is more, Taiwan became the first full-fledged multiparty democracy in Chinese history. Taiwanese should therefore be tremendously proud of their country's accomplishments in the past decades. Nevertheless, Taiwanese continue to stand at a critical crossroads due to unsolved questions of national sovereignty and political status which remain the most difficult issues in the cross-strait relationship. Whereas the government in Taipei has been firm in claiming that Taiwan is a sovereign and independent country, the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) insists that Taiwan is an inalienable part of
* Saša Istenič, Assistant Professor, Department of Asian and African Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia. E-mail address: sistenic@gmail.com
V
China whose legitimacy belongs to the PRC. Yet, although the PRC succeeded the ROC on the mainland in 1949, it has never been able to enforce its claim to rule Taiwan. The co-existence of the two governments since 1949; the PRC government ruling the Mainland and the ROC government ruling Taiwan, has created a unique state of affairs, which have regularly drawn worldwide attention. The cross-strait tensions notwithstanding, Taiwanese have continued to democratize and consolidate its distinct Taiwanese society and nation hand in hand with preserving its Chinese traditions and values.
On the occasion of centennial of the ROC and the unique opportunity to host the 2011 European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS) Conference at the University of Ljubljana, the present volume is dedicated to Taiwan. The selected papers published in this special edition were originally presented at EATS Conference, which for the first time brought to Ljubljana over 70 participants from different countries to debate over issues that specifically concern Taiwan. Staging such prestigious international conference in Ljubljana certainly gave a vote of confidence in Slovenia and the future development of Taiwan studies at the University of Ljubljana, which will hopefully mature in line with the recent establishment of the Taiwan Research Center. Such developments would have been ertainly impossible without the support extended by the Taiwan Foundation of Democracy, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vienna, to whom the Taiwan Research Center remains most grateful.
This interdisciplinary edition of excellent contributions will appeal to anyone interested in Taiwan. With articles from history and anthropology, identity issues and political science, to philosophy, the breadth of ground is truly comprehensive. Taken together, the articles provide a good reflection of how Taiwan's political, economic, and socio-cultural development was to a large degree shaped by multifaceted influences of its historical experience. Before 1624, Taiwan had been defined by the Austronesian tribes, the ancestors of today's Taiwanese aborigines. From 1624 until the late 1980s, Taiwan was transformed by the waves of invasion by the Dutch, the Spanish, the Zheng ^ family (patriots of the Ming ^ dynasty), the Manchus	(founders of the Qing í dynasty), the Japanese, and the
Chinese Nationalists or KMT. The opening article by Chao-ying Lee well portrays Taiwan in the 18th century by providing an interesting critic of historical European travelogue literature about China and Taiwan based on specific
vi
geographic records taken from a renowned 15-volume compilation Histoire générale des voyages written by Antoine François Prévost in 18th century. The author reveals how Taiwan was seen in the eyes of Europeans, predominantly Protestant and Catholic missionaries who recorded the island's geography, races, animals, plant, customs, and history of that time and accordingly assesses Prévost's personal observations. Yoann Goudin, Oliver Streiter, Jimmy Chun Huang and Ann Meifang Lin in their original anthropological research offer a very interesting approach to the studies of Taiwanese Waishengren ^b^À, that is the Han Chinese migrants who arrived to Taiwan after 1945. Using the digital archive ThakBong of gravesites in Taiwan, the authors apply various analytic styles to illuminate how Waishengren varied in their practices and their social structure from North to South and through time.
The following four articles to a certain extent all touch upon the sensitive nature of identity politics in Taiwan. Under the hegemony of six colonial rulers, and internationally, Taiwan was formally represented as a county, a province, colony or country and its identity formation was legitimized accordingly. The rise of Taiwanese consciousness was greatly stimulated by Taiwan's economic development in 1970s, when it became referred to as one of "four tigers" and thus worldwide designated as a separate economic entity. The manufacture of a new Taiwanese identity has then been further enhanced by Taiwanese leaders, politics and scholarship, bringing about significant implications upon Taiwan's self image. With the watershed abolition of the martial law in October 1986, the national identity of Taiwan has encountered dramatic events and transitions. President Lee Teng-hui's	implementation of the constitutional reform in the 1990s which
withdrew the claim by the ROC to represent all of China and unilaterally withdrew Taiwan from the Chinese Civil War, delineated Taiwan and China as two separate entities in political meaning. Since then, the name Taiwan has been further consolidated as the only legitimate name for the island and its people. Fuelled up by the PRC's claims over Taiwan, the percentage of people claiming Taiwanese identity sharply increased. Moreover, the PRC's antagonistic language of missiles has stimulated the growth of Taiwan Studies and debates over the notions of Taiwanese identity. The phrase "New Taiwanese" (Xin Taiwanren ^S^À) was designed to articulate an inclusive Taiwanese identity in which all the people of Taiwan, regardless of their identity as Waishengren, Taiwanese, Hakkas, or Aborigines, could legitimately claim to be people of Taiwan. (Lee 1999, 9) Wenchuan Huang looks into how Taiwan's different ruling elites have expressed
vii
their power through geographical naming by examining the renaming of streets and urban districts in Taiwan's capital city, Taipei, from Qing dynasty to present. Renaming streets, public buildings and spaces is one way that officials attempt to canonize a version of the past in the urban landscape to support a particular political order. The author further discusses the relationship between the construction of Taiwanese subjectivity and place names, which are seen as creators of symbolic and routine landscapes. Identity politics can also be observed in Taiwanese sports. Baseball for instance, became a useful foundation of self-recognition for the political leaders in Taiwan. Since baseball is not as popular in China as it is in Taiwan, it became to be viewed by Taiwanese politicians as a perfect symbol to enhance national consciousness. Jérôme Soldani elucidates some very interesting points about the political interpretation of baseball as a national symbol in Taiwan in a historical account starting from the time when baseball was introduced in Taiwan by the Japanese. On the other hand, Cal Clark and Alexander C. Tan provide an excellent account on Taiwan's institutional complexities and enduring policy-making problems. Authors argue that polarization and gridlock in Taiwan's politics, coupled with the highly divisive national identity issue, have to a large extent arisen from Taiwan's institutional imbroglio brought about by the authoritarian tradition and institutional legacies from the past. The final article by Jana S. Rosker shifts from the issues of identity to the field of philosophy. The author explores the rise and growth of Modern Confucianism and introduces some crucial philosophical elaborations in the field of the new moral philosophy by the most prominent exponent Mou Zongsan ^^H (1909-1995).
Directly or indirectly, these articles all bring some new insights into matters with a bearing on highly important themes relating to Taiwan's past and present. It is my hope that this first special edition on Taiwan will serve as a starting point for future research and provide new students with a more intimate, in-depth acquaintance with Taiwan's old and new faces.
References
Harrison, Mark. 2006. Legitimacy, Meaning and Knowledge in the Making of Taiwanese
Identity. New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lee, Teng-hui. 1999. "Understanding Taiwan: Bridging the Perception Gap." Foreign
Affairs 78(6): 9-14.
viii
UDK: 9(529)
COPYRIGHT ©: CHAO-YING LEE
Taiwan's Appearance in the 18th Century Travelogue: Taking the Text of Histoire générale des voyages by Prévost
Chao-Ying LEE*
Abstract
There are a total of 15 volumes of Histoire générale des voyages written by Antoine François Prévost (1693-1763), which were published between 1746 and 1759. The 6th volume introduced China, in Section 4 of Chapter 1, the part of Fujian Province specially introduced geographic travelogues of Penghu and Taiwan. This thesis is an attempt to probe and criticize the historical European travelogue literature about China and Taiwan, specifically in terms of this Prévost's travelogue volumes. What are the points of view presented, based on the reports of Jesuits and Protestants from Holland and England? What aspects of different traditional books did Prévost base his work on? Why? What kind of outlook on Taiwan was presented in their reports?
Keywords: 18th century, travelogue, Taiwan image, François Prévost, writing Izvleček
Skupno obstaja 15 knjig zbirke Histoire générale des voyages avtorja Antoine François Prévost (1693-1763), ki so bile izdane med leti 1746 in 1759. V šesti knjigi, ki predstavi Kitajsko, je v četrtem odstavku prvega poglavja, ki se nanaša na provinco Fujian, predstavljen geografski potopis otočja Penghu in Tajvana. Pričujoč članek skuša raziskati in kritizirati predhodne evropske potopise Kitajske in Tajvana na osnovi te zbirke. Kakšna so bila njihova stališča, ki so temeljila na zapisih jezuitov in protestantov iz Nizozemske in
* Lee Chao-Ying, Assistant Professor, Department of Ethnic Relations and Cultures, National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan, R.O.C. E-mail address: leechaoying@mail.ndhu.edu.tw This article is a part of the conclusions of my study carried out in National Science Council (97-2410-H-259-036)—"The Chinese and French Art and Culture Intercourse History in the Eighteen Century: The Illustration Regarding China in French Traveling Notes."
1
Anglije? Na katerih vidikih različnih tradicionalnih zapisov je Prévost gradil svojo zbirko? Zakaj? Kakšen pogled so imeli njihovi zapisi na Tajvan?
Ključne besede: 18. stoletje, popotniški dnevnik, podoba Tajvana, François Prévost, pisanje
1 Constructing the Geography, Cultures, Customs and Knowledge of Various Continents in the World
Histoire générale des voyages written by Prévost (1693-1763)1 was published in 15 volumes, from 1746 to 1759, by the publisher Didot. It became the most important collection of encyclopedia-type world travelogues published in French in the Age of Enlightenment. This is a body of literature upon which there has been little academic research devoted, until now. The series was commissioned by Aguesseau, the Chancellor, and Marquis Maurepas, France's Minister of Navy, and published officially. Its main purpose was to encourage French merchants to go abroad for purposes of investment and in business, hence, Prévost was commissioned to compile and translate A New general Collection of Voyages (Londres, T. Astley, 1745-1747)2 published in London, England, by John Green in order to compile information about the geography and history of countries in the world at that time. Green adopted the maps of the Chinese coast included in the books written by the latest scholars at that time, such as J.B. Du Halde and J.B. d'Anville of France, while omitting the parts of previous travelogues which had nothing to do with the main journeys themselves, rendering the whole series more streamlined, and in the process completing a text on world maritime geography based on pre-existing travelogues. The book was divided into 4 volumes in total and after 1747, was further translated into a German version and published in
1	A.-F. Prévost born in Picardie was fond of poetry and fictions when he was young. He had been educated in the school of the Society of Jesus which he later applied to join, however, he was rejected. Later, he entered the Bénédictine order and became the abbot of the monastery in 1726. In 1728 he left the Bénédictine order, and resumed secular life to start travelling. His novel, Manon Lescaut was very successful in 1733, and one year later, the Catholic Pope forgave him, and readmitted him as a Bénédictine monk. In 1754, he wrote the history of the royal family for Prince Conti. He passed away in 1763.
2	From 1745 to 1747, London publisher, Thomas Astley accepted the young geographer John Green's suggestions to recompile a series of A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels by way of text-image interaction, for publication. The version collected in National Museum of Taiwan History is just the 5th volume in the German version of 1749. (Cheng 2006, 224 )
2
seven volumes.3 Even though the period of publication in England was ended in 1747, Prévost still completed eight follow-up volumes, conducting the analysis and commentary on the latest travelogues published at that time. This is a great work, first published in France, and was comprised of a broad range of collected travelogues about the whole world.
Beautiful illustrations also increased the sales of this book. Naval engineer, Charles Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772) was in charge of map production; the illustration was carried out by Charles Nicolas Cochin (1713-1790), the French Royal Court's print engraver. Cochin and 27 print engravers produced 347 print illustrations for this book, collecting all the European image illustrations in the whole world. Henri Roddier considered the book with a certain degree of academic rigor, and deemed it to be a combined bibliography of all travelogues, which also included the first-hand information which had not been published previously; it could therefore be referred to as a dictionary (Roddier 1955, 177). Sylviane Alberban-Coppola considered that the academic features of this book consisted of its approach in handling of words, and the comparison and criticism of image materials, with universal ideals of knowledge (Albertan-Coppola 1995, 81-98). Henri Roddier mentioned, in studying Prévost's biography, that Meusnier de Querlon, a reviewer at that time had addressed the reputation of the series as being far superior to other travelogues. The reason for its success, apart from its beautiful prints, was the elegant style of the writings. In this respect, critic Michèle Duchet opined that what made Prévost's work attractive was that reading this series was just like reading a novel. Prévost's work was continuously republished until 19th century, and was translated into Dutch, German, Spanish, and many other languages for publication (Duchet 1965, 154). From Prévost, Voltaire's republication of L'Essai sur le moeur (1756) absorbed material and subject matter, and Rousseau's 2nd edition of Discours (1755) primarily obtained materials and drew on Prévost's visions of primitive human nature. The concept of the noble savage popular in the 18th century, was used by Prévost to discuss the issue of primitive Utopia more deeply in this series. The series itself was originally published because France's ruling dynasty was engaged in overseas commerce and pursued a colonial policy; overseas investment in business was the hope of the country's future economy, and this drove French expansion overseas.
3 German version was published by Arktee and Merkus Publisher in Leipzig, and renamed as Allgemeine Historie der Reisen zu Wasser und Lande oder Sammlung aller Reisebeschreibungen. Notes as ditto.
3
The 6th volume of this series introduced the geography, history, and natural science of Asia and China.4 Chapter 1 introduced the geography of fifteen provinces of China, including North Zhili, Jiangnan, Jiangxi, Fujian, etc., and a section on Fujian, Penghu and Taiwan (Formosa) was also included. (Prévost 1748, viii-x) Basically this series inherited the tradition of the Society of Jesus in describing geography of China in the 17th and 18th centuries, Holland and England, however, adopted the Protestant view of China, and Penghu and Taiwan occupied nine pages in these travelogues. The standard by which travelogue literature was judged at the time was based on the credibility of information, along with whether or not the field survey was actually made in China, with the spirit of positivism.
This thesis is an attempt to probe and criticize the historical European travelogue literature about China and Taiwan, specifically in terms of this Prévost's travelogue literature book. What are the points of view presented, based on the reports of Jesuits and Protestants from Holland and England? What are the differences between Dutch and English authors, adherents of Catholicism, the Society of Jesus, and Protestantism, in interpreting China and Taiwan? What aspects of different traditional books did Prévost base his work on? Why? In addition, what role did the maps play in travelogues as an introduction to East-West cultural exchanges? What was the role of the religion in authors deliberately omitting political background at that time? What kind of outlook on Taiwan was presented in their reports?
2 Jesuit and Protestant Travelogues Reporting on China
This book, in its introduction, first referred to its source materials and undertook criticism of literature in terms of European travelogues about China from the 17th century until the time Prévost's series was written. Although Prévost did not experience China firsthand, he could still comprehensively arrange some firsthand witness accounts and other literature to write creditable materials, and therefore, we should be able to understand the historical contexts of the Jesuit and Protestant traditions in 17th and 18th century reports on China.
4 Original title was "Description de la Chine, Contenant la Géoraphie, et L'histoire Civile et Naturelle du Pays".
4
2.1 The Jesuit Writing Traditions
According to Watler Demel's research, although Portugal was the first European country to have contact with China, Portugal, unlike other European countries, lacked widespread information on the subject of China, because there was no publication of correspondences between Portuguese Jesuits and their families. On the other hand, the Roman Curia ruled in "the Rites Controversy", that those who did not accept the interpretation of Catholic Jesuits and who accepted ancestor worship were only following a kind of custom in China. For European Catholics, China was no longer seen as a positive model of the ideal of the 18th century. Italy and France were still two important centers for spreading information about China. The core of the Society of Jesus was in Rome, where the Vatican kept and published the correspondences of the Church's missionaries. Even the correspondences written by the Spanish and Portuguese missionaries, was translated into French. In Europe, Italy became the most important center for spreading information about China in the 17th century; subsequently, Italy was slowly replaced by France, which caught up and became the European hub for spreading knowledge about China in the 18th century (Demel 1995, 85-125).
The first edition of Matteo Ricci's writing was published in Augsburg in 1615. In 1747, Italian political parties took the outstanding achievements of China in terms of practical economy as a model through which to illustrate the image of China as a peaceful, highly educated nation with highly developed agricultural technology. From 1570 to 1575, there were no important exchanges between China and France; for France, China was a closed country. Up until 1685, Louis XIV had dispatched six missionaries to China. Among them was the priest Joachim Bouvet, who returned to France from Bejing in 1697, with 49 Chinese books of the Kangxi, and Emperor Louis XIV reciprocated with a large series of prints, starting to build the so-called Sino-French commercial relationship in 1698. The Society of Jesus also sent a lot of information about China back to France. A priest named Foucquet brought a large series of books containing wide-ranging knowledge about China. In the first half of 18th century, France and England were about the same in terms of the prevalence of Chinoiserie. In addtion, "the Rites Controversy" allowed the French to become more familiar with China, with Paris becoming the center of French interest in China. Since the series of books written by A.-F. Prévost was published in Paris, the author could easily access to the voluminous travelogue materials about China which had already been published.
5
2.2 View and Description of Protestant Countries' Travelogues on China
As for travelogues appearing in Protestant countries such as Holland and England, because the authors mostly had contact and traded with the middle and lower classes of China, they mostly described the common people, and conveyed a negative image of China. Since the Dutch sailors did not understand the correct etiquette for communication with the Chinese, they made a very bad impression on the Chinese. Generally, both parties' experience of the contact and exchange between their cultures was a failure. "Eyes like a cat" and "red hair" were demeaning terms which the Chinese used to describe the Dutch. In 1620, the Dutch set a fire to burn Chinese houses and raped local women. As a result, the Kangxi Emperor did not want to approve the trade privileges of the Dutch East India Company. This could probably explain why Nieuhoff s work L'Ambassade de la Compagnie Orientale des Provinces Unies vers l'Empereur de la Chine5 written in the mid-17th century, contained demeaning criticism of the Chinese, and cast suspicion upon the Society of Jesus for having described a positive image of China. Even so, Holland was a country without a book censorship system; hence, Voltaire's works were published in Holland to evade the book censorship system of France.
Even Queen Elizabeth I demonstrated her interest in China. In the 17th century, England accepted the Dutchman Nieuhoff s view in describing China; compared to Spanish and Portuguese Jesuits' writings, we can find that the Protestant merchant's travelogues enjoyed wider circulation in England. In the mid-18th century, the upper class in England showed a deep interest in Du Halde's writing and the Rites Controversy; however, the credibility of many missionaries' writing was doubted, and readers considered the Jesuit's reports as excessively praising China without truthful reporting of factual information.
In terms of the Jesuit's writings, their being originally published in Catholic countries and then later appearing in translated versions of which in Protestant countries meant that the content of these subsequent versions would be different from the originals, reflecting the competing ideologies. By comparing the originals to different translation versions, various interpretations can be found. For example, Nieuhoff s works are written from the viewpoint of the Dutch Republic, and
5 Jean Nieuhoff s work L'Ambassade de la Compagnie Orientale des Provinces Unies vers l'Empereur de la Chine was published in 1665 in Leyde (Leiden) by Jacob de Meurs, merchant bookseller and engraver of Amsterdam, done in French by Jean le Carpentier.
6
describe the Tartars as being a barbaric nation, which destroyed Chinese cities. However, when we read the translated German version, the Tartars were not portrayed as cruel barbaric nation, but rather one that liberated cities that the Chinese had enslaved, governed cities with a centralized approach; the Tartars could actually be seen as heroes for liberating these cities.6 Since the main point of contact for Jesuits was the palace of the Qing Dynasty, the Jesuits presented an elegant image of the upper class in China, and appraised Chinese politics. In contrast, because Dutch merchants were from a Protestant country and had contact with the middle and lower classes in China, the Dutch expressed a part of more negative image of China.
Apart from Nieuhoff and Du Halde's Description de l'Empire de la Chine, Dutch books about China were not widely read, nor did they produce a great effect on the rest of Europe.
European illustrations and books about China were developed rapidly in the 17th century. According to Lothar Ledderrose's research, up until the 16th century, most travelogues about China contained few illustrations, and the written materials contained in books were not comprehensive enough to be considered authoritative. However, this started to change after 1660, as two important books, Nieuhoff s L'Ambassade de la Compagnie Orientale des Provinces Unies vers l'Empereur de la Chine, and A. Kircher's La Chine Iillustrée gave widespread dissemination to images of China throughout Europe. These works introduced the crafts, ceramics, and lacquers of China, spreading an exotic image of China throughout Europe. In Spain and Portugal, in contrast, travelogues about China were not so widespread. France and Italy were the important countries for publishing the information about China in Europe (Ledderose 1991, 224).
2.3 Prévost's Geography Travelogue about China
Prévost's geography travelogue about China was primarily based on the Society of Jesus' descriptions of the tradition of China, and on the Protestant writers; Nieuhoff s L'Ambassade de la Compagnie Orientale des Provinces Unies vers l'Empereur de la Chine, and Du Halde's Description de l'Empire de la Chine.
6	Nieuhoff I, p. 59 (dat ruwe wolck), p.74 (wreetand verwoed), p. 57 (De Sineezen worden jammerlijk geplaagt); Nieuff, p. 71 (recht grawsames Barbarisches Volck), p. 87 (grawsahm untyrannisch), p. 69 (harte Schlaverey), in Demel 1995, 88-89.
7
In the beginning of the 6th volume of Histoire générale des voyages, published by Prévost, it is pointed out that travelogues about China were taken from Nieuhof, Montanus, Navarette, Le Comte, Gemelli, and Du Halde, who were the important authors of travelogues at that time, in addition to works by Nicolas Frigaut, Alvarez Samedo, Magathaens, and Martino Martini.
Prévost who had been educated by the Society of Jesus, and was the abbot of a religious order, basically recognized the Jesuit's view of reporting, and most of his reports about China originated from Martini's collection of China maps, as well his followed-up travelogues copied basic structure of Martini's works. This book introduced 15 provinces of China, along with races, climate, customs, clothing, agricultural products, and the natural science of each province, and was the source of China travelogues. Comparing this book to Du Halde's Description de l'Empire de la Chine, in term of maps, Du Halde's maps adopted were more accurate, whereas in terms of cities described in the text, Martini's description was more detailed and diversified with pertinent reviews.
In part of the 6th volume, Prévost, from the beginning, criticized the existent geographic travelogue literature on China, and particularly singled out Martino Martini's book Le Novus Atlas Sinensis, published in a large format in Amsterdam in 1655, which was presented to Leopold Guillaume, the governor of Holland and the head of Bourgogne. Martino Martini was a Jesuit who had experienced many places in China firsthand, as he said himself, "I stayed in China many years just for responding to the call of God, and experienced most provinces of China." (Martini 1655, préface) In his Asia map and the geography books describing China, Martini described 15 provinces, cities and rivers, and attached one map for each province, including decorations, and used the local geographical environment as its characteristics. The lower right corner of the map of North Zhili Province contains a representation of the Emperor and Empress, adopting the left and right rows of a canopy and using phoenix as the decoration pattern. This is the first book about geographical cultures of China which was based on materials from direct witnesses. It became the most important reference for future generations, expressing the richness of the geographical environment, and displaying an encyclopedic knowledge about writings on China.
In preface of Description de l'Empire de la Chine, Du Halde criticized past works, from Marco Polo to his day, complaining about travelogues without selecting important things. Those four volumes repeated some icons which had
8
existed; as for the manuscripts sent from the missionaries in China, they included introduction, and 64 pieces of pictures (maps). Their copperplate engraving was made by current famous engravers, including De Lahaye and Lucas. As for maps, Du Halde drew the decoration in Chinese style at the right corner, and the integration of maps was made by Bourguinon d'Anville, a royal geographer. This writing was subject to the original annal ways of China and its various translations had become the important literatures in 18th century, which can be compared favorably with La Chine illustrée of the 17th century (Foss 1991, 153-189).
Those China travelogue authors were almost all Jesuits, like Martini, A. Kircher, and Du Halde; or accompanied with an ambassador representing their country's government on a commercial exchange, such as Nieuhoff. Either way, this meant that all authors had a certain relationship with China in terms of politics, commerce and religion. Otherwise, the dedicated subject was the king according to the first manuscript sent by missionaries, and the publication type was very expensive. There were two ways to edit a travelogue book: one involved the author describing the world according to his own observations, based on what he saw; the other involved the editor basing his writings on the content of Jesuit's letters which were sent back to Europe. Such works included the particularities of geography books and encyclopedias, and introduced cities, climate, customs and races. The first of these books about China was Novus Atlas Sinensis written by Martini. A. Kircher's La Chine Iillustrée inherited the style of geography books, but added the topic of religion, L'Ambassade de la Compagnie Orientale des Provinces Unies vers l'Empereur de la Chine was a navigation book introducing ports and cities. In Du Halde's Description de l'Empire de la Chine, the first and fourth volumes specifically highlighted geography, and the maps included a correct and complete China map drawn by missionaries, in addition to a Chinesestyle map of North Zhili. Maps, rare at the time, became the most important feature in driving sales of this book. Their inclusion, along with the accompanying histories and descriptions, caused this book to be expensive. However, it still had its readers among the upper class.
Prévost, in his introduction to the 6th volume, specially focused on Du Halde's map materials, which added considerable academic value to this book. What made Prévost's book special was the addition of these maps and descriptions of a number of Pacific islands. As for the illustrations, the majority were Du Halde's illustrations of Chinese ladies' clothing, Nieuhoff s port sketch, and renderings of animals and plants. Absent was any introduction to religious idols or strange
9
customs: what was presented was merely an objective atlas, and included "positive" imagery.
3 The Geography and Travelogue of Penghu Island and Taiwan— the Jesuit's view of reporting
The Histoire générale des voyages published by Prévost contained a part on Taiwan, "Description des iles de Pong-hue et de Tay-wan ou Formose", comprised of nine pages (Prévost 1748, 56-64) which primarily described geography and customs. It first introduced the literature it had borrowed from, including the newest materials, and then described the geography and administration of Penghu and Taiwan, as well as different ethnic, vegetables, fruits, cities and ports in eastern and western Taiwan.
The introduction of the maps and geography were primarily adopted from Description de l'Empire de la Chine written by Du Halde of the Society of Jesus, because this work's maps were drawn according to the correct versions of the maps of Taiwan and Penghu which had been measured and drawn by Moyriac de Mailla. As for the part on Taiwan, Prévost mentioned the materials and authors he had drawn on, pointing out the view of obtaining geographic materials and maps from missionaries of the Society of Jesus from the very beginning. His description of aborigines originated from the report of Pastor Candidians of the Protestant Reform Church. Prévost also pointed out that Psalmanaazar's view that the whole island belonged to Japan was wrong. In Prévost's view, the western part of Taiwan belonged to China, and the east belonged to the aborigines. His comments were as follows:
We published many travelogues about Taiwan, obtaining materials from different authors, Georges Candidius (Dutch Minister), the Irish David Wright, and Georges Psalmanaazar; they all wrote the travelogues about Taiwan, however, they did not agree with each other's points of view. The books by Candidius and Wright were written in the 18th century. The one by Psalmanaazar was written at the beginning of 18th century, and published with illustrations in English in 1704. Candidius translated important collected English literary works for his publication, among which there were 6 to 7 written pages concerning local aborigines, as seen by Dutch in every city of Taiwan. The following description came from missionaries who took part in making Fujian map. Under Chinese system, the west of the island was part of China, though Psalmanaazar claimed the whole island belonged to Japan. (Prévost 1748, 56)
10
Prévost's book highlighted credibility of academic maps which originated from the materials collected by Du Halde, and which contained measurements and hand-drawn maps by missionaries on the spot and enclosed the information of Pacific islands along the China's coast.
Since the publication in 1720 of the 14th volume of the French version of Letters Edifiantes et Curieuses, Ecrites Des Missions Etrangères Mémoires de La Chine which collected the replied letters of some Jesuits who went to Taiwan for the purpose of measuring and drawing maps, both the King of France and Emperor Kangxi of China liked to draw maps of China. The reason why the king of France dispatched French missionaries to China was actually to carry out the correction of world maps by means of the latest developments in astronomical observation techniques. According to the letter sent by Priest Fontaney in 1703 when he returned to France, Emperor Kangxi, in his spare time, personally indulged in the use of trigonometric tables for such scientific activities as actual measurement. In 1708, Emperor Kangxi ordered the Jesuits to measure the internal and external dimensions of Bejing. The Jesuits subsequently acted as the imperial messengers of the Manchu Emperor going everywhere to conduct their measurement and drawing activities. The whole measurement and drawing completed in 1717, and the compiled results became the famous Royal Map of China (Cheng 2006, 267).
In order to measure and draw a complete map of Qing empire, three Jesuits, Jean Baptiste Regis, Joseph-Francois-Marie-Anne de Moyriae de Mailla, and Romain Hinderer cut short their measurement and drawing work in Fujian to go to Taiwan for the same purpose during the period from April 18th to May 20th, 1714. (Fang in Cheng 2006, 267) Attached with the letter sent by Moyriac de Mailla, "the map made according to the order of Emperor Kangxi of China to actually measure Taiwan", as it was titled, this was just the part devoted to Taiwan in the Royal Map of China. Since the location of the prime meridian in the Royal Map of China was designated by the Imperial Astronomer as passing through Beijing, located as meridian zero, therefore, Taiwan was therefore located between three and five degrees of east longitude. This Taiwan map marked Tchulo-hien below the Tropic of Cancer, and two other cities, Tayouan-fou and Fangan-hien. As for the northern Taiwan, the map only marked the place where troops were stationed, such as Tanxoui-tehin and Kilong-tehai. The navigation mark at the southern Taiwan, E-luan-bi's Xiama Kiteou, was also shown.
11
The end of Prévost's travelogue concluded with six cities of Taiwan, along with their longitude and latitude: Island of Pong-hu, Tay-wan-fu, Fong-cha-hyen, Cha-ma-hi-teu, Chu-lo-hyen, Tan-chui-ching, and Ki-long-chay (Prévost 1748, 64). That was enough to prove that Prévost had at least reviewed a Taiwan map. As for the map, since so little was known eastern Taiwan, three islands were drawn; the west side was correct. On the whole, that confirmed that they had visited Tainan and passed Penghu to draw Island of Pong-Hu by the way.
Just as in the statements of Moyriac de Mailla, we see Prévost making the assertion that "China did not comprehensively rule over the entirety of Formosa; rather, Formosa was divided into east and west, with the two parts being divided by a series of high mountains. The southernmost point of this mountain range began from Cha-ma-hi-teu, and the northern point ended at, as Chinese called it, Ki-long-chay. Only the west side belonged to China, and savages lived in the east ..." (van der Aslsvoort in Cheng 2006, 270) Moyriac de Mailla considered Pingpu people with pure heat who disagreed with the idea that Hans wanted to educate and civilize them.
Prévost particularly emphasized this point of view because he had special passion for aboriginal customs, as we see in his comments:
Formosa was divided into two parts by a series of mountains, from the southern (Jianan plain) to the northern coast. The only part which belonged to China was west of the mountains, the area between 22°8' and 25°20' North latitude. Although the people in the east were claimed to be Chinese, they were rather more primitive tribes much like the primitive people in America. They were more passionate, and milder in disposition. They continued to make war with the Chinese. Those eastern residents helped one another; they did not know what it was to be selfish, stingy and cunning; they had no idea about gold, but even the common people knew they had rich minerals. The residents there did not know how to defend themselves, they had no laws, nor any governmental organizations; their daily diet depended on sea fish, and hunting animal flesh. They did not have any religious rituals, nor any idea of religion. (Prévost 1748, 57)
According to Prévost, Formosa was divided into two races along the east-west geographical split, and the original character and organization of eastern aborigines were highlighted against the Han's society in the west. This was done, in part, to refute George Psalmanaazaar's description of the history and geography of Formosa in An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa: the religion, customs, and rituals of residents written by an islander who subjected to
12
the Emperor of Japan which was written in 1704, referring to Taiwan belonged to Japan and the nonsense talked by missionaries, especially Candidius et al.
In addition, Prévost used the subject of panning for gold to talk about the race relations between the east and the west, described how the Han Chinese seized the gold resources of the aborigines; however, this description was not found in history. He described the situation as follows:
Chinese did not find gold in the west, and therefore dispatched a small party to the east in a boat. Local aborigines who already mined there warmly received those people, but perhaps this was just because they feared their force. In any case, they did not tell these Chinese about minerals. As it was, the Chinese only found a boat which the aborigines, who live in wooden homes, did not care about. The aborigines helped the Chinese to repair their boat, and helped them to carry lead bars on board. Then these terrible Chinese started to use force in the east. Those aborigines went to the west to set fire to Chinese houses; even women and children were not spared. They started wars frequently. (Prévost 1748, 57)
Comparing to India and China, Prévost's book geographically illustrated Taiwan's rural countryside, with its fruits, vegetables, animals and plants. Among the many rich products, it particularly mentioned watermelon and painted a picture of a peaceful and quiet place of abundant resources, highly advanced farming and fostering of poultry, and virtually unlimited supplies, and then presented the differences between civilized society in the west and the primitive tribes.
Prévost described the Jianan Plain in the southwestern part as having rich products, prosperous cities and ports with ordered construction, and good cultural life.
4 Introduction of Taiwan Aboriginal Customs
The descriptive points of this book focused on illustrating the Pingpu among the Taiwan aborigines, including very detailed introduction to their ethnicity, dress, customs, food, housing, and social organization, especially illustrating the housing and living spaces of the Pingpu people in southern Taiwan. Candidius made the following observation:
The residents in Taiwan Island could be divided into two kinds: one was Chinese, and the other was primitive people. In Tainan, there were still Zhangpu people of Fujian, China, of whom the primitive people were slaves.
13
In Anping Town, there were a total of 2,000 people, divided into about 400 to 500 families. There were no differences between Chinese in Taiwan and
Chinese in Mainland in terms of politics. Primitive people submitted to them
(Chinese). About 45 places were called "Che" among which 35 were in the north and 9 in the south. The Che in the south consisted mainly of wooden houses constructed on the platform about 15 to 20 scales (1 scale=33.33 mm) distant from the floor. Some of these abodes were segmented by walls, but no tables, chairs, beds, or furniture were found in other parts. In the center of the house, there was a 2-scale chimney mainly used for cooking and a kitchen. The staple food for local residents was rice, and other seeds. They hunted birds with weapons. They were very brisk, with shoulder-length hair. In addition, there was a kind of spear that could be thrown to distances of 60 to 80 steps. Their tableware did not include plates, napkins, spoons, knives or forks. Food was put on a board and people used their hands to take food into their mouths; they ate half-coocked meat and sat around in front of the fire. Their bed was on the ground padded with leaves. (Prévost 1748, 59)
The above materials were obtained from Pastor Candidius Georgius7; as a matter of fact, Discourse ende cort verhael van't eylant Formosa was written by a German pastor. After graduation from university, he was employed by the East India Company, and went to the Southeast Asian region by ship. He originally intended to work in his specialized field of rendering the world as a means by which to advance the cause of Calvinist (the Reformed Church in Netherland). Hence, even if the Company's arrangement was hoping he would not worry himself about the affairs of missionary work, he ended up causing himself a lot of trouble. This East India Company was there for a strictly business purpose, yet he still looked for the missionary opportunities wholeheartedly; however, he found his efforts being rebuffed everywhere. The local Islamic monarchy cooperated with the Dutch East India Company against the Portuguese. Since the Dutch cooperated with the Islamic monarchy, although the pastor could preach, he could not baptize the converted.8 Coming to Taiwan in 1627, he met Taiwan aborigines;
7	Pastor Candidius was born in the Paladin area of the Rhine valley in southwestern Germany, namely, at the east side of Yaersasi-Lorraine, the junction of Germany and France, in 1597 (just a difference of one year with the publication of Itinerario). The place was located at the junction of various political powers; Christian powers in south Germany, and Catholic powers in France and Italy eyed it covetously. Although the Dutch wanted to help Calvinists there, they were unable even to fend for themselves because of the place too far away. The outbreak of the thirty-year war of the Germanic region in 1618 was just because the leader of Paladin was unwilling to yield to such two powers. Of course, this region was completely involved in the war and ravaged; the displaced people were removed under a tragic situation. Later, pastor Candidius was appointed by the Dutch East India Company to carry out the mission in Asia. (Cheng 2006, 65)
8	Written by W. Campbell, Formosa under Dutch (translated by Hsiung-Hui Lee), (Taipei: Avanguard Publisher, 2003). Cited from Cheng 2006, 66.
14
without understanding his words, he found his dreamland that 120 people still listened to his preaching.
By the time Wright visited Taiwan, it had been nearly three decades since Pastor Candidius Georgius had written his report. However, what he had recorded was still mainly about the aborigines near Sinckan. And Olfert Dapper who compiled those records into Gedenkwaerdig bedryf der Nederlandsche Oost-Indische Maetschappye, op de kuste en in het keizerrijk van Taising of Sina, requested someone to make prints to show Formosa according to Wright's descriptions. For example, we read Wright's detailed description of aboriginal dress:
They wore what was almost a cotton dress in the summer—the upper part was like a wide sheet, with two corners joined up over their arms, and crossing over the chest, so that one side of the body was usually covered up, and the other side would be exposed. A cinch was in the middle, and there were leggings tied on their lower legs. They wore neither shoes, nor socks; however, some would wear rough shoes which were made of goat skin and tied with a small rope.
Before the Spanish and the Dutch arrived, residents there were naked in their daily activities. Mountain residents were naked, but would cover their private parts with a small cloth.
Most women dressed like the men did; the only difference was that the women used cloth to cover and tie around their legs; they wore full-length skirts, but the length would not often exceed the half of their height. Inside of the skirt was a small cotton dress, long to the knees. They wrapped their heads with pieces of silk or flannelette cloth with two Dutch yards long, and two ends of the cloth met on the forehead, projecting toward. They never wore shoes. Behind every woman, a pig often followed like her child.
Half of the men had decorations on the skin of their chest, back, and arms which were painted on with some pigments, which would be left on the skin and would not fade. (Note: i.e. tattoo) Around their necks and wrists, they wore glass-bead necklace and bracelets and there were iron rings, locked up tight, worn from the forearm to the elbow with almost no gap, so it was not possible to expose the arms. Similarly, on each side of the legs, there were many white shells. (Gedenkwaerdig in Cheng 2006, 76)
Prévost's travelogue, in comparison, had much less description that would allow readers to imagine the appearance of Taiwan aborigines, but he did record and illustrate weaving, and decorations in an anthropological way objectively, and he
15
devoted a lot of space to introducing the customs of Taiwan aborigines in particular, as shown in the following extract:
Local residents had invented a kind of fabric about 2 to 3 steps long with which to wrap their bodies from the waist to the knees. Some residents' bodies were marked with images of animals, trees or flowers (tattoos), but only hunters were entitled to this. Most people dyed their teeth black, and wore ear rings, small necklaces, and neck decorations. On their heads, they wore ring-like bands with poultry feathers inserted into them. The people in the north wore hats made of deer skin and sleeveless dresses. They also wore a kind of hat made of banana leaves, circular, small bands of many layers and with different colors, with feathers added, as a head decoration. If an adult wants to get married, he needed to go to the home where the woman he loved lived to continuously play musical instruments. If this woman agreed to the proposal, she would appear in front of him and started to talk about the conditions. Then, they told their parents, and start to prepare their wedding ceremony. The wedding ceremony was mainly celebrated at the bride's father's home, which was also the place where the future husband would live; therefore, fathers would pray for God to give them a daughter instead of a son, because a daughter would bring a son-in-law to become a pillar for their old age. (Prévost 1748, 60)
Prévost's description showed that he did not have an ironic or stereotypical image of Taiwan aborigines, but instead presented aboriginal kindness and customs with objective description.
5 Conclusions
This thesis relates to Prévost's travelogue about Taiwan which inherited the travel geography of the Society of Jesus, and introduced the island's geography, races, animals, plant, customs, and history. Correct geographic maps were combined with objective book arguments, rather than free writing and mere compilation, and incorporated the materials closest to the reality, local witnesses, historical materials of China, and accounts representing both Protestant and Catholic viewpoints.
In addition, Prévost described Taiwan as two different countries, east and west; the west, populated by Han Chinese was prosperous and civilized, while the east owned rich minerals. The east and the west became a contrast of civilized cultures and primitive cultures; the west had rich products with well-regulated cities; the east was mainly based on primitive fishing and hunting activities. Aboriginal
16
clothing, customs and housing were strange and interesting. In addition, Prévost expressed the point of view that aborigines were noble savages, and praised them for being kind without being cunning. To describe aboriginal customs and races observed in the east appeared to be one of Prévost's personal interests. His records of their original customs in every place become the principle source materials for later generations of writers, and comprised part of Rousseau's education. Basically, Prévost inherited the way of the Society of Jesus when it came to describing China, illustrating Taiwan as having different cultures in the east and the west. He was not, however, intentionally critical or derogatory, but presented Taiwan as being multi-faceted, with a complicated history and distinct island cultural characteristics.
He did not mention any local religion for fear of bringing up the associations with pagan idols. Within the historical context of the Rites Controversy, as a religious person who was fond of literature, Prévost avoided the contentious issue as much as he possibly could.
As for the island's history, Prévost did not describe the relationship between Han Chinese and aborigines from the viewpoint of the Manchu Dynasty. On the whole, he stood in the position of sympathizing with the aborigines, so the Han Chinese were more often described as the cunning ones. In addition, he depicted the advanced sailing cultures of Taiwan found among the Japanese, the Dutch, the aborigines and the Manchu Dynasty. In his book, Prévost treated the island's complex political and diplomatic status in an objective way, rather than adopting the curious tone found in travelogues prepared by writers from different cultures. Much of the source materials he used were written by author members of the Society of Jesus and the Reform Church, a group which included both missionaries and explorers. The first-hand knowledge was obtained from personal visits to Taiwan. Moreover, Prévost took Dutch books (published by East India Company) for mutual support, making an arrangement of Taiwan's history at that time. As for the part of ethnic groups, when he wrote about aborigines in the east of Taiwan and Austronesian, Prévost applied a deeper anthropological research methodology to probe tatoos, clothing, housing and customs, making for profound discussion, which was in short supply in previous writings.
As for Taiwan, Prévost's introduction was very detailed, and the image section was referred to Du Halde's travelogue. Prévost's book integrated other authors from four different continents which made it one of the most important writing in
17
the 18th century. Prévost's text about the travelogue of Taiwan is based on various materials, including the travelogue of the Society of Jesus, the works of Protestant authors, and missionaries' and traders' personal visits to Taiwan. In 1748, it represented a consolidated compendium of accurate and specific information about Taiwan. What made it unique was the author describing Taiwan as diverse and rich, with good and kind people. Prévost wrote in a positive manner and from an objective angle, in terms of describing the civilized Han Chinese in the west and the primitive society of the aborigines in the east, painting a realistic picture of Taiwan as a beautiful Utopia existing in the 18th century.
References
Albertan-Coppola, Sylviane. 1995. "Les images dans l'Histoire générale des voyages de l'abbé Prévost.'' Études de lettres 1-2, janvier-juin: 1-98.
Bouvet, Joachim. 1697. L'Estatpresent de la Chine. Paris: Giffard.
Cartier, Michel. 1980. "La Chine et l'Europe au XVIII ème siècle." In: Actes du llème colloque international de Sinologie-les rapports entre la Chine et l'Europe au temps des Lumières, 1-20. Centre de recherches interdisciplinaire de Chantilly (C.E.R.I.C.); 16-18 Septembre, 1977, Les Belles Lettres, Paris: Cathasia.
Cheng, Wei-chung	2006. Zhizuo tuermosha-zhuixun xiyang gushuzhong de
Taiwan shenying.	(The Fabrication of
Formosa: Images of Formosa in European Antique Books). Taibei: Dayan wenhua shiye gufen youxian gonsi.
Demel, Walter. 1995. "The 'National' Images of China in Different European Countries, C. A. 1500-1800." In Images de la Chine: le contexte occidental de la Sinologie naissante, sous la direction de Edward Malatesta, S. J. Et Yves Raguin, S.J., The Ricci Institute for Chinese - Western Cultural History, 85-125. San Francisco: University of San Francisco; Taipei, Paris: Ricci.
Destombes, Marcel. 1976. "Les originaux chinois des plans de ville publiés par J.-B. Du Halde, en 1735." In Actes du colloque international de Sinologie-la mission française de Pékin auxXVIIeme etXVIIIeme siècles, 85-97. C. E. R. I. C., 20-22 Septembre 1974, Les Belles Lettres. Paris: Cathasia.
Duchet, Michèle. 1965. "L'Histoire des Voyages: originalité et influence." In Publication des Annales de la Faculté des Lettres d'Aix-en-Provence, Aix-en-Provence: Ophrys.
Du Halde, Jean-Baptiste. 1736. Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique de l'Empire de la Chine et de la tartarie chinoise, Paris, 1ere édition, Le Mercier, 1735, 2ère édition, la Haye: H. Scheurleer.
Foss, Theodore Nicholas. 1991. "Chinese Chronology in Jean-Baptiste du Halde, S. J. Description...de la Chine (1735)." In Chine et Europe: évolution et particularités des
18
rapports Est-ouest du XVIe siècle au XXsiècle, 153-189. Taipei-Paris-Hong Kong: Institut Ricci, Ricci Institut, Taipei-Paris-Hong Kong in Cooperation with The Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, University of San Francisco.
Kang, Peter ^^fê. 1999. Zhimin jianchu ji diguo bianchui-hualian diqu yuanzhumin shiqi zhi shijiu shiji de bianqian.
Att^SWS'M (Colonial Contact and Imperial Periphery: History of the Austronesian Population of Hualien from the 17th Century to the 19th Century). Taibei: Daoxiang chuban she.
Kircher, Athanase. 1670. China, monumentis qua sacris qua profans illustrata, 1ère édition, 1664, La Chine d'Athanase Kircher de la compagnie de Jésus illustrée de plusieurs monuments tant sacrés que profans et de quantité de Recherchés de la nature & de l'Art, Trad. Par F. S. Amsterdam: Dalquié.
Ledderose, Lothar. 1991. "Chinese Influence on European Art, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries." In China and Europe - Images and Influences in Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, edited by Lee Thomas, 221-249. Hong-Kong: Chinese University Press.
Lou Held, Marilyn. 1973. China as Illustrated in European Books, 1750-1810. Master of Arts. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Martini, Martino. 1655. Le Novus Atlas Sinensis. Amsterdam: Johannes Blaeu.
Nieuhoff, Jean. 1665. L'Ambassade de la Compagnie Orientale des Provinces Unies vers l'Empereur de la Chine, faite par Pierre de Goyer et Jacob de Keyser (1655-1657), Leyde: l'éditeur Jacob de Meurs, marchand libraire et graveur d'Amsterdam, mis en français par Jean le Carpentier .
Njoto-Fellard, Hélène. 2002. "Les illustrations de l'Insulinde dans l'Histoire génerale des Voyages de l'abbé Prévost (1746-1759): vérité et ressemblance." Histoire de l'Art 51: 73-85. Paris: Association des professeur d'archéologie et d'histoire de l'art des universités.
Prévost, Antoine François. 1748. Histoire Générale des Voyages, ou Nouvelle Collection de Toutes les Relations de Voyages Par Mer et Par Terre, Qui ont été Publiées Jusqu'à Present dans les différentes Langues de Toutes les Nations Connues : contenant ce qu 'il y a de Plus Remarquable, de Plus Utile, et de Mieux Averé dans les Pays ou les Voyageurs ont Penetré, Touchant Leur Situation, Leur étendue, Leurs Limites, Leurs Divifions, Leur Climat, Leur Terroir, Leurs Productions, Leurs Lacs ,Leurs Rivieres, Leurs Montagnes, Leurs Mines, Leurs Cités & Leurs Principales Villes, Leurs Ports, Leurs Rades, leurs Edifices, &c. Avec les Moeurs et les Usages des Habitans, Leur Religion, Leur Gouvernement, Leurs Arts et Leurs Sciences, Leur Commerce et Leurs Manufactures ; pour Former un Système Complet D'histoire et de Geographie Moderne, qui Representera l'état actuel de toutes les Nations : Enrichi de Cartes Géographiques Nouvellement Composées sur les Observations les plus autentiques, de Plans et de Perspectives ; de Figures D'animaux, de Végétaux, Habits, Antiquités, &c. Paris: Chez Didot, tome sixième.
Psalmanaazaar, George. 1705. A Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, an Island Subject to the Emperor of Japan. Giving an Account of the Religion, Customs, Manners, etc. of the Inhabitants. Together with a Relation of What Happened to the
19
Author in his Travels; Particularly his Conferences with the Jesuits, and Others, in Several Parts of Europe. Also the History and Reasons of his Conversion to Christianity, with his Objections against it (in Defence of Paganism) and their Answers, to which is prefix 'd, A preface in Vindication of Himself from the Reflections of a Jesuit lately come from China, with an Account of what passed between them. By George Psalmanaazaar, a Native of the said Island, now in London. The second Edition corrected, with many the Author and the Book, illustrated with several Cuts. To which are added, A Map, and the Figure of an Idol not in the former Edition. London: Mat Wotton, Abel Roper and B Lintott.
Roddier, Henri. 1955. "L'abbé Prévost, l'homme et l'œuvre." In Connaissances des Lettres 44. Paris: Hatier-Boivin.
20
UDK: 572(529)
COPYRIGHT ©: YOANN GOUDIN, OLIVER STREITER, JIMMY CHUN HUANG, ANN MEIFANG LIN
Digital Anthropology and the Renewal of Waishengren Studies: From Digitized Tombs to Identity Claims
Yoann GOUDIN, Oliver STREITER, Jimmy Chun HUANG, Ann Meifang LIN*
Abstract
In this study we illustrate the potential contribution of digital archives to the study of variation among Taiwan's Waishengren. Using the digital archive ThakBong of gravesites in Taiwan, into which the census data of 1956 have been merged, we show that Waishengren varied in their practices and their social structure from North to South and through time in yet unobserved patterns. Our interpretation is that Waishengren assimilated and potentially even merged into existing Holo communities in the South, while in the North, Waishengren developed social distinctions through these practices to reflect power and ethnicity. Regional distinctions will thus be central in future Waishengren-studies.
Keywords: Taiwan, Waishengren, funeral practices, tombstone archive, digital anthropology
Izvleček
V tej študiji predstavljamo potencialni prispevek digitalnih arhivov k študiji variacij med tajvanskim ljudstvom Waishengren. Z uporabo digitalnega arhiva ThakBong, ki ponazarja pozicijo grobišč na Tajvanu, ki vključuje popis prebivalstva iz leta 1956, prikazujemo, da se je ljudstvo Waishengren na severu in jugu kot tudi skozi čas razlikovalo med sabo v svojih običajih in družbeni strukturi v vzorcih, ki še niso bili opazovani. Naša interpretacija pravi, da se je ljudstvo Waishengren asimiliralo in potencialno tudi spojilo z
* Yoann Goudin, Ph.D student, INALCO, Paris. France. E-mail address: yoanngoudin@yahoo.fr. Oliver Streiter, Assistant Professor, National University of Kaohsiung, Taiwan. E-mail address: ostreiter@nuk.edu.tw
Jimmy Chun Huang (Assistant Professor), De La Salle University, Manila, Phillipines. E-mail address: huangc20@gmail.com
Ann Meifang Lin (Master student), Philipps University, Marburg, Germany. E-mail address: dunk5299@hotmail.com
21
obstoječimi skupnostmi Holo na jugu, medtem ko so na severu razvili družbene posebnosti skozi svoje običaje, da bi izrazili njihovo moč in etničnost. Regionalne razlike bodo tako središče prihodnjih raziskav ljudstva Waishengren.
Ključne besede: Tajvan, Waishengren, pogrebni običaji, arhiv grobnic, digitalna antropologija
1 Introduction
Waishengren ("Mainlander") is the term used most frequently in Taiwan to refer to those Han Chinese migrants who arrived from Mainland China after the Republic of China (ROC) took over the administration of Taiwan. In English, the word "Mainlander" is ambiguous and might refer either to daluren, i.e. a Han Chinese living in Mainland China, or Waishengren, i.e. Taiwan's Mainlander. In this paper we thus consistently use the term Waishengren.
1.1 Waishengren in Taiwan
After 1945, the Japanese had surrendered and ROC had taken over the administration of Taiwan and Penghu (the Pescadores). The last migration wave from China to Taiwan gathered momentum. The majority of these Waishengren arrived in winter 1949 from different parts of China, from different ethnic groups, including Han Chinese, Hui and Manchu, and from different religious beliefs, such as Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam. Many different streams of refugees continued to arrive in Taiwan along very different paths until the 1980s. While Kuomintang (KMT) soldiers kidnapped young men and war prisoners of both the Chinese Civil War and the Korean War, that were forced to move to Taiwan, some people deliberately came to Taiwan for fear of communists. Among them, were Korean War land owners, bankers, intellectuals, religious minorities, masters of traditional arts and artists. Many of them settled in Taipei City, where KMT had installed the ROC government.
The arrival of the Kuomintang caused traumatic changes to the social and cultural life of the local Taiwanese. They had, by force, to adapt to a new administration, with Standard Modern Mandarin as the new official language, to the new Republican Calendar and a new economy. Even worse, native Taiwanese, who had acquired the Japanese language, had studied in Japan, had fought in the
22
Japanese army and adopted Japanese practices, saw the Waishengren's hatred towards Japan turning against them, leading to the 228-incident and the subsequent period of White Terror.
For many lower-class Waishengren, the situation was not easy neither. Not only were they not spared from the terror with which the KMT purged the new territory. Separated from their homes, without contact to family members in China or Taiwan, wounded or traumatized through war, many Waishengren lived in hastily constructed shelters, sometimes without permission to leave the army or to marry. Not partially beloved by the native population, for decades they could not develop any promising life perspective and lived among themselves in army villages or veteran dormitories, if KMT cared for them. Others fell out of the army and lived in extreme poverty (Yang and Chang 2010).
1.2 Waishengren Studies
It was only in the early 1980s, that the Waishengren became a research topic in the social sciences, although they had been identified earlier by foreign scholars as a social group. Early researches focused mainly on issues of ethnic discrimination institutionalized by and for the benefit of the Waishengren. As the epistemological context remained at the turn of the 1990s intimately related to developments in politics and society, studies started to tackle questions of ethnicity, the identity crisis of Waishengren (Yang and Chang 2010) and sub-groups differences, for example, among Waishengren (Hu 1989). In the last decade, the study of subgroup differences and the more recent and global paradigms of diaspora and gender studies became the main driving forces in the study of Waishengren (e.g. Scott 2006).
Yang and Chang (2010), most recently, in their programmatic paper on Waishengren, identify the need for a paradigmatic shift in the study of Taiwan's communities to facilitate a comprehensive survey of them, including the study of inner-group variations. This paradigmatic shift in research, claim the authors, requires a re-evaluation of research methodologies, in the process of which archives would assume a central role. The authors, however, did not elaborate the relation between archives as main data sources and a new research focus on inner-group variations.
23
1.3 Towards Digital Archives
Our interpretation of this claim is that only archives and potentially only digital archives can fulfil the requirements of size, collaboration in data creation, and open access. Studies of inner-group variations require data sets, the size of which grows exponentially with the number of variables along which variations are examined. A study involving three types of social classes in three regions and through three time periods would require a twenty-seven times larger data set than an approach that would ignore regions and time periods. Second, the construction of such large data sets requires more manpower and skills than a single researcher can contribute in his or her lifetime. The required interdisciplinary skills for this endeavour range from information science, knowledge of informants' languages and writing systems, to the knowledge of relevant theories in social sciences. Third, this large data-set needs to be made accessible to people who are not involved in data collection, to put the archive into use beyond the life span of the involved researchers already while the researchers are still involved. Archives thus are more than dusty vaults filled with hand-scribbled scrolls. Archives are collaboratively constructed data-sets that are made accessible, in portals through meta-data, to a wider research community, mainly in the form of digital resources.
Through the digitizing of data, traditional studies in the humanities will be enabled to keep pace with the digital revolution of the society and its citizens (e.g. Moretti 2005; Genet and Zorzi 2011). Through digital data, the traditionally paper-based documents are not only rendered searchable for computers, but objects such as houses, temples, or tombs can now be turned virtual and ready for archiving. A research based on digital archives hence enjoys the advantages of inter-subjectivity, speed and accuracy. In particular, the social scientific conflict between the general and the specific can now be freshly tackled. Human brains as exclusive research tools are sub-optimal: our phylogenetic endowment wants us to draw conclusions from one crocodile attack as opposed to a statistically significant number of crocodile attacks, and thus tends to over-generalize (Vollmer 1975). Powerful computational analyses, such as geographic analyses or time-line analyses are exempt from this tendency. They can be performed for hundreds of places, communities or time periods, checking the validity of any generalization. The creation, preparation and analysis of these digital data, we call, respecting the thematic field in which we work, "digital anthropology".
24
1.4 Thakbong, the Digital Archive on Taiwan's Gravesites
The digital archive we develop along these lines is an archive of Taiwan's gravesites, called ThakBong. The ThakBong Digital Archive Project aims at a representative digital documentation of Taiwan's gravesites in the form of their tombs and tombstones. Gravesites, tombs and tombstones are documented through digital, geo-referenced images, as well as transcriptions and descriptions of the photographed objects, formalized in XML (Extensible Markup Language). Tombs thus become searchable like web-sites through key words like a family name, the life data of a deceased, a placename written on the tombstone, symbols, forms, offerings and the featurized architecture of a tomb. Through the search of two or more features, correlations between features can be established, which represents the basic methodological approach in the analysis of such data, similar to styles of analysis in Corpus Linguistics (Bieber et al.1998).
Up to now, about 30.000 tombs have been documented through 100.000 photos. The full annotation of the tombs is an ongoing process and will take years to be completed. The sampling of the gravesites tries to match the proportions of Taiwan's census data of 1956, as represented in Chen and Fried (1967), in terms of the number of people per administrative region, and within a region, their so-called ethnic, but de facto linguistic distributions (Streiter et al. 2011). Besides gravesites in Taiwan, the ThakBong archive documents a limited number of gravesites outside Taiwan, such as the People's Republic of China and places where Chinese settlers have moved to, among them, Hong Kong, Hawaii, USA, the Philippines and Europe.
2 ThakBong at Work
In this study, we seek to respond to Yang and Chang (2010) and to show how archival studies can contribute to Waishengren-studies. More precisely, we analyze a few aspects of the epigraphical and funeral practices of Waishengren documented in the ThakBong digital archive, with a variationist approach, and correlate variations of tomb-features to space, time and social classes (Streiter et al., 2009, 2010a, 2010b). In all data presented in this section, we compare mainly three groups, "Mainlander", "Holo" and "China". Here "Mainlander" (Waishengren) and "Holo" refer to the respectively non-Christian and non-Muslim Han ethnicities. The reason why we exclude Christian and Muslim tombs from our
25
analysis is that tombs of these religions are heavily framed by features of religious ingroup similarity that outweigh the impact of ethnicity. "China" refers to our small collection of tombs on the territory of what is now the Peoples' Republic of China.
2.1 Waishengren: Population Size, Gender Ratio and Family Names
One of the first problems for quantitative research of Waishengren is the question of how many Waishengren had migrated to Taiwan. For socio-political reasons, precise data have remained secret, but most estimations are about one million people or more. The 1956 census (Chen and Fried 1967) reports 914.000 Waishengren in Taiwan and Penghu, making up 9,8% of the overall population. However, the census does not report data from Kinmen and Mazu. The ThakBong tombstone corpus describes the tombs of about 30.000 people for Taiwan, Penghu and Kinmen, of which 12% is unambiguously marked as Waishengren. The actual numbers might be higher, as the default assumption for this annotation feature is Holo and so the number of Holo tombs may include either tombs that have not yet been annotated or Waishengren tombs that have been assimilated to the Holo styles. Overall, however, the current sampling does not deviate from the most common estimates nor the 1956 census data.
The percentage of Waishengren in the overall population in 1956, according to Chen and Fried (1967), is shown in Table 1. This table lists locations with a high percentage of Waishengren first. The largest number of Waishengren lived in the main cities. Taipei and Keelung, of the cities, and Taipei County and Hualian County, of the counties, hosted most Waishengren. The smallest amount of Waishengren was in the south-western counties of Zhanghua, Yunlin, Chiayi and Tainan. These numbers might, to some extent, characterize the relations that Waishengren maintained with their social environment. As for epigraphical and funeral practices, this might mean that Waishengren were under a strong pressure to assimilate in places such as Yunlin. Their population size and their economic and political power might allow them to resist assimilation pressures further to the north, or allow them even to impose their own practices on other groups there.
26
Location	Percentage	Gender Ratio	Location	Percentage	Gender Ratio
Taibeishi	36.66	1.5	Taoyuanxian	7.18	
Jilongshi	26.03	4.6	Pingdongxian	7.17	1.7
Gaoxiongshi	23.07	3.0	Yilanxian	6.85	4.5
Taizhongshi	18.26	3.0	Taizhongxian	3.7	1.8
Taibeixian	13.01	1.5	Miaolixian	3.08	2.5
Hualianxian	11.79	5.1	Nantouxian	2.15	6.4
Xinzhuxian	9.52	2	Tainanxian	2.01	9
Taidongxian	8.45	11.9	Zhanghuaxian	1.76	
Gaoxiongxian	7.39	6.7	Yunlinxian	1.48	
Table 1: The percentage of Waishengren and their gender ratio in 1957
Another feature that allows to link the ThakBong data to other Waishengren-studies is the gender ratio, defined as the size of the male population divided by the size of the female population. As expected, the literature reports a very unbalanced gender ratio for Waishengren, as most of them were young soldiers. Li Tung-ming (1970), for example, reports an unbalanced gender ratio, reaching almost five males for one female at the age of 40 years at the time of the census. Table 1 reports gender ratios as estimated from tombstones. High gender ratios seem to correspond to the soldier profession and reduced economic and political power. In our future research we will thus try to correlate, through tombstone data, the gender ratio to markers of professions and to the relative wealth, as expressed through the tomb and its location. The data from Kinmen, included in ThakBong, but not in the 1956 census, report a remarkable gender ratio of 117.
Figure 1, shows the comparison of the gender ratio of Taiwan's Han groups through time, as revealed through tombstone inscriptions. The gender ratio of Waishengren in Table 1 above was from 1950 and of Holo or Hakka communities and has remained so ever since.
27
Figure 1: Gender Ratio through time for Taiwan's Han population, as calculated from the
ThakBong tombstone data.
The difference between the gender ratio in the cited population statistics and the gender ratio in tombstone data is potentially due to the fact that many Taiwanese women might have been buried with the Jiguan (the geographic origin of Mainland China) of their husband, and thus have been classified as
Waishengren.
Our tombstone data in addition reveal whether or not Waishengren had offspring, thus allowing to correlate offspring, place of settlement and the place of origin. The latter will be discussed below in detail. Family names can be finally linked to the place of origin, the place of settlement and the size of offspring. Our preliminary data on the relation between settlement and family names show that different names have very different types of patterns where they settled in Taiwan. While some Waishengren family names are literally randomly distributed over the island, for example Gu3 (A), as shown in Figure 2, other family names form regional clusters, for example Tu2 (^), as shown in Figure 3. Plotted are the 5% of townships and city districts with the highest percentage of a family name within the group of Waishengren. In Figure 2-3, the right part indicates Ripley's K. The distribution is random when the solid black line is within the two red dotted lines. The distribution forms a statistically significant cluster, when the solid black line is above the red dotted lines (Crawley 2007, 754-758).
28
Figure 2: The places where the estimated 576 Waishengren surnamed Gu3 (A) predominantly settled are randomly scattered over the island. The right graph indicates a statistically significant randomness.
Figure 3: The places where the estimated 444 Waishengren surnamed Tu2 predominantly settled cluster in the North-West of the island. The right graph indicates a
statistically significant clustering.
29
2.2 Waishengren: Heterogeneity of Practices
In daily life as in scientific literature, the term "Waishengren" is often used to refer uniformly to a group of people that actually have less in common than suggested by the denominator. De facto, Waishengren were originally defined only through their shared history of migration in the aftermath of Chinese Civil War. Despite this shared history, the context of the migration, the force that made them come to Taiwan and, as a consequence, the subjective experience were very different, and so were their age, their family status, their economic status and their role during the White Terror, as victim or perpetrator. Nonetheless, as the term "Waishengren" continued to denote the offspring of the generation that had migrated, the definition and connotation of the term started to shift away from the history of migration and acquired administrative and ancestral meanings.
Figure 4: Tombs of Waishengren soldiers in a) Jinmenxian, Lieyuxiang, with a rectangular tombstone and red characters, the placename to the right and date to the left b) Jinmenxian, Jinhuzhen, written in Mandarin and English from left to right, characters are only carved and c) Taidongxian, Beinanxiang with a top-rounded tombstone, folkloric decorations, golden characters, a photo and candles, the place written in topic-position and the date to the right. The tombstones in b) replace tombstones that had been written in Chinese, red, top-to-bottom on top-rounded tombstones. Photos by the authors.
The diversity of epigraphical and funeral practices of this group, as documented through tombs, questions any conception of a uniform or static social group. Figure 4-6 show a subset of the great variation of Waishengren tombs one can observe. This variation does not affect arbitrary or marginal tomb-features, but
30
highly symbolic features, such as the color of the characters, the writing direction, the language, symbols, offerings, tomb style, the degree of assimilation to local tomb, the relation to the ground, and the positioning of the coffin.
Figure 5: Tombs of Waishengren between tradition, assimilation and invention: a) in Gaoshu, Pingdung, preserving original practices from Wenzhou, China, b) in Mituo, Kaohsiung, assimilating local Holo tomb styles and c) elitist tombs in Daya, Taizhong, opposing local tomb styles through partially invented forms and inscriptions. Photos by the
authors.
Figure 6: Tombs of Waishengren of different religious orientations: a) Christian tomb in Taipei, with a traditional tomb form as found in China, but not in Taiwan b) a Muslim tomb in Taipei, which follows the rules according to which Muslims have to be buried in the ground, and a Buddhist tombstone in Yanchao, Kaohsiung, covering probably an urn.
Photos by the authors.
We claim, that these tomb-features are crucial for the understanding of differences and similarities among Waishengren. Tombs are related to practices: Tombs are created by practices and are made to serve practices. And practices are
31
important for an analysis of differences or commonalities in Han Chinese societies. Practices have been used throughout the Han Chinese history to perform cultural assimilation and assume loyalty through the principle of eupraxia, the conform public behavior. Beliefs or rational explanations behind practices are peripheral to the definition of ingroups and outgroups in Han Chinese societies (Watson 1988). Through the displacement of Waishengren, however, different linguistic, religious and cultural practices were brought together in one group, which as a minority had to find its place in the new society. As a consequence, a transformation and potential standardization of the diversified practices became of vital interest for this group to meet their different needs, such as ingroup (Waishengren) and outgroup (local people) support. The question whether and how such a standardization of diversified practices developed lies naturally at the heart of Waishengren-studies as this provides a developmental perspective to the face-values obtained, for example, in questionnaires.
2.3 The Limit of Uniformity: Power
While the standardization of language and folkloric culture was promoted in ROC through education, other diversified practices, such as epigraphical and funeral practices, were difficult to manage. Although KMT achieved sometimes a high degree of uniformity within a graveyard it had the power to manage, variation among graveyards persisted, as seen in Figure 2. Despite the fact that no standardized common tomb-style for Waishengren developed, individual tombstone-features developed within different directions to meet different needs, among them, the need to express a Waishengren ingroup identity. The standardization of tomb-style for Waishengren was impossible to achieve as long as different sub-groups, the rich and poor, the assimilated and the elites had different requirements.
One tomb-feature that had the potential to develop into an ingroup feature for all Waishengren was the form of the tombstone. The two most common tombstone forms, as shown in Figure 4 to 6, are the rectangular tombstone and the top-rounded tombstone. As the top-rounded tombstone was mainly used by local people, Waishengren could have assumed the freely available rectangular tombstone form as their ingroup feature. Indeed, we observe in Figure 4c), Figure 5 a) and Figure 6a) and b), that the rectangular form developed for some
32
Waishengren into a programmatic feature, repeated in different aspects of the tomb, such as a rectangular ground plan or a rectangular Jinlu (ghost money stove).
Figure 7 provides a more detailed analysis of the development of this feature. Figure 7a) sketches the temporal development of the relative usage of the rectangular versus top-rounded tombstone for the categories "Mainlanders", "Holo" and "China". The Holo prefer the top-rounded tombstone. Only during the Japanese period, during which some tombstones resembled, in form and material, bricks, rectangular tombstones have been used to some extent. For the category "Mainlander", we observe a much more consistent use of rectangular tombstones. In our limited data-set "China", almost all tombstones are rectangular. "Holo" and "Mainlander" show sub-group differences when divided into "North", "Middle" and "South". In the North, the Waishengren chose the rectangular tombstone only after 1970 and the Holo followed this trend. In the South, the Waishengren chose from the beginning the local form. In the middle, Waishengren gradually replaced the rectangular tombstone by the top-rounded tombstone.
Figure 7: Rectangular tombstone forms of Waishengren and Holo through time and space: 7a) a time-line analysis, 7b) a histogram where Waishengren and Holo are compared for different administrative units and 7c) a geo-temporal analysis of how the assimilation
developed.
Figure 7b) shows the regional distribution of the rectangular tombstone, compared to the top-rounded tombstone for the two groups Waishengren and Holo in different counties. These data confirm that there are important regional differences in the use of rectangular tombstones. With the exception of Taichung, where the form of Waishengren and Holo tombstones oppose each other,
33
Waishengren and Holo achieve a locally negotiated consensus on the tombstone form. In Taipei City, Keelung and Hualian, where Waishengren were most numerous, Holo assimilated the rectangular tombstone form. In the South-West, Waishengren adopted the form of the Holo.
Figure 7c) finally tries to depict the temporal and spatial pattern of the assimilation of Holo features by Waishengren for each sampled graveyard. Green are Holo and blue Waishengren. The darker colors represent top-rounded tombstones, the light colors represent rectangular tombstones. The dark gray contour shows assimilation of the Holo style before 1980 and the light gray contour shows assimilation of the Holo style after 1980. The assimilation of the top-rounded tombstones was thus completed to the south of the line Taizhong-Xindian-Hualian before 1980. Further north, there is less assimilation by Waishengren and instead Holo assimilated the Waishengren style.
While the distribution of the rectangular tombstone can be empirically approached, its meaning is a question of interpretation. It is certain, that this form, common in rural China, opposes local practices in Taiwan, where the rounded top is believed to improve the feng shui of the tomb. This however does not warrant the interpretation of this tombstone-feature as a feature traded from China: Where the feature is used most commonly, it has been re-invented not earlier than 1970. A second, alternative interpretation, as to which the rectangular tombstone represents a rational world view, which does away with notions of superstition, such as feng shui, can be dismissed also, as many Waishengren tombs are placed and properly oriented in expensive ground, the essence of which is its excellent feng shui. We thus attempt an interpretation of this tombstone-feature in relation to the social situation in Taiwan: We hypothesize, that the geographic patterns of this feature match the social relation between Waishengren and the local population: Waishengren in relative minority positions and in need of outgroup support assimilate local tomb styles. Higher class Waishengren, on the other hand, try to distinguish themselves from local people through a tomb style that does not reflect the concerns of small people of how to improve an otherwise mediocre feng shui. We thus understand the rectangular tombstone of upper class Waishengren and local people as a symbol and an ingroup feature of the rich and powerful, who had unrestricted access to restricted land, defying the policy of cremation imposed on small people, defying unreasonable prices and defying plans of land usage and landscape protection. Thus, this feature did not develop into an ethnic Waishengren ingroup feature, but into a feature representing power. The function
34
of a Waishengren ingroup feature was to be taken over by another tombstone-feature, which even coopting local people would not adopt.
2.4 Epigraphical Practices of Waishengren: The Provincial Origin
If Waishengren are and have been perceived as a unified and homogeneous group, this is mainly due to social and discursive construction, thus, a result of the label "Waishengren" itself. Through its continuous use, from Chinese Civil War until today, the term "Waishengren" acquired and lost meaning components, through which the term and the conception of the designated group was permanently reshaped: During the Chinese Civil War, the term indicated a soldier with a provincial origin that is different from where he was stationed, for example a man from Guangdong in Shandong. In Taiwan, the connotation was later reduced to a bipolar reading, opposing Waishengren to the so-called Benshengren, locally born people. The term thus indicated a person originating from a province other than Taiwan. The term became institutionalized as a ethnic census category when applied also to the children of Waishengren, but not to their local wives. From this census categorization resulted a social and ethnic discriminatory segregation, reinforced by the self-representation of ROC that, albeit relocated to Taiwan, still claims the whole Chinese Mainland (Wang Fu-chang 2005). Access to universities, for example, was regulated through quota for all provinces, of which Taiwan was just one. The Jiguan-based categorization ended in 1992, when ROC institutions started to be indigenized and the preferential treatment of Waishengren was no longer timely. When the term lost its administrative value, it could fully assume the meaning of an ethnicity. This new ethnic classification in Taiwan puts Waishengren as one Han Chinese group beside the local Holo and Hakka (Wang 2008, 510).
The fundamental marker by which Waishengren claim a unique status and their identity was the belonging to a Jiguan, the geographic origin in Mainland China. The Jiguan was also a crucial factor in the social construction of this community and its labeling (Corcuff 2002, 170; Yang and Chang 2010, 112). According to our understanding, both notions, Jiguan and Waishengren, emphasize unity and difference at the same time in two different semantic fields. Unity is created through the superordinate notion of "guo" (country), which is implied by the notion "sheng" (province) within the term "Waishengren". Unity is also created through the notion of homeland in China, of which the Jiguan is an
35
instantiation. Thus, while the term Waishengren assumed a bipolar meaning, the term Jiguan preserved the multivalued scheme. Formally, both notions are linked through the notion "sheng", as a category in "Waishengren", as a value in the
Jiguan.
Similar to the institutionalization of the Jiguan in census, the term also became an almost standardized way to identify a Waishengren through tombstones. As the notion of Jiguan had already existed in Taiwan before the migration of Waishengren, the exclusive use of the Jiguan by Waishengren required a complex negotiation among all social groups: The offspring of Holo and Hakka that had migrated between the 17th and 19th century from China had always kept the memories of their origin in more or less fine-grained Jiguan-based distinctions, such as Quanzhou or Zhangzhou, inscribed on houses, family temples and tombstones. The common usage of the Jiguan by all Han communities, as shown in Figure 8 was thus not unproblematic, especially when the Jiguan developed into a marker for Waishengren. As a consequence, Holo and Hakka continued a shift they had initiated during the Japanese administration, when they replaced the Jiguan on the tombstone with other placename types, probably as a reaction to the Japanese classification of people into "Fujian" (Holo) and "Guangdong" (Hakka) in census and administration. These alternative placename types are local Taiwanese placenames and the Tanghao. Especially the Tanghao became popular after 1949, as this allowed Holo and Hakka to place a reference to China, but unlike the way the Waishengren did.
Figure 8: Jiguan on tombstones of different Han groups: 8a) Holo, 8b) Hakka and 8c) Waishengren. Photos by the authors.
36
The Tanghao is an ambiguous notion, relating to place and family. The primary meaning of the Tanghao is a placename, mostly in Northern China, where the ancestors of a family are assumed to have originated from, 1000 to 2000 years ago. In other words, the Tanghao refers to the probably mythic homeland of the patronym bearing the ancestor who started to move south form the Central Plains in China. The secondary meaning is the distinction of family branches with the same patronym, through the different histories implied by the Tanghao. Taiwanese who use the Tanghao in this latter meaning are not necessarily aware of the spatial meaning of the Tanghao.
Figure 9 illustrates the fundamental change that took place within one century in the use of placenames by Taiwan's Holo communities, paving the way for the use of the Jiguan by the Waishengren. Meanwhile, Jiguan, if continued to be used by local people, shows up as a two-character denomination that does not mention the province, see Figure 9 a) and b). The Waishengren, on the other hand, adopted a four or six character style for writing their Jiguan, that systematically mentions the province through the first two or three characters, cf. Figure 9c).
iw im im im WK	ism	1Ko	isio	»oft '■'■ " «Ml ií» 19» mi
Figure 9: Placename types on Holo and Waishengren tombstones: 9a) Holo in Tainan and Kaohsiung, 9b) Holo in Taiwan except Tainan and Kaohsiung and 9c) Waishengren.
Through the provincial origin other than the provinces the local Taiwanese claim as their origin, i.e. mainly Fujian and Guangdong, and the implication of the superordinate notion of "China", they mark themselves as Waishengren. Waishengren from Fujian and Guangdong thus had some degrees of freedom to identify as Waishengren or to assimilate to the local community. Figure 10 shows the spatial distribution of Waishengren origins, according to the indications written on tombstones, sampled in ThakBong.
37
Figure 10: Origin of Waishengren according to the ThakBong sample
The comparison of the graph in Figure 10 and the graph on Waishengren origin shown in Li (1970, 64) reveals a correlation between the size of circles derived from tombstone inscriptions and the size of circles in the demographic study conducted by Li. However, we observe that Waishengren originating from Fujian do not appear as frequent on the map derived from tombstone data. It is assumed that the tomb-based classification cannot distinguish them clearly from the Holo, whose Jiguan is also in Fujian. However, as the ethnic classification in ThakBong is not based on the reference of the Jiguan alone, but also on the forms of inscriptions (2-character Jiguan vs. 4 or 6-character Jiguan), the Waishengren from Fujian must have assimilated to the Holo tomb-features to some extent, while giving up those Waishengren features, which are indeed established Waishengren markers.
The problem for Guangdong is different, because many Taiwanese Hakka, although originally from Guangdong, do not necessarily place a Jiguan on their tombstones. Instead, they frequently mark the familial generation, starting from the migration to Taiwan, usually a number between 10 and 30. In the regions where the Hakka do mention a Jiguan on tombstones, the much more formulaic
38
inscriptions and the form of the tomb of Hakka make it possible to easily distinguish them from those of Waishengren with the same Jiguan.
2.5 Funeral Practices of Waishengren: Body and Earth
Funeral practices are classical topics in anthropology and deserve particular attention in any cultural and social context, especially in the cases of migrants who were buried by their community in a foreign country (e.g. Benninghausen 2005). Quite problematic is the situation for Chinese migrants, if they had departed without the intention of settling down, because, according to traditional Chinese culture, the corpse has to be buried in one's homeland. Burial practices, and the specialized social organizations accompanying them, have thus been established in Chinese migrant communities from the end of the 19th century in America until today, which include a first burial, an exhumation, the transport back into the homeland, and a reburial (Chung and Wegars 2005).
Confirming most studies about ethnic communities in Taiwan, we observe distinct and changing practices of Waishengren compared to other communities: A substantial part of Waishengren tombs are designed for the first burial only with tombs that can be easily opened and coffins stored above the ground to prevent them from rotting (cf. Figure 11). In this burial mode, the coffin is placed above the ground and a structure is built around it. The size of this surrounding structure identifies a second feature of this burial mode: The coffin is not in direct contact with the building material or the earth. As a consequence, the coffin will remain easily manipulable for a long time. Second, this burial mode might lead, wished or not wished, to a mummification of the corpse instead of its decomposition. This mummified corpse evokes the legend of the walking mummy that finds its way back to the homeland, or daolushi (road-finding-zombi), told in some regions of China.
The interpretation of this burial mode must be seen in relation to the Chinese tradition to be buried in the ground of one's homeland. These tombs deny Taiwanese ground the status of a homeland and keep the coffin manipulable for possible relocation of the corpse. However, as conceptions and self-conceptions of Waishengren have changed, it is worth to explore how funeral practices have been adapted. For instance, while Chiang Kai-Shek, since his death in 1975, has not be buried and his coffin is waiting above the ground to go back to his homeland, Ma
39
Ying-jiu repeatedly affirmed that he will be buried in Taiwan. Thus, how Waishengren negotiate this problem of ultimate settlement naturally turns into a crucial question for Waishengren-studies. Although the amount of data available at the moment is not sufficient to firmly establish such differences, our research on inner-community variations in Waishengren funeral practices tends to highlight the heterogeneity in this community. The alternatives to the burial above the ground are the burial, at which the coffin is covered by earth and stones. This is the common practice of Benshengren to facilitate the decomposition of the corpse and thus to prepare the second burial. Another alternative, practiced almost exclusively by Waishengren, is to store the coffin in an underground compartment, covered by removable slates. The effect on the corpse and the coffin in this burial mode might be similar to the storage above the ground, but the most visible difference with respect to the tombs of Benshengren has been overcome.
Figure 11: An example of a Waishegren tomb, where the coffin is stored above the ground and the tombstone is rectangular. The tomb is located at the Ningbo Tongxianhui Muyuan
in Taipei. Photo by the authors.
Clustering 50 randomly chosen Waishengren tombs with features related to the position of the coffin (above, covered, inside), the form of the tombstone and the presence or absence of a placename, we obtain the tree-structure shown in Figure 12. This tree-structure suggests a principal two- or three-partition of epigraphical and funeral practices and makes it possible to associate each of these clusters with
40
a conception of how the notion of "Waishengren" is defined, that is through a) migration from China after 1945, b) an administrative classification or c) an ethnic classification. To do so, we characterize these clusters through typical values or average values for each cluster (Romesburg 2004). Doing so we obtain the clusters: I (25 items): 1989, covered, top-round, North 24.026 degree, II (11 items): 1973, above the ground, North 24.741 and III (14 items): 1979, inside underground compartment, rectangualr tombstone, North 24.246. Thus, the development of funeral practices of Waishengren went from "above" to "inside" to "covered". Second, "covered' is more common in the South of Taiwan, similar to the top-rounded tombstone. The intermediate funeral practice "inside" is located further north. The most conservative burial form "above" can be found mainly in the very North of Taiwan. The rectangular tombstone form and the burial mode above the ground do not perfectly correlate. Instead, the rectangular tombstone seems to correlate better to the administrative conception of Waishengren.
Figure 12: Clustering 50 randomly chosen Waishengren tombs suggests a classification of
Waishengren tombs in two or three classes. Below the tree-structure, the tomb identification and the date of tomb erection are listed in addition to the variables used for clustering. The labels "covered", "above" and "inside" describe the position of the coffin, "tr" means top-rounded tombstone, "4c" means rectangular tombstone and "loc" means
placename in topic position.
41
If these three clusters and the three definitions of Waishengren can be really equated, we would equate (a) to II, (b) to III and (c) to I, and conclude that the idea of Waishengren as a third Han-ethnicity in Taiwan has been accepted firmly only by the Waishengren in the South of Taiwan, while those in the North might still retain the idea that they are Han who came 1945 from China and will return to their homeland. Further research however will be needed to confirm the differences in practices among the North and the South in Taiwan, and whether this corresponds to self-conceptions of Waishengren. Also of interest for Waishengren-studies is Taichung, where the notion of power outweighs and transcends that of ethnicity.
3 Conclusion and Perspectives
In this study we illustrate the potential contribution of digital archives to the study of variation among Taiwan's Waishengren and thus to answer to the appeal of Yang and Chang (2010) to renew Waishengren-studies. Using the digital archive ThakBong of gravesites in Taiwan, to which the census data of 1956 have been merged, we applied time-line analyses, geographic analyses, tests for spatial randomness and cluster analyses, which are common analysis styles in all sciences and can be perfectly put to use in the field we call "digital anthropology". The results show that the Waishengren varied in their practices and their social structure from North to South and through time.
According to our interpretation of the data, Waishengren assimilated and potentially even merged into existing Holo communities in the South, while in the North, Waishengren developed social distinctions through their epigraphical and funeral practices, reflecting power and their status as Waishengren. The gap between funeral practices of Waishengren and Holo has been overcome in the South, where Waishengren assimilated to Holo styles. The gap has been visually overcome in intermediate regions by moving the coffin underground, and it has been openly preserved in the very North of Taiwan. We conclude that if these epigraphical and funeral practices represent identities and self-conceptions of Waishengren, and any research and theory in the field of Waishengren-studies will have to keep track of regional variation at different geographic levels.
The archive itself is under continuous construction. Beyond the completion of annotation and transcription of tombs and tombstones already collected, the
42
sampling of data has to be oriented into two directions: A systematic collection of, first, Waishengren tombs in order to support the reliability of quantitative interpretation of inner-group comparisons, and second, of Chinese tombs in China and other places of the Chinese diaspora, for a further development of the diaspora-paradigm. At last, the ThakBong data might prove useful to contribute as a research paradigm to the general comparison of funeral practices in the context of migration, for example, when Chinese have to redefine their funeral practices in the context of other cultures. This approach might also be applied to other historical contexts, for example, the massive political migration of Pieds Noirs in France after the independence of Algeria in 1962.
Beside the many trends we observe in the development of tombs in Taiwan, and beyond the observed trend in funeral practices towards an integration of the Waishengren community, the last decade has seen a shift caused by the promotion of cremation and the storage of remains in bone-ash towers. At the same time, we observe that public urban policy is reclaiming cemetery land, removing tombs, and turning land into parks. Our documentation and research approach are thus geared towards an "archeology of the future" as our object will soon become an endangered patrimony; we try to document before it joins the remains of the past. This trend leads us to question our disciplinary attachment. Even though our research definitively belongs to the social sciences, and Waishengren-studies have had a major impact on sociology in Taiwan, the documentation of an endangered patrimony, if not already an object for historians, will soon become a topic of archeology. The digital archive, however, is flexible to handle this shift and the research methods, exemplified here under the label of "digital anthropology" will remain to a large extent the same. Digital documentation, digital anthropology and archeology of the future must, from the beginning, be seen together to obtain a long-standing impact on cultural studies in general, and Waishengren-studies in particular.
References
Benninghausen, Rüdiger. 2005. "Friedhöfe als Quellen für Fragen des Kulturwandels: Grabkultur von Yeziden und Aleviten in Deutschland mit Seitenblick auf die Türkei."
In Migration und Ritualtransfer: Religiöse Praxis der Aleviten, Jesiden und Nusairier zwischen Vorderem Orient und Westeuropa, edited by R. Langer, R. Motika, and M. Ursinus, 247-288. Frankfurt a. M., Germany: Peter Lang.
43
Bieber, Michael, Vitali, Fabio, Ashman, Helen, Balasubramanian, V. and Oinas-Kukkonen, Harri. 1997. "Fourth Generation Hypermedia: Some Missing Links for the World Wide Web." International Journal of Human Computer Studies 47(1): 31-65.
Chen, Shao-hsing, and Fried, Morton. H. 1967. The Distribution of Family Names in Taiwan. Taipei, Taiwan: National Taiwan University.
Chung, Sue Fawn, and Wegars, Priscilla. 2005. Chinese American Death Rituals: Respecting the Ancestors. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press.
Corcuff, Stéphane. 2002. "Taiwan's 'Mainlanders': New Taiwanese?" In Memories of the Future: National Identity Issues and the Search for a New Taiwan, edited by St. Corcuff, 163-195. Taiwan in the Modern World. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Crawley, Michael J. 2007. The R Book. Chichester, England: Wiley.
Gates, Hill. 1981. "Ethnicity and Social Class." In The Anthropology of Taiwanese Society, edited by E. M. Ahern and H. Gates, 241-281. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Genet, Jean-Philippe, and Zorzi, Andrea, eds. 2011. Les historiens et l'informatique. Un métier à réinventer. Rome: Ecole Française de Rome.
Hu, Tai-li. 1989. "Ethnic Identity and Social Condition of Veteran Mainlanders in Taiwan." Revue européenne des sciences sociales 27(84): 253-265.
Li, Tung-ming	1970. "Ju Tai waishengji renkou zucheng yu fenbu." Sn^fi
ADffi^^Affi ("Population and Distribution of Mainlanders Living in Taiwan.")
Taiwan Documents 11/12: 62-86.
Moretti, Franco. 2005. Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for Literary History. London: Verso.
Romesburg, Charles H. 2004. Cluster Analysis for Researchers. North Carolina, USA: Lulu Press.
Scott, Simon. 2006. "Taiwan's Mainlanders: A Diasporic Identity in Construction." Revue européenne des migrations internationales 22(1): 87-108.
Streiter, Oliver, Lin, Ann Meifang, Yen, Sandy Ke-rui, Hsu, Ellen, Wang, Yawei, and Goudin, Yoann. 2009. "Place Names on Taiwan's Tombstones: Facts, Figures, Theories." In Workshop on the Relationship between the Distribution of Languages or Dialects in Taiwan and Racial Migration. Hualian, Taiwan: National Taichung University of Education.
Streiter, Oliver, Goudin, Yoann, and Lin, Ann Meifang. 2010a. "An Archeological View on Bentuhua: Taiwan's Tombstones in a Historical Perspective." In Seventh Annual Conference of the European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS). Tübingen, Germany: EATS.
Streiter, Oliver, Goudin, Yoann, Huang, Chun (Jimmy), Lin, Ann Meifang, and Jui Yen, Sandy Ko. 2010b. "Places of Shared Histories: Spatial Patterns of Placename Types on Taiwan's Tombstones." In GeoInformatics for Spatial-Infrastructure Development in Earth and Allied Sciences (GIS-IDEAS), 29-34. Hanoi, Vietnam: Japan-Vietnam Geoinformatics Consortium.
44
Streiter, Oliver, Goudin, Yoann, Huang, Chun (Jimmy), and Lin, Ann Meifang. 2011. (Forthcoming) "Last Name, Last Claim. Matching Digital Tombstone Documentation to Unearthed Census Data: Surveying Taiwan's Family Names, Ethnicities and Homelands." In Special Issue of International Journal of Humanities and Art Computing.
Vollmer, Gerhard. 1975. Evolutionäre Erkenntnistheorie. Stuttgart: Hirzel.
Wang, Fu-chang i^l. 2005. "You 'Zhongguo shengji' dao 'Taiwan zuqun': hukou pucha jibie leishu zhuanbian zhi fenxi." Ö l^M^ffJM	: PP^
Sff^JiSMftS'^^^ ("From Chinese Original Domicile to Taiwanese Ethnicity: An analysis of Census Category Transformation in Taiwan.") Taiwan shehuixue 9: 59-117.
Wang, Fu-chang i^l. 2008. "You ruoyin ruoxian dao daming dafang: Taiwan shehuixue zhong zuqun yanjiu de jueqi." EÖ^W^ilJlJAiiAÄ: ^i^ÖÖ^fe ("From Obscurity to Fanfare: The Rise of Ethnic Studies in Taiwan's Sociology.") Taipei: Qunxue
Watson, James L. 1988. "Preface." In Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China, edited by J. L. Watson and E. S. Rawski, ix-xv. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Yang, Dominic Meng-Hsuan, and Chang, Mau-kuei. 2010. "Understanding the Waishengren Nuances: History and Agency." China Perspectives 3: 108-122.
45
46
UDK: 572.9(529)
COPYRIGHT ©: WENCHUAN HUANG
Street-naming and the Subjectivity of Taiwan: A Case Study of Taipei City
Wenchuan HUANG *
Abstract
Taiwan has been ruled by a variety of political regimes and the different ruling elites have used Taiwan's place names to shape their symbolic landscape. The end of World War Two witnessed the most tremendous change of place names in Taiwan when the Chinese Nationalist government or Kuomintang (KMT) established itself on the island. The traditional approach to toponymy mainly treats place names as the objective projection of culture on the physical landscape. However, recent research has turned to borrow concepts from critical theories to explore the expression of power inherent in geographical naming. This article will consider place naming as the illustration of state power on its symbolic landscape by examining all the street names in Taipei City, the capital of Taiwan.
Keywords: street names, toponymy, symbolic landscape, subjectivity of Taiwan Izvleček
Tajvan je bil pod različnimi političnimi režimi in vsaka vladajoča elita je za oblikovanje svoje simbolične pokrajine uporabljala tajvanska krajevna imena. Ob koncu druge svetovne vojne, ko so otoku zavladali kitajski nacionalisti ali Kuomintang (KMT), se je Tajvan soočil z ogromnimi spremembami krajevnih imen. Tradicionalni pristop k toponimiji obravnava krajevna imena predvsem kot objektivne projekcije kulture na fizično pokrajino. Najnovejše raziskave pa so si za raziskovanje izražanja moči v geografskem poimenovanju izposodile koncepte kritičnih teorij. Pričujoči članek bo obravnaval krajevna imena kot odsev državne moči na svojih simboličnih pokrajinah z raziskovo vseh imen ulic v mestu Taibei, glavnem mestu Tajvana.
Ključne besede: ulična imena, toponimija, simbolična pokrajina, subjektivnost Tajvana
* Wenchuan Huang, Assistant Professor, Department of Taiwan and Regional Studies, National Donghwa University, Taiwan. E-mail address: sunnyhuang@mail.ndhu.edu.tw.
47
1 Introduction
The naming of places is a key component in the relationship between place and political identity in contemporary society. Place names contain both symbolic meanings and spatial orders that provide normality and legitimacy to those who dominate the politics of place presentation.
The study of place naming has recently undergone a critical reformulation as scholars have moved beyond the traditional focus on etymology and taxonomy by examining the politics of place-naming practices. (Rose-Redwood et al. 2010, 453)
A growing number of scholars have emphasized the importance of understanding place naming as a contested spatial practice rather than viewing place names as transparent signifiers that designate places as "objects" or "artifacts" within a predefined geographical space (Berg and Vuolteenaho 2009). The majority of studies on the politics of place naming have emphasized the questions of nationalism and ideology.
Concerning the subjectivity of Taiwan, it is an issue of Taiwanese political identity. As Woolf says: "National identity is an abstract concept that sums up the collective expression of a subjective, individual sense of belonging to a sociopolitical unit" (Woolf 1996, 25-26).
Taiwan's most fundamental problem has been "Who should govern the island?" That is a question of power. In the past time, Taiwan has been ruled by different political regimes, notably, the Dutch, the Spanish, Koxinga (Zheng Cheng-gong), the Qing dynasty, the Japanese, the KMT (Kuomintang) and the DPP (Democratic Progressive Party). The different ruling elites also took Taiwan's place names to shape their symbolic landscape. Especially during Japanese occupation and when the Chinese Nationalist government (KMT) established itself on the island, the most tremendous change of place names in Taiwan occurred. The major target were street names and the names of administrative areas.
In this article, we will borrow the concepts from critical theories to regard place naming as the illustration of state power on its symbolic landscape by examining all the renamed streets in Taipei City, the capital of Taiwan.
The first part of the article mainly expounds upon the significance of the changes in the street-naming during each period. Attention is given to the interrelated spatial implication of naming in each period. The second part focuses
48
on how different political regimes used toponymic inscription to promote their own ideas behind varied symbolic landscapes, and how each regime re-coded the legacies left by an earlier regime. The final part discusses the issue of Taiwan's subjectivity based on empirical studies of street-naming and toponomy. We try to focus on the naming consciousness between different periods (Qing, Japanese occupation, KMT and DPP) to discuss the subjectivity of Taiwan.
2 The Rule of Street-naming in Different Regimes
When someone looks at a map of Taipei, they may be confused about where they are. There are so many streets named after the city and province names of mainland China, such as Beiping E. Rd, Changchun Rd, Nanjing E. Rd and Liaoning St, that one would think they were in China. It is just like Lung Ying-tai wrote: "I lived in the city named as Taipei; it is similar to an unfolded Chinese history map" (Lung 2009, 34). Why are so many Chinese place names inscribed on the streets of Taipei?
To answer this question, we need to trace the street-naming process. Taipei's street names have transited from the Qing dynasty, through Japanese era to the present day. Based on Taipei's street names on the map of the late Qing dynasty (Figure 1), we can fit all the street names of Qing Taipei into the following five naming rules:
1.	The streets were named according to the main local natural landscape, such as river, hill and so on.
2.	The streets were named after an important institution, such as a temple, a government building, a military unit and so on.
3.	The streets were named after the main economic activity in the area, such as agriculture, commerce or handicraft industry and so on.
4.	The streets were named after an ethnic group, such as plain aboriginal people, ha-ka people and so on.
5.	The streets were named with auspicious words for blessing.
There were 154 streets on the map of late Qing Taipei. According to the number of streets in each naming rule (Table 1), the most of them (about 48.7%) of streets were named with important institution, the second most number (about
49
18.8%) of streets were named with Chinese auspicious words and the third most (about 16.2 %) of streets were named with local economic activities. Back to Taipei history, from 1875 until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Tamsui county	of Taipei prefecture ('n^b^) and the prefectural
capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. It showed that the Qing Empire had not paid much attention to Taipei until the late 19th century; hence the most street names happened through the process which people perceived, comprehended and shaped their places. Apparently, the streets of Taipei were named mainly to reflect local conspicuous buildings and economic activities but not political symbols. At the same time, we can see that the main street names recorded the temples, trade companies and economic activities, thus showing the cultural nexus of power in Taiwan local society.
Naming Natural rules landscape		Important institution	Economic activities	Ethnic group	Auspicious words	Total
Sum	19	75	25	6	29	154
Percentage	12.3%	48.7%	16.2%	4%	18.8%	100
Table 1: The types of naming rules in Qing Taipei. (Source: The Formosan Daily 1905, 5)
Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895. In the beginning of the Japanese colonial period, Japanese governors basically showed their respect for Taiwan's residents. They did not rename the streets of Taiwan until the mid-occupation period. Based on the policy of national assimilation, the Japanese regime conducted the "Renaming the cho" project in 1916 (Tainan state, law no.93, 1916). The street names of Taipei, Taichung, and Tainan were simultaneously revised with Japanese city planning. In 1919, Tainan city altered its street names first, and then Taipei and Taichung city followed the prefecture system of Japan. When city administration began in 1920, the government planned to rename the city streets of Taiwan.
50
Figure 1: The Taipei city map in 1897. (Source: Zeng 1958, 213)
Taipei began its city administration in September 1920, and two years later, the Taipei city government divided the city region into 64 administrative divisions after the Japanese municipality system cho (HI). At first, it adopted the original street names of Qing dynasty, but then the Japanese renamed Taipei's administrative divisions in Japanese prefectural style cho. The street names of Taipei city were revised at the same time.
51
Among the three cities, Taipei retained the most traditional place-names for its new cho names, whereas Taichung and Tainan fully adopted Japanese style place names for their cho names. According to The Formosan reports, the Japanese regime originally intended to translate Taipei's street names into totally Japanese style place names. (The Formosan Daily 1916, 5) However, the Japanese governor Den Kenjiro (HM/^, 1855-1930) surprisingly demanded that the Taipei urban planning committee should respect local history. Hence, the cho names of Taipei hold more traditional Taiwanese style.
In March 24, 1922, Taipei city announced 64 new cho. About one third of them completely or partly followed traditional place names. The Dadowcheng (A MM) administration area, where most Taiwanese resided, had almost all localized cho names. But the walled Taipei administrative area where the most Japanese lived had Japanese domestic style cho names. There was only one exception, the Mongka administrative area of Taipei city, which contained only 4 local cho names in contrast to its large population of Taiwanese. Nevertheless, even when named in Japanese style, they have retained their local characteristic. This naming system showed the local features and characteristics (Table 2). The principles of renaming cho revealed a connection with the local population during the Japanese regime.
From the process of Japanese project "Renaming the cho", apparently, the Japanese regime tended to localize Taiwan cities with similar domestic street names in order to assimilate Taiwan residents. On the other hand, Japanese governors of Taiwan still paid respect to local people. One third of cho names followed the original place names. In addition, there were seven Japanese style place names named after the local features.
In August 1945, the Japanese regime surrendered to the Allied Nations and the Komintang took over Taiwan on October 25. Promptly, on November 17, the Office of the Chief Executive of Taiwan Province introduced The Regulation of Street-Renaming for Taiwan Province to eradicate the concepts of Japanese authority. According to the Regulation, every county of Taiwan had to revise its street names in two month time.
52
	Chinese style place names		Japanese style place names			
Japanese /total populati on	All follow the old place names	Partly follow the old place names	Naming according the local landscape	Naming for Japanese elite	Naming after an important institution	Others
over 75%	Hokumon cho Seimoncho Nanmoncho	Eirakuchö Shoinchö Ryuköchö	Izumichö	Taishöchö Akashichö Kodamachö Sakumachö Nogichö		Honmachi Yamatochö Oimatsuchö Kyömachi Suehirochö Sakaechö Shineichö Chitosechö Asahichö Omotechö
50-75%	Shinkicho Tomoncho	Bunbuchö	Kawabata chö	Kabayama chö		Kotobukichö Wakatakechö
25-50%	Kenseicho Hakkocho Koteicho Kamikeifu cho	Mihashi chö	Tsukijichö			Saiwaichö Shintomichö Nishikichö Fukuzumichö
10-25%	Maruyama cho		Irifunechö Hamachö		Ömiyachö Suidöchö Motozono chö	Tomitachö
under10 %	Shimokeifu cho Taiheicho Dairy udocho Nisshincho	Ryuzanji chö	Kawaichö Minatochö		Öhashichö Nishizono chö Higashizon ochö Babachö Horiechö Onarichö Midorichö Miyamae chö Yanagichö	Ariakechö Hokumonchö
	14	6	7	6	12	19
64	20		44			
Table 2: The naming system of chos in Taipei city (1922). (Source: Taiwan Zongdufu Guanfang 1922, 152-157; Taiwan Zongdufu 1922)
A summary of this Regulation of Street-Renaming is as follows:
1. The street names were adopted in order to memorialize Japanese figures, e.g. Meiji, Taishö, Kodama, Nogi.
53
2.	The street names were adopted in order to spread the glory of Japanese, e.g. Daiwa, Asahi .
3.	The streets were named after the Japanese famous people for memory, e.g.Wakamatsu, Asashi matsu.
The street-renaming also had to follow the new rules:
1.	The street names were adopted to carry forward the Chinese spirit, e.g. Chunghua Rd, Hsinyi Rd, and Hoping Rd.
2.	The street names were adopted to propagandize the Three People's Principles of Sun Yat-sen, e.g. Mintsu Rd, Minchuan Rd, and Minsheng Rd.
3.	The street names were adopted to commemorate national figures, e.g. Chungshan Rd and Chungzheng Rd.
4.	The street names were adopted to present the local geography or folks.
Based on the above principles, all the street names of Taipei were changed back to their original names, such as North gate Street, South gate Street, and so on. But shortly after 1947, the Office of the Chief Executive of Taiwan Province decided to rename all Taipei's streets with the place names of mainland China. They take Zhongshan Rd as the central meridian and Zhongxiao Rd as the central latitude, and divided Taipei city into four districts. From then on, the place names of mainland China were inscribed to the streets of Taipei city, depending on their location in China.
The street-renaming of Taiwan has not only uprooted Japan and implanted China but also removed domestic spirit. The Kuomintang completely demonstrated its "Great China" ideology with the street map in Taipei, and every single city as well. Even if this renaming system matched the concept of spatial orientation, it totally erased local identity and the identification of the residents with their locality.
54
Figure 2: The Taipei city map in 1947. (Source: Zeng 1958, 216)
3 Toponymic Inscription and Taiwanese Subjectivity
Before entering the discussion of street-naming and its relationship with "Taiwan subjectivity", some clarification of the "Taiwan subjectivity" issue needs to be made. "Taiwan subjectivity" is a multi-dimensional issue. It covers issues such as the international status of Taiwan. It could also mean the "Taiwanese identity".
Discussion of Taiwan's political history almost invariably impact upon contemporary debates over the island's national identity and "Taiwan subjectivity". As Peter Berger (Berger and Luckmann 1966, 23-25) argues, social construction of national reality originates from everyday life experience taken for granted in socialization. The naming of places is one of the primary means of attempting to construct clearly demarcated spatial identities. Therefore, we still require a critical analysis of the social and political struggles over spatial inscription and related
55
toponymic practices. There have been three different governments in Taiwan since 1684 to the present. We can realize the characteristics of the three different regimes from place names' transitions. In the Qing dynasty, the naming of Taipei streets occurred naturally and characterized its domestic features. The Qing regime had not intervened in the naming of streets. This shows its negativity and inactivity as well. For those people who lived in Taiwan, they only regarded Taiwan as an impermanent place and still had no Taiwanese consciousness.
From the process of Japanese "Renaming the cho", we notice that characteristics of a colonial regime. As Taiwan was Japan's first overseas colony, Japanese intentions were to turn the island into a showpiece "model colony". (Pastreich 2003) As a result, much effort was made to improve the island's economy, industry, and public works and to change its culture. In 1919, Den Kenjiro (H^^^) was appointed to be the first civilian Governor-General of Taiwan. Prior to his departure for Taiwan, he conferred with Prime Minister Hara Takashi, where both men agreed to pursue a policy of doka (literally assimilation). Taiwan would be viewed as an extension of the home Islands, and the Taiwanese would be educated to understand their role and responsibilities as Japanese subjects. The new policy was formally announced in October 1919. This policy was continued by the Colonial Government for the next 20 years. The final period of Japanese rule in Taiwan began with the eruption of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and ended along with the Second World War in 1945. With the rise of militarism in Japan in the mid to late 1930s, the office of Governor-General was again held by military officers, and Japan sought to utilize resources and material from Taiwan for use in the war effort. To this end, the cooperation of the Taiwanese would be essential, and the Taiwanese would have to be fully assimilated as members of Japanese society. As a result, earlier social movements were banned and the Colonial Government devoted its full efforts to the "kominka movement" (^K^ kominka undo: to become people of the Japanese Mikado), aimed at fully Japanizing Taiwanese society. Between 1936 and 1940, the kominka movement sought to build "Japanese spirit" (Yamato damashi) and Japanese identity among the populace, while the later years from 1941 to 1945 focused on encouraging Taiwanese to participate in the war effort. Following the Second World War, Taiwan was placed under the control of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang). However, the government's program of "De-Japanization" created cultural estrangement, along with tensions between the growing population of migrants from the mainland and the pre-war residents of the island, which
56
culminated into the 228 incident in 1947. At the same time, the Office of the Chief Executive of Taiwan Province decided to rename all Taipei's streets with the place names of mainland China. It showed the goal of Kuomintang eventual reunification with mainland China. Of course, it is understandable that after a long exposure to China-centered education, people living in Taiwan, consciously or subconsciously, have great difficulty in separating themselves from "Chinese culture." However, we also realize that cultural identity differs from national identity. The consciousness of Taiwanese subjectivity is based on the respect for the right of self-determination to which Taiwan's inhabitants are entitled. According to the Taiwanese subjectivity issue, most scholars focus on education about Taiwanese political identity. Renaming places will be another strategy to emphasize questions of nationalism and ideology. If all street names in main cities of Taiwan can be renamed according to local history or landscape, it will help Taiwanese local identity and promote Taiwanese nation consciousness, and establish Taiwanese subjectivity.
4 Conclusion
The transition of street names in Taipei city illustrates the varied models of different regimes. Street-naming occurred naturally and was characterized by domestic features but not the consciousness of political power in Qing Taipei, because the Qing Empire had no positive government strategy and no subjectivity pronouncing of the Taiwan frontier.
During the Japanese colonial era, Japanese governors did not change the street names of Taipei until the mid-colonial period. At that time, the Japanese regime executed the "Japanization of Taiwan" policy, and adopted a strategy of renaming the streets in the main cities of Taiwan. Seemingly, the Taiwan governors did not completely agree with this renaming strategy, and there were still about one third of Taipei's streets named directly or partly after traditional place names.
After World War Two, the Kuomintang dominated Taiwan and rapidly and resolutely renamed all Taipei streets. The Kuomintang changed all the Japanese street names in a very short time. By this time, the street names had lost their original meanings and become an enlightenment tool to all citizens.
From the Qing dynasty, Japanese colonial period to the post-war, we perceived that as the relationship between habitants and place-names changed, there was less
57
connection between people and the land. While the Taiwanese alienated from their land, the local identity and the national consciousness became weaker. This is the main reason that the subjectivity of Taiwan has not been properly constructed.
References
Berg, Lawrence D., and Vuolteenaho, Jani, eds. 2009. Critical Toponymies: The Contested Politics of Place Naming. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.
Berger, Peter L, and Luckmann, Thomas. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: AnchorBook
Fu-Lai, Tony Yu, and Sze Man Kwan, Diana. 2008. "Social Construction of National Identity: Taiwanese Versus Chinese Consciousness." Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture 14(1): 33-52. London: Routledge.
Lung, Ying-tai. 2009. Great River, Great Sea 1949. Taipei: Commonwealth Magazine.
Pastreich, Emanuel. 2003. Sovereignty, Wealth, Culture, and Technology: Mainland China and Taiwan Grapple with the Parameters of "Nation State" in the 21st Century. Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security. Illinois: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Rose-Redwood, Reuben, Alderman, Derek, and Azaryahu, Maoz. 2010. "Geographies of Toponymic Inscription: New Directions in Critical Place-name Studies." Progress in Human Geography 34(4): 453-470.
Rubinstein, Murray A. 1998. Taiwan: A New History. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe.
Woolf, Stuart. 1996. Nationalism in Europe, 1815 to the Present: A Reader. London: Routledge.
Zeng, Naishuo HMfiH. 1958. Gazetteer of Taipei City, Vol.1: History. Taipei: Taipei City Government.
Taiwan Zongdufu Guanfang Linshi Guoshi Diaocha Bu.
(Government-General of Taiwan, Bureau of Official Statistics.).1922. Diyihui Taiwan Guoshi Yaolanabiao Daiikkai Taiwan kokusei chosa ^—MOMH^^W^ (The First Democratic Survey of Taiwan) Taipei: Taiwan Zongdufu Guanfang Linshi Guoshi Diaocha Bu.
Taiwan Zongdufu. pMMff (Government-General of Taiwan.) 1922. Taiwan Zongdufu FubaoaM&MM^MM^. (The Report of the Government-General of Taiwan.) Taipei: Taiwan Zongdufu.
Tainan Zhou O^H. 1916. Luling di 93 hao.	(Statute No. 93.)
The Formosan Daily News. 1905. Sept. 24: 5. Taipei: The Formosan.
The Formosan Daily News. 1916. Aug. 2: 5. Taipei: The Formosan.
58
UDK: 796.357.2 (510):316.7 COPYRIGHT ©: JÉRÔME SOLDANI
Contested Representations of Taiwanese Baseball: Political Interpretations and Moral Values of a National Sport
Jérôme SOLDANI*
Abstract
In Taiwan, baseball is a national passion that the whole society can relate to. Appeared under Japanese rule, it was enrolled in the nationalist "physical culture" (tiyu MW) just after WWII and became, at the turn of the 1970s, the "national sport" (guoqiu H^) and the flagship of a state isolated on the international scene. It thus provides Taiwanese society with many symbols and references which the political elite cannot afford to ignore. Deeply involved with the education of moral values, its representations are used and claimed by the main existing political and ideological forces.
Keywords: Taiwan, baseball, historical representations, moral values, anthropology. Izvleček:
Na Tajvanu je baseball nacionalna strast, s katero se lahko poveže celotna družba. S prvim pojavom pod japonsko vladavino in vključitvijo v nacionalistični program "športne vzgoje" (tiyu MW) po drugi svetovni vojni, je baseball v poznih 1970ih postal "nacionalni šport" (guoqiu H^) z zastavo države, ki je v mednarodni areni izolirana. S tem pa baseball tajvanski družbi podaja številne simbole in sporočila, ki jih politična elita ne more ignorirati. Predstavljanje baseballa, ki je globoko povezano z vzgojo moralnih vrednot, izrabljajo in si lastijo glavne obstoječe politične in ideološke sile.
Ključne besede: Tajvan, baseball, zgodovinske reprezentacije, moralne vrednote, antropologija
* Jérôme SOLDANI, Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology, Université de Provence (Aix-en-Provence)--IDEMEC (Institut d'ethnologie méditerranéenne, européenne et comparative, CNRS-UMR 6591, France), Aix-en-Provence, France. E-mail address: jeromesoldani@hotmail.fr. I would like to thank Catherine Librini and Martin Cruse for translating this paper, and Sébastien Darbon, Stéphane Corcuff, Yoann Goudin and Émir Mahieddin for all their helpful comments and suggestions.
59
1 Introduction
It is March 2008 and the presidential election campaign is in full swing. On a large election poster, Ma Ying-jeou, the Nationalist or Kuomintang (KMT) party candidate, appears holding a baseball in his right hand, a glove on his left and wearing the black and white striped shirt of the famous New York Yankees. Meanwhile, the outgoing President Chen Shui-bian (the Democratic Progressive party (DPP)) is leading the campaign for the country to join the United Nations under the name of "Taiwan" for the first time. The symbol chosen for this campaign is displayed on the front wall of the presidential palace: the planet earth held in a right hand like a baseball with an inscription in English reading "UN for TAIWAN. Peace Forever".
In Taiwan, baseball is more than just a sport. It is a national passion that the whole society can relate to. It thus provides Taiwanese society with many symbols and references—the significance of which largely exceeds the context of sport and entertainment—which the political elite cannot afford to ignore. How can such representations be defined and to what ends are they used or claimed by the main existing political and ideological forces? To what extent are they shared or claimed by the individuals that make up Taiwanese society? These questions shall be examined with regard to the building of the national Taiwanese identity while being careful not to restrict its constant redefinition to a single interpretation. The available sources (discursive/narrative and iconographic)1 actually underline the ambivalence of the representations at stake, sometimes conflicting or understandable only in their historical context. Such representations have evolved through a variety of changing political circumstances since the introduction of baseball into Taiwan, over a century ago, during the Japanese administration.
1 The empirical data presented in this paper are the result of three ethnographic surveys carried out during a total of twenty months spent on the field between 2006 and 2010 on Taiwanese baseball, which is the subject of a thesis in progress. These surveys have been mainly carried out among two school teams in Tuku (county of Yunlin) and Chengkung (county of Taitung), one professional team, the Brother Elephants, as well as their supporters and those of the national team. The Olympic Games in Beijing in August 2008, followed from Taipei, and especially the baseball qualifying tournament which happened to be held in Taiwan in March, also served the purposes of the observation.
60
2 The Legacy of the Japanese Period
The Japanese brought baseball to Taiwan at the turn of the 20th century, although it had been played in Japan since the start of the Meiji era (1867-1912). Their children soon followed in their footsteps in schools reserved for the Japanese. The earliest known official competition took place in 1906 between three Japanese schools in Taipei (Hsieh 2006). It seems that the Japanese had previously been little inclined to share their favourite pastimes with the Taiwanese, as they would find themselves on equal terms with people they regarded as inferior and sometimes out of fear that it may kindle an identity crisis amongst the colonized population (Tsai 1992, 92).
This attitude began to change at the start of the 1920s when this sport became a tool in the policy of "assimilation" (doka, Nft) of the Taiwanese by the Japanese (Ching 2001, 4-7). As sports meetings became more commonplace, they contributed to a pacification of the relations between the colonizers and the colonized. The first historically significant team composed of Taiwanese players, Nenggao (t&H, Noko in Japanese), was founded in 1921 at the initiative of a Taiwanese, Lin Kui-hsing (), who won the support of the Japanese authorities in Hualien county. This team, exclusively composed of Ami Aborigines, made a triumphantly successful tour of Japan in 1925. Four members of the team went on to join the prestigious Heian High School in Kyoto, of which three studied at the Hosei University. One even managed to play in the Japanese professional league (Yu 2007a, 17-18).
The reform of the school system played a decisive role. The spread of state education and compulsory school attendance for Taiwanese boys and girls quickly came to be seen as essential for pacifying the local population and encouraging local economic development. Baseball was systematically introduced into state schools attended by Taiwanese students from 1919 onwards (Yu 2007a, 16)2. In 1929, Yigong (—the first primary school in the town of Kaohsiung reserved for Taiwanese children, had the first team composed entirely of local players to win the Taiwan championship in their category and in a competition against Japanese teams (Hsieh 2004). In spite of such an achievement, the Yigong story is
2 Children of both sexes take part in running, tennis, basketball, volleyball and swimming while rugby, football (soccer), hockey and baseball are for boys only (Tsurumi 1977, 169).
61
little known, as the sources at the time being almost exclusively Japanese had largely ignored the event (Hsieh 2006).
Another matter was the destiny of the team from the Agriculture and Forestry School in Chiayi, Jianong (MM, Kano in Japanese), who dominated Taiwanese baseball in the 1930s. Formed at the end of the 1920s, it won the Taiwanese championship four times between 1931 and 1936 and worked itself up to second place in the prestigious Koshien tournament which took place near Osaka. But apart from its prowess on the field, it was the team's ethnic mix that made it worthy of posterity as it was composed of four Aborigines, three Japanese and two Han. Several Taiwanese players from this team went on to have careers in Japan. As with Noko ten years earlier, the Japanese administration benefited from Kano's second place in the Koshien tournament to make it a symbol of Taiwanese and particularly Aboriginal assimilation (Morris 2006, 66-69; Morris 2010, 41-44). Its success was providential for the government who had to move on from the events that occurred one year beforehand when a group of Seediq Aborigines massacred 134 Japanese during sports meetings in their village of Musha (Wushe, before being hunted down and systematically executed in revenge (Ching 2001, 133-148).
The argument for ethnic integration, put forward by the Japanese authorities to prove to their own citizens that the province's affairs were running smoothly, should not overlook the contradictions. It is rather unlikely that the children who took part in these competitions all shared the desire for either reconciliation between peoples or resistance against the occupying forces. Most comments on this topic had actually been collected a posteriori. The Japanese attitude towards the islanders was certainly no more homogeneous. Although sports meetings between Taiwanese and Japanese became more commonplace by the late 1930s, they rarely wore the same shirt and were still as compartmentalized as the school system was. Taiwanese players who joined their school teams were required to achieve good exam results in order to stay in the team, if they were not already the best students in the school. As baseball embodied the essence of the Japanese lifestyle and success at school required a good knowledge of Japanese language and culture, these young Taiwanese were considered the best "assimilated".
The Japanese also left after their withdrawal a rigid hierarchical structure based on age, which still governs baseball in schools to this day and is considered as "tradition". It is characterized by the authority of the paternal figure of the
62
coach (jiaolian ftW) over the team and of the "elders" (xuezhang or sempai in Japanese) over the "young" (xuedi or kohai in Japanese). It is a system in which "morals" (pinde no®) and the accompanying values of "discipline" (jilu M W), "obedience" (fucong	and "politeness" (limao	prevail. The
frenzied training sessions were punctuated by often severe physical punishments when the advice of the coach was not followed or respected. The youngest were at the service of their elders, who were sometimes protectors, sometimes torturers. They all lived in dormitories within the school grounds. This mode of operation was not questioned by the Kuomintang when it took over from the Japanese administration and was one of the several continuities between the two forms of administration. In fact, they saw it as providing a solid foundation for the teaching of the values that they intended to promote within Taiwanese society after the handover of the island in 1945.
3 Physical Education for the Masses under the Kuomintang
When the KMT took over Taiwan in the aftermath of World War II, one of its priorities was to "re-Sinicize" a population seen as "enslaved" and "polluted" by half a century of Japanese "occupation". Any reminder of this was considered highly suspect or even banned, and baseball was clearly one of them. Pre-war players, particularly those from Kano, contributed to spreading Japanese style and practice by taking up new posts as coaches, school principals, local representatives, etc. Although the sport was already played on the mainland, it was not as popular there as it was in Taiwan (Reaves 2006). However, instead of banning this regional passion, nationalist authorities decided to use it for their own gain to counter the legacy of their predecessors just after the "retrocession". For this purpose, baseball was included in the nationalist project of "physical education" (tiyu MW) for the masses, a project that had already been aiming at resisting the Japanese as early as the 1930s (Morris 2004, 235-236) and its rules were translated in the middle of 1950's from Japanese into Mandarin Chinese to standardize the practice of the sport throughout the country.
63
This concept of tiyu had been part of the Chinese Nationalist Party's ideology long before its retreat to Taiwan3. Tiyu was build as a rival model to the "sports system" developed in the 19th century in Great Britain and United States. It is imbued with the "Confucian" values promoted by the KMT, including "filial piety" (xiao #) and "social harmony" (he ^P) (Soldani 2011). Tiyu was a tool used for the shaping of a "good citizen" (hao guomin,	—that is a "self-
conscious, self-disciplined" (Morris 2004, 16) individual—by training the body as well as training the mind through the body4.
Although the notion of tiyu already existed before the foundation of the Republic in 1911, it was subsequently redefined to fit in better with the project to reinsert China into the alliance of modern nations and the march towards progress. It was about the transformation of Imperial China into a modern Nation-State, which, according to its supporters, could not be achieved without regenerating the national and social body, and thus the physical bodies of its individuals. Historian Andrew Morris (2004, 3) points out that those times were characterized by "the systematic teleology of the relationship between individual strength, discipline and health, and the military, industrial or diplomatic 'strength' of a national body".
The notion of "race" (minzu is essential in defining tiyu, which aims at regenerating the "Chinese race" whose alleged decline was portrayed through the caricature of the "Sick Man of Asia" (Morris 2004, 12) at the end of the Manchu dynasty. However, the project "physical education" for the masses was aimed at all the ethnic groups of a China intended to be a great multi-ethnic State. One of its purposes was therefore to rally the "minorities" to the Chinese Republic. From this point of view, Taiwanese baseball was one of the greatest successes of the nationalist movement as it encouraged the Aborigine population to support the regime (Yu and Bairner 2010).
The regeneration of the social body implies both body hygiene—rather than the pushing to the limits that the body endures through top-flight sports competition—and socially and culturally imposed moral discipline. "Sport" and
3	Tiyu took a new turn under the People's Republic of China, but red physical culture was still dedicated to the cultivation of a national body (Morris 2004, 15; Chicharro-Saito 2008).
4	Andrew Morris (2004, 16) defines tiyu and distinguishes it from sport in the following terms: "Tiyu was about more than just sports, physical education, fitness or any combination of these; its yu (educational/cultivating aspect) was an important element that would transform modern physical culture, with its scientific legitimacy, its clear rules regarding physical movement, and its emphasis on rational record keeping, into a set of lived and played moral teachings designed to shape a new self-conscious, self-disciplined citizen."
64
"physical culture" are based on two very distinct ideas, with physical culture being at the crossroads of Western and Japanese influences as well as local influences with the principle of "body preservation" (yangsheng	This principle is
affiliated to "filial piety", which requires that everyone should return their bodies intact to their parents (Granet 1998, 117). From a nationalist perspective, the notion of "filial piety" can become "patriotism" (zhong S). In textbooks from the 1980s, the most frequently cited moral values are "patriotism" and "filial piety" (Meyer 1988, 271). They meet in the phrase "turning filial piety into patriotism" (yixiao zuozhong ^^AS) (Stafford 1992, 370). This principle has long been a justification for severe training regimes and excessive use of young players in the name of national pride. Some of the best players—and thus the most worn-out— were consequently unable to pursue their careers after school.
4 Hours of Glory for Taiwanese School Baseball
In 1969, Taiwanese players won their first Little League Baseball World Series title (10-12 years old category), a tournament held every year since 1939 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, USA. The young heroes were greeted triumphantly by a crowd of half a million people in the streets of Taipei. Sixteen more titles were won in the same category up until 1996. Families would gather around their new TV sets to watch the finals, in the middle of the night due to the time difference, and unforgettable memories were created for generations to come. Days following these delirious sleepless nights, with makeshift baseball games often taking place in the streets, are forever engraved in Taiwanese collective memory.
In 1971, players were received by the presidential couple and described by Chiang Kai-shek as "righteous Chinese citizens" (Yu and Bairner 2008, 225). However, while these young Taiwanese were supposed to espouse the iconic Confucian values of the Chinese nation as promoted by the KMT, they were likened by their opponents and the American public to robots programmed to win (Sundeen 2001, 258). The government stirred up the general hysteria around the teams, vastly inflating the importance of these children's tournaments to national cause status (Yu 2007a, 72). Little League triumphs were celebrated in school textbooks. The government created the myth of the "triple crown" (sanguanwang
65
HSï), which supposedly combined the three World Junior Titles won in the same year (Yu 2007a, 72; Hsu 2004)5.
Mainlanders initially preferred to play football (soccer) and above all basketball (Yu 2007a, 26). Until the 1970s, baseball acted as an identity demarcation line between the Taiwanese and Aborigines on one hand, and the Mainlanders on the other. Meanwhile, basketball rapidly reached all strata of society through schools and the military service where it was played fanatically and promoted by the regime. Social representations hold baseball as the sport of rural Taiwanese society, whose vehicular languages are Hokkien and Japanese, as opposed to basketball, the sport of the Mandarin-speaking and urban elite. With Little League victories Mainlanders were getting more and more involved in baseball. Within the context of general jubilation and national mobilization, playing this sport had ceased to be a betrayal of their origins. Baseball became for all what both narratives and discursive sources now describe as the "national sport" (guoqiu 0^). The government also capitalized on these achievements to secure the support of the Chinese Diaspora, who were a significant source of financial and diplomatic support for the regime (Yu and Bairner 2008, 229). "Baseball diplomacy" intensified while the KMT lost its seat in the UN to its Communist rival in 1971 and after the USA started diplomatic relations with China in 1979, at the moment when the party was increasingly isolated on the international scene.
5 "The Legend of Hungyeh"
The official history dictates that the Little League successes started with an extraordinary victory. In 1968, the Elementary School team of Hungyeh	a
little mountain village in Taitung county, a team made up exclusively of Bunun Aborigine youth, defeated the world champion Japanese team twice before a crowd of 20,000 in the Taipei stadium. A re-examination of the facts reveals a different reality which fails to supplant the official narrative. Several details have been omitted or neglected, more or less intentionally, such as the fact that nine out
5 During that period, Taiwan dominated in three categories: Little League (10-12 years old), Senior League (13-15 years old) and Big League (16-18 years old) (Yu 2007a, 169-171; Yu and Bairner 2008), making it a hat trick six times (1974, 1977, 1978, 1988, 1990 and 1991).
66
of the ten Hungyeh players were over the age limit of 12, and had been all registered under fake names, with the blessing of the authorities (Yu 2007b, 1271).
However, from an anthropological point of view, it is not so much the veracity of facts that is important as how the event goes down in history—and maybe the gap between its occurrence and what lingers in the collective memory (Bensa and Fassin 2002). For many Taiwanese people, the Hungyeh victory over Japan— although most players on the team were in fact from the Kansai region—was the milestone that made baseball popular and gave it some credibility. Yu Jun-wei points out that the "Legend of Hungyeh" (Hungyeh chuanqi	is an
"invented tradition" in the sense described by Eric Hobsbawm (1995), that is to say a nationalist tool designed to legitimize a new social and political order in a "modern" state (Yu 2007a, 37-47; Yu 2007b, 1265).
Most remarkably, this narrative suggests that the nationalist authorities had managed to subjugate Aborigines without facing any resistance. Through baseball, the Bunun children, originally rebellious to the education system, improved their school attendance and became "good citizens" who heroically defended the colours of the Republic. According to the "myth", the credit for discovering and developing their "hidden sports talent" (qianzai de yundong caineng,
went to a Han, Lin Chu-peng (#^11), who had been the school's principal since 1963. He considered baseball as a solution to poor attendance—which was a recurring issue in his school--and a means of getting the different ethnic groups together in spite of their conflicts (Yu 2007b, 1268). The "Legend of Hungyeh" is a part of Promethean Chinese nationalist party bringing the fire of civilization to indigenous "barbarians", using baseball as a torch.
These civilizing virtues are vividly celebrated in a feature film released in 1988, Little Giants of Hungyeh (Hungyeh xiaojuren ^X^^BA). The film spares no cliché or caricature, from the grandmother lighting the fire with pages from a textbook to young players cutting off the soles of their shoes so that they can remain barefoot but within the rules. One of the highlights of this Chang Chih-chao	film is a scene in which young players refuse to leave school to go
hunting with their older brothers, claiming they would rather play baseball and "become civilized" (chengwei wenmingren ^^^^A).
The socioeconomic dimension of the narrative also appears in the film. In spite of being poor, Hungyeh players beat the rich Japanese team decisively. Their
67
success was a result of their "unrestrained and carefree" (bu shou jushu, ziyou zizai ^^^^ SÈ SÎ) temperament and, by extension, a consequence of the capitalist ideology promoted by the KMT, just starting to bear fruit. The last scene of the film shows a cheering crowd rushing onto the field at the end of a game against Japan, a symbol of Taipei's new urban middle class. The KMT used "Hungyeh" to apply its nationalist rhetoric to a population who can pull themselves out of poverty by their own effort together with the help of a benevolent government (Morris 2010, 84-88).
6 A Parable of Taiwanese Destiny
The pro-independence movement could not let the opposite camp enjoy the monopoly of such a strong representation in the Taiwanese imagination. On 31st December 2000, President Chen Shui-bian, as he commented on a famous photograph in his first New Year's address, celebrated Hungyeh as a symbol of the Taiwan experience and spirit:
In this black-and-white photograph, there was a barefoot aboriginal boy at bat. His face showed full concentration, as he focused all of his energy on his responsibility. Meanwhile, his team-mates stood by on the sidelines anxiously watching and giving encouragement. Such a beautiful moment perfectly captures 20th century Taiwan and is a memory that I will never forget. (Morris 2006, 84)
Independence activists also used the Little League Baseball for their own purposes, in the name of a purely insular baseball. During the 1971 finals, activists hired an aeroplane to fly over the Williamsport stadium towing a banner reading: "Long Live Taiwan Independence (Taiwan duli wansui	GO GO
TAIWAN" 6 . This incident caused anger among nationalist authorities who subsequently decided to broadcast games with a five-minute delay to avoid such unpleasant surprises.
In an attempt to take the imagery of baseball away from the nationalist "physical education" machine, independence activists mythologized stories of accomplishments by Taiwanese teams during the first half of the 20th century,
6 The first sentence was intentionally written in simplified Chinese characters as a protest against the Kuomintang who did not recognize them and as a message directly addressed to China. The second sentence was in English.
68
which the KMT seldom referred to. They highlighted the cultural legacy of Japan and the Japanese period, as well as the ambivalence of a relationship caught between attachment and rejection (Morris 2010, 3), a set of social representations of modernity (Ching 2001, 11) and a rival model to the Chinese nationalism of the KMT (Morris 2010, 97-103)—which bears some similarities with the contradictions of West Indian cricket described by C.L.R. James in Beyond a Boundary (2005 [1963]). They established a connection between the history of Taiwan and Taiwanese baseball, distinguishing it from the history of mainland China. The "national sport" became a parable of Taiwan's destiny. The story of Kano became a legend about the successful association of Han and Aborigine Taiwanese with Japanese players in the same team. The story took a tragic turn when Lin Kui-hsing, founder of Noko, was killed during the violent aftermath of the "February 28 Incident" (Morris 2010, 58).
7 Contested Representations between "Blue" Horizon and "Green" Horizon
Representations of baseball, claimed as their own by both nationalist and pro-independence movements, can be classified into two homogeneous groups sharing numerous common points. They form two horizons, a "blue" one and a "green" one, according to the colours of the two rival political groups—and therefore did not appear prior to the 1990s, when the Taiwanese political scene changed. However, this dichotomy should be tempered. These two groups are ideal types, in the Weberian sense of the term, insofar as they are constructed by the researcher and never fully happen in reality. They are interdependent, and interpenetrate and interact with each other so that the common Taiwanese view of baseball, situated between the two, is shaped by their mutual tension. In order to understand this process and its consequences, it is necessary to outline the motivations and sympathies of these groups.
The main dividing line is probably to be found in the role allocated to the "national sport" beyond its shores. In the "blue" sense of the word, baseball is a nation-oriented activity which supports the regime. Domestic affairs can only benefit from victories in international or foreign tournaments, even when securing the support of the Chinese diaspora. The fact that campaigning candidate Ma Ying-jeou chose to wear a shirt of the New York Yankees rather than one of the
69
national team is an indicator of the importance of the sport's image over its practice. The shirt referred to a player, Wang Chien-ming (ï^^), a former Yankee pitcher, although he was openly in favour of independence. His achievements ranked him at the top of the American League—the most prestigious in the world. The Kuomintang candidate was thus not only promoting these successes, but also the moral qualities, in keeping with the above-mentioned criteria, that the player is attributed with.
Within the opposite side, Wang is seen as a product of Taiwan, as shown by the glowing terms attached to his name: "Glory of Taiwan" (Taiwan zhiguang a "Son of Taiwan" (Taiwan zhizi ia^Zi), "made in TaiWang", "King of TaiWang", etc. Wang and all other Taiwanese players who have made their way to the greatest foreign leagues are seen as ambassadors of Taiwan's local baseball culture throughout the world, with a distinctive playing style (Soldani 2010). This aspect resurfaced during the campaign to join the UN in 2008. "Green" baseball reveals a practice rooted in a territory and a history, symbolizing a sense of belonging to the world of baseball and, by extension, to a globalized international community.
The fact that China had long been almost absent from top baseball tournaments appeared to be a blessing. This lack of competition enabled non-aggravating representations to thrive between the two sides and between the main political forces in Taiwan—unlike what happened with basketball or the Olympic Games (Xu 2008). But this delicate balance was disrupted when China beat Taiwan in the Beijing Olympic Games in August 2008, and again in the last World Classic Baseball Cup in March 2009. This new balance of power reflected the political situation and the evolving state of relations between both sides, while reinforcing internal divisions. Commentators (political or non-political), ordinary people and the media came up with conflicting interpretations of these two historical defeats. Within the "green" side, this setback was received as a humiliation and yet another proof that China's rising power is a threat. In the "blue" side however, satisfaction prevailed that games had been played smoothly and in a spirit of "fraternity" (boai ffS).
Within this new context, the struggle over ownership of the symbolic images also started to shift. A good example is the choice of flags, which extends further than the baseball competition. In international tournaments, Taiwan cannot use its official flag (the flag of the Republic of China), nor its national anthem. There is a
70
special flag for sporting events, showing the twelve-ray sun and the five Olympic rings in a plum tree blossom. However, whenever possible, Taiwanese fans from all political sides wave the flag of the Republic of China, in their own stadia or abroad, whenever a fellow countryman appears on the field. Independence activists still see it as the symbol of the oppressing party and usually prefer the flag of the Republic of Taiwan, on which they pin their hopes (Taiwan gonghe guo ■nA^^H). However, they do not hesitate to rally under the same banner as their political opponents during such events. The banner can be combined with another symbol asserting their allegiances, such as another flag proclaiming the "Taiwan spirit" (Taiwan hun a A ^). It is a matter of visibility, as the international community relates Taiwan to the flag of the Republic of China more than any other. Ironically, nationalists now hesitate to fly their banner for fear they may upset their Chinese continental neighbours.
This identification to the same flag in sporting events clarifies an adherence to one national team, whether it is called "Chinese Taipei" or "Taiwan". These two names refer to different entities but are often willingly confused in certain circumstances, as the national team is actually composed of Taiwanese players only. Supporters of "indigenousness" can thus relate to a team officially named "Chinese Taipei" while still calling it "Taiwan" if they wish. Even though some refuse to accept either one or the other, this ambiguity benefits the occasional display of a certain national unity. In reality, those involved are free to adhere to either national mythology and they are free to do so without being associated with one side or the other politically. Other debates can also deal with allegiances on a non-national level, such as stereotypes and claims concerning Aborigines.
8 Baseball and Aborigines
Aborigines are at the forefront of these representations of baseball, as instruments of national construction and individuals who have been educated or perhaps saved from alcoholism through sport. All this may be far from reality but such stereotypes still abound nowadays. Aborigines reappropriate the clichés spread by the Han majority to reaffirm their own identity and defend other significant interests. The heterogeneity of the indigenous population should not be overlooked. As far as ethnic differences are concerned, some of the fourteen recognized groups are a lot less present in baseball than others. For instance, although the Atayal are
71
the largest group demographically, they have only one player in the Taiwanese professional league, whereas the Bunun, who also live in a mountain area, or the Puyuma, a much smaller group, are significantly represented. The Atayal, like the Taroko, prefer to play basketball or football (soccer). Baseball competitions can also become the scene of local or interethnic rivalries.
Aborigines are often stigmatized by the Han as being lazy, stupid and prone to becoming violent (Yu and Bairner 2010, 74). But there can be positive connotations. The "unrestrained and carefree" temperament attributed to the Hungyeh players also describes a playing style that has been largely idealized and is a lot freer than the Han's. This kind of rhetoric from the majority group can take on the appearance of a racial discourse comparable to that which surrounds Afro-American sportsmen, a comparison sometimes explicitly made. Since the Japanese era, Aborigines have had a reputation of being "naturally" pre-disposed to sport: their mountainous environment being beneficial to their physical faculties, they are said to be physically fitter than their Han neighbours as far as muscular development and cardiovascular endurance are concerned and genetic studies have been carried out recently to confirm this idea, but found no scientific evidence (Lin 2010, 26 n. 1). These reasons partly account for the high number of Aborigines in the professional league to which they make up 30% of the players on average whilst they come from a minority which makes up only 2% of the country's total population. As a result of the weak role of education together with a significant lack of prospects, existing social inequalities tend to be perpetuated (Lin 2010).
This form of discrimination has nevertheless led many Aborigines to choose baseball as their main field of study at school despite the drawbacks of an environment where only the very best succeed. They have assumed the stereotypes to which they have been subjected. Unable to relate to a nation that baseball is helping to build; they have taken it back and made it a symbol of their own. Aboriginal players and spectators alike often compare the sense of pride after a victory to the "return from the hunt" which has long been an organizing principle in their society, just as the age system governs the dormitories. They willingly associate baseball with their culture or even as simply being their culture. Many will say: "Baseball is the culture of our village" ("bangqiu shi women buluo de wenhua"	Also, they consider the "national sport" as
one of the rare means of social and economic elevation they can access.
72
9 Conclusion
Understanding Taiwan's virtually unanimous obsession with its "national sport" and the common perception of it in their society necessitates an examination of the underlying logic explaining the different levels of allegiance within the same activity. Its representations are simultaneously shared and contested just as the common perceptions that develop around it intertwine and feed off each other more than they conflict. If baseball is the "national sport", it is above all because it offers a stage on which the negotiation of tensions—divisions and consensus— troubling Taiwanese society as a whole is played out. It would be fascinating from this point of view to examine in detail the contrasting relationship formed with basketball, Taiwan's other national passion. But in order to define the role that baseball plays in Taiwanese society, it is also necessary to be able to characterize the political tensions related to it, as well as the moral values attached to it, and to understand its representations in their historical context.
References
Bensa, Alban, and Fassin, Éric. 2002. "Les sciences sociales face à l'événement." Terrain, "Qu'est-ce qu'un événement?" 38: 5-20.
Chicharro-Saito, Gladys. 2008. "Éducation physique et incorporation de la morale dans les écoles élémentaires en République populaire de Chine." Perspectives chinoises 1: 3040.
Ching, Leo T.S. 2001. Becoming "Japanese." Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Granet, Marcel. 1998 (1922). La religion des Chinois. Paris: Armand Colin.
Hobsbawm, Eric. 1995 (1983). "Inventing Tradition." Traduction André Mary, Karim Fghoul and Jean Boutier. Enquête, "Usages de la tradition" 2: 171-189.
Hsieh, Shih-yuan Mtt^. 2004. "1929 nian Kaohsiung diyi gongxuexiao yu diyihui quandao shaonian yeqiu dahui."
# ("1929, First Public School in Kaohsiung and First Junior Baseball Competition on the Island.") Gaoshi wenxian lAAM (Takao Historiography) 17(3): 110-120.
Hsieh, Shih-yuan Mtt^. 2006. "Rizhi shiqi Taiwan bangqiu shi yanjiu de shiliao shiguan yu keti."	("Issues, Views and
Documents in the Studies on the History of Baseball in Taiwan during the Japanese Occupation.") Taiwan shiliao yanjiu H^A^fifiA (Taiwan Historical Materials Studies) 28: 32-48.
73
Hsu, Tsung-mao ff^ffi, ed. 2004. Sanguanwang zhi meng	(Dreams Come
True). Taipei: Dalin.
James, C.L.R. 2005 (1963). Beyond a Boundary. London: Yellow Jersey Press.
Lin, Wen-lan	2010. "Bangqiu zuowei "yuan/yuan meng jieti":jiaoyu tizhi, wenhua
chuangsheng yu shehui jiexu fanyan."	: tfl®>
XikM^^i-^f^Wfâ ("Indigenous Baseball Dreams: the Educational Regime, Cultural Production and Reproduction of Social Hierarchies.") PhD diss. National Taiwan University.
Meyer, Jeffrey E. 1988. "Teaching Morality in Taiwan Schools: The Message of the Textbooks." The China Quarterly 114: 267-284.
Morris, Andrew D. 2004. Marrow of the Nation. A History of Sport and Physical Culture in Republican China. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Morris, Andrew D. 2006. "Taiwan. Baseball, Colonialism and Nationalism." In Baseball without Borders. The International Pastime, edited by George Gmelch, 65-88. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Morris, Andrew D. 2010. Colonial Project, National Game. A History of Baseball in Taiwan. Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Reaves, Joseph A. 2006. "China: Silk Growns and Gold Gloves." In Baseball without Borders. The International Pastime, edited by George Gmelch, 43-64. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Soldani, Jérôme. 2010. "'The Same Everywhere, Every Time Different.' An Interpretation of Taiwanese Baseball in the Global Context." Journal des Anthropologues, "Sports Culture and Globalization. New Objects, New Fields" 120-121: 121-148 (in French).
Soldani, Jérôme. 2011. "Why Taiwanese Play Baseball? Diachronic Approach of a Diffusion Case." Ethnologie Française, "Diffusion of Sport" 41(4): 677-689 (in French).
Stafford, Charles. 1992. "Good Sons and Virtuous Mothers: Kinship and Chinese Nationalism in Taiwan." Man 27(2): 363-378.
Sundeen, Joseph Timothy. 2001. "A 'Kid's Game'? Little League Baseball and National Identity in Taiwan." Journal of Sport and Social Issues 25(3): 251-265.
Tsai, Tsung-hsin ^^{g. 1992. "Riju shidai Taiwan bangqiu yundong fazhan guocheng zhi yanjiu: yi 1895 (Mingzhi 28) nian zhi 1926 (Dazheng 15) nian wei zhongxin." 0
M 1895(^^28) 1926(^15) ^^ ' ("Study on the Development of Baseball in Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Rule: from 1895 to 1926.") Master thesis. Taiwan Normal University.
Tsurumi, Patricia E. 1977. Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, 1895-1945. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Xu, Guoqi. 2008. "La représentation nationale de la Chine et la question des deux Chine dans le mouvement olympique." Perspectives chinoises 1: 19-29.
74
Yu, Jun-wei. 2007a. Playing in Isolation. A History of Baseball in Taiwan. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Yu, Jun-wei. 2007b. "The Hongye Legend in Taiwanese Baseball: Separating Myth from Reality." The International Journal of the History of Sport 24(10): 1264-1280.
Yu, Jun-wei, and Bairner, Alan. 2008. "Proud to be Chinese: Little League Baseball and National Identities in Taiwan during the 1970's." Identities. Global Studies in Culture and Power 15: 216-239.
Yu, Jun-wei, and Bairner, Alan. 2010. "Schooling Taiwan's Aboriginal Baseball Players for the Nation." Sport, Education and Society 15(1): 63-82.
75
76
UDK: 32(529)
COPYRIGHT ©: CAL CLARK AND ALEXANDER C. TAN
Political Polarization and Gridlock as the Result of an Institutional Imbroglio in Taiwan
Cal CLARK and Alexander C. TAN*
Abstract
Institutionalist theory argues that fairly permanent economic structures and policy-making arrangements create "institutions" which shape future policy-making and economic performance to a considerable extent (March and Olsen 1989; North 1990; Riker 1982). This perspective suggests that it might be valuable to look for the political institutions that evolved during Taiwan's development which could have inhibited the country's adaptability after the mid-1990s. From this perspective, Taiwan's current institutional imbroglio results from a combination of a complex and somewhat indeterminate constitutional system, a long-time election system that contained some perverse incentives, and its long era of authoritarian rule. This paper, hence, seeks to provide an "institutionalist" explanation for the polarization and gridlock in Taiwan's politics in the early 21st century.
Keywords: Taiwan, institutions, democratization, polarization, identity Izvleček
Institucionalna teorija trdi, da razmeroma stabilne ekonomske strukture in politične ureditve tvorijo »institucije«, ki močno oblikujejo prihodnjo politiko in ekonomsko učinkovitost (March and Olsen 1989; North 1990; Riker 1982). Potemtakem bi bilo koristno pogledati politične institucije, ki so nastale med razvojem Tajvana in so morda ovirale njegovo prilagodljivost v drugi polovici 1990ih. Iz tega vidika je tajvanska trenutna institucionalna zapletenost pravzaprav rezultat kombinacije kompleksnega in do neke mere
* Cal Clark, Alumni Professor of Political Science and Director of the Master's of Public Administration Program, Auburn University, Alabama, USA. E-mail address: clarkcm@auburn.edu Alexander C. Tan, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. E-mail address: alex.tan@canterbury.ac.nz
77
nedoločenega ustavnega sistema, starega volilnega sistema, ki je vseboval sprijene spodbude ter dolge dobe avtoritarnega režima. Pričujoči članek bo zato skušal podati "institucionalno" razlago za polarizacijo in zastoj tajvanske politike v zgodnjem 21. stoletju.
Ključne besede: Tajvan, institucije, demokratizacija, polarizacija, identiteta 1 Introduction
Though somewhat delayed, Taiwan's very successful democratic transition in the late 1980s and early 1990s created a seeming "political miracle" to go with the nation's earlier "economic miracle" (Chao and Myers 1998; Clark 2006; Copper 2009; Rigger 1999; Tien 1996; Wu 1995). The lifting of martial law in 1987, the forced retirement of the "senior legislators" who gave the ruling Nationalist or Kuomintang (KMT) Party a guaranteed majority in 1991, and the first direct election of President in 1996 brought full democracy to the country. Then, the election of Chen Shui-bian of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as President in 2000 showed that all was possible politically in the previously authoritarian Taiwan. Yet, democracy, as desirable as it was, did not solve all of Taiwan's political problems. For example, the development of a fairly even balance of political power between the KMT and the DPP led to growing gridlock and partisan polarization and growing emphasis upon the highly divisive national identity issue (Clark 2006; Makeham and Hsiau 2005). In addition, democratization may have even enhanced corruption by creating the need for huge campaign funds (Clark 2006; Rigger 1999) and by politicizing such areas of decision-making as financial policy and regulation (Tan 2001 and 2008).
Institutionalist theory argues that fairly permanent economic structures and policy-making arrangements create "institutions" which shape future policy-making and economic performance to a considerable extent (March and Olsen 1989; North 1990; Riker 1982). This perspective suggests that it might be valuable to look for the political institutions that evolved during Taiwan's development which could have inhibited the country's adaptability after the mid-1990s. Two such institutions stand out. First, Taiwan's government had long been dominated by strong authoritarian leaders, such as Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo. While the movement to electoral democracy in the late 1980s and early 1990s went smoothly (Rigger 1999; Tien 1996), the give-and-take of normal democratic policy-making had not been established; and, indeed, the institutional
78
legacies from the past seemed to push the nation toward a fairly dysfunctional politics. Second, Taiwan's electoral system of a single vote in multi-member legislative districts also stimulated some of the less desirable characteristics of Taiwan's democratic politics.
More specifically, John Fuh-sheng Hsieh (2006 and 2009) has developed an interesting model of Taiwan's institutional legacy based on the difference between presidential or parliamentary governmental systems and between elections systems with single-member districts (SMDs) or proportional representation (PR). From this perspective, Taiwan's current institutional imbroglio results from a combination of a complex and somewhat indeterminate constitutional system, a long-time election system that contained some perverse incentives, and its long era of authoritarian rule. Indeed, Hsieh (2006, 99) concludes that "actual constitutional practice in Taiwan [is] ... contrary to the constitutional arrangement on paper." This certainly points toward an "institutional imbroglio" in Taiwan politics.
This paper, hence, seeks to provide an "institutionalist" explanation for the polarization and gridlock in Taiwan's politics in the early 21st century. The first section describes the growing polarization over national identity. The second part describes the institutional incoherence in the nation's governmental system; and the third argues that constitutional change over the last two decades has been fairly ineffective in overcoming these problems. Finally, we present a conceptual model of how Taiwan's "institutional imbroglio" has promoted polarization and gridlock in policy-making.
2 The Rise, Fall, and Rise of the National Identity Issue
The nature of authoritarian rule on Taiwan at the end of the Chinese Civil War created a bitter legacy of ethnic hostility and tensions that reverberates in the nation's politics even today. Since the evacuation of the Chiang Kai-shek regime to Taiwan in 1949 at the end of the Chinese Civil War, the island has suffered from a clear ethnic cleavage between the Mainlanders who came with Chiang (a little under 15% of the population) and the long-time residents of the Taiwan or Islanders who also were almost all ethnically Han Chinese. The Mainlanders dominated the government and imposed a harsh and repressive rule termed the 'White Terror" until the country's democratic transition in the late 1980s and early
79
1990s. More broadly, especially after the initiation of the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement in 1966, the China-centric regime denigrated and discriminated against local culture and dialects by, for example, treating the Mandarin dialect as the official language of government and education, leading to ongoing resentments among the Islanders (Cheng 1994; Lee 2005; Lynch 2004; Makeham and Hsiau 2005; Mendel 1970; Phillips 2003; Wachman 1994).
Thus, the questions of ethnic justice and national identity, even if repressed by martial law, were clearly important to many Taiwanese. Taiwan's democratization, therefore, was widely expected to unleash Taiwanese nationalism on two interlinked but distinct issues: 1) rejection of the Mainlander-dominated political regime and 2) growing hostility toward and the absolute rejection of China's claim to sovereignty over Taiwan which was ironically at least tacitly supported by the Kuomintang's policy of "Mainland Recovery" (Gold 1986; Makeham and Hsiau 2005; Rigger 1999 and 2001; Tu 1998; Wachman 1994).
As the 1990s opened, both the opposition DPP and the ruling Kuomintang KMT seemingly placed opposing bets on how the citizens of Taiwan would respond to this issue. The former bet that the end of authoritarian controls would permit Islander resentments to be expressed, winning over voters to the DPP as the champion of Taiwanese nationalism. For example, the DPP added support for Taiwan Independence to its Charter in 1991. Conversely, the KMT bet that the satisfaction of the general population with the prosperity created by Taiwan's "economic miracle" would make them supportive of the political status quo both domestically and in cross-Strait relations with China (Clark 2002).
Political forces soon began to push both parties away from these stark alternatives. In the KMT, Islander Lee Teng-hui, who as Vice-President succeeded Chiang Kai-shek's son Chiang Ching-kuo as President after his death in 1988, responded to this opportunity with what appeared to be inspired statesmanship on the national identity question. As Lee consolidated his power, he not so subtly pushed the KMT's position on cross-Strait relations in a new direction. Lee, in fact, managed to straddle the national identity issue quite astutely, implicitly portraying himself as a moderate between the pro-Independence DPP and the pro-Unification members of the KMT and (after 1993) the New Party who tended to be Mainlanders. While retaining a commitment to Unification with China in the indefinite future, he aggressively began to pursue the "pragmatic diplomacy" of trying to upgrade Taiwan's international status. For example, in 1993 he co-opted
80
a popular issue from the DPP by launching a campaign to join the United Nations, which the KMT had strongly opposed up to then (Cabestan 1998; Chao 2002; Lasater 2000; Sutter and Johnson 1994). Furthermore, the victory of Lee's "Mainstream" faction clearly promoted the "Taiwanization" of the party--which made it hard to blame it for the repression of the "old" KMT. Consistent with the view that the old Kuomintang had been rejected, he formally apologized in 1995 for the massacre of thousands of Taiwanese by Nationalists troops in the Spring of 1947, the "February 28th or 2-2-8 Incident" (Chao and Myers 1998; Hood 1997).
For its part, the DPP began to moderate its position on Taiwan Independence in the early 1990s after the inclusion of a pro-Independence plank in the party charter cost it significantly at the polls in 1991. In particular, the Chinese military threats during the 1996 presidential elections and the woeful showing of the pro-Independence DPP candidate evidently convinced most of its leaders that Taiwan Independence was simply unfeasible. Consequently, the DPP began to downplay Independence without ever formally renouncing it. For example, some (but far from all) DPP leaders began to argue that Taiwan already was an independent country, so there was no need for a formal declaration of Independence (Rigger 2001; Wang 2000). Taiwan's political dynamics in the late 1990s, therefore, suggested that partisan differences over national identity were narrowing and losing their intensity (Clark 2006; Fell 2005).
However, a re-escalation soon erupted following the dramatic victory of the DPP's Chen Shui-bian in the 2000 presidential election, which he won with just under 40% of the vote in a three-way race (plus a couple of inconsequential minor candidates) with the KMT's Lien Chan and with James Soong who ran as an Independent after failing to get on the KMT ticket. Two distinct types of issues were involved in this polarization. The first was an ongoing struggle over the "localization" or Bentuhua of the country's politics and especially culture which was consistently pushed by the Chen administration. The second involved cross-Strait relations with the People's Republic of China and was more episodic; and here Chen Shui-bian's policies were far from consistent over time.
Domestically, Chen displayed a strong commitment pursuing Bentuhua to create a "Taiwan-centric paradigm" for the nation (Hsiau 2005; Jacobs 2005). This, in turn, stimulated substantial opposition and pushback from the old guard KMT (Wang 2005). The administration used its executive power to promote what it called a "Taiwanese subjectivity" that certainly was aimed at its base constituency.
81
Wei-chin Lee (2005), for example, argues that Chen promoted a Cultural Reconstruction Movement that included such initiatives as changing the name of many agencies and organizations to stress "Taiwan," promoting Islander dialects in language policy, revising the official policy toward the mass media to reverse the previous KMT domination of outlets (including the encouragement of underground radio stations), and changing the focus from Chinese to Taiwanese history in education policy. Daniel Lynch (2004), for example, concluded that Chen and his "Green" bloc (named for the primary color of the DPP flag) were trying to create a new nation rooted in Taiwanese history and culture.
Relations with China were much more volatile, despite Chen Shui-bian's image as a zealot in promoting the declaration of de jure Taiwan Independence, which very probably would have resulted in military action by the PRC. Chen's pushing the envelope on the Independence issue commenced in the summer of 2002 when he proclaimed the theory that "one country on each side of the Taiwan Strait" existed, provoking significant unhappiness in both Beijing and Washington. After that, he periodically set off contretemps with Beijing and Washington until he left office in 2008, as he challenged China's "red lines" on Taiwan Independence by, for example, proposing or holding referenda on issues that might affect Taiwan's international status and by advocating fundamental change to the country's Constitution.
Yet, there were also signs of pragmatism in Chen's policies toward cross-Strait relations. He was fairly conciliatory toward an unresponsive PRC for his first two years in office and negotiated a "Ten Point Consensus" with the widely perceived pro-China James Soong in early 2005. More broadly, he followed a pattern of being aggressive toward China during electoral campaigns to appeal to the "deep Green" Taiwanese nationalists and then sounding much more conciliatory after the election was over. Indeed, he only became stridently pro-Independence consistently in 2006 when burgeoning scandals deprived him of support from almost everybody except the deep Greens (Clark 2006).
For their part, the KMT and its "Blue" coalition (named for one of the colors in the KMT flag) returned to a much more "China-centric" stance after Lee Teng-hui left the party following its defeat in the 2000 presidential election. According to the model developed by Yu-shan Wu (2011), this represented a direct response to their electoral situation. During elections, Wu argues, the KMT acts like a catch-all party and appeals to the median voter with centrist policies. Between
82
elections when the party is out of power (as it was from 2000 to 2008), in contrast, it focuses its appeals on keeping the support of the pro-China "deep Blues," while acting in a more pragmatic or "realist" manner when it controls the government.
By the middle of the first decade in the 21st century, therefore, a harsh and viciously divisive debate over cross-Strait relations and national identity had come to dominate Taiwan's politics. The Greens argued that they must "stand up for Taiwan" and accused the Blues of selling Taiwan out to China. In stark contrast, the Blues contended that the Greens were needlessly provocative and that a more accommodating policy could defuse the threat from China. Taken to the extreme (which they often were), these positions implied that one side was the savior and the other the destroyer of Taiwan and its statehood. Unfortunately, both critiques seem to have had some merit. President Chen's periodic appeals to his pro-Independence "base constituency" for primarily domestic purposes both infuriated China and at times strained relations with the United States, thereby threatening to undermine Taiwan's position in the Taipei-Beijing-Washington "triangle." Conversely, the Blue attempts to "do business" with Beijing undermined Chen's ability to deal with China; and there were even fairly credible rumors that Blue leaders had urged both the PRC and US to "get tough" with the Chen administration which in itself might have created a security threat to Taiwan (Clark 2006; Hickey 2006; Rigger 2005).
3 Institutional Incoherence in Taiwan
Originally, the government for the Republic of China on Taiwan was (and still essentially is) structured around the 1947 Constitution, which was based upon earlier constitutional and institutional developments in the interwar Republican period of China. This Constitution created the institutions for a liberal democracy based on the five branches of government proposed by Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Kuomintang, and on constitutional guarantees of civil rights and liberties. Thus, at the national level, there were five basic governmental organizations: the Executive Yuan, the Legislative Yuan, the Judicial Yuan, the Control Yuan, and the Examination Yuan. An indirectly elected President stood above these five branches and served as the top political official in the nation. Freedom of speech and other political rights were guaranteed; and universal suffrage and the secret ballot were mandated (Ch'ien 1950; Copper 1979; Winckler 1984).
83
The keystone of the ROC's government was the President, who initially was indirectly elected for six-year terms by the National Assembly. The National Assembly itself was conceived as a major representative body that, in addition to selecting the President and Vice-President, was charged with adopting and amending the Constitution. National Assembly Members were elected by constituencies of 500,000 in China for six-year terms; and some representation was also given to occupational groups, racial minorities, and overseas Chinese (Barnett 1963; Ch'ien 1950).
The President possessed important constitutional powers, but there were also significant limitations on them as well. He appointed the Premier who headed the Executive Yuan and also had appointment powers for the Judicial and Examination Yuans. Moreover, the President became the focal point for several important decision-making bodies, such as the National Security Council that was founded by Chiang Kai-shek in 1967. The NSC has been generally composed of some of the top officials in the regime and seemingly has served as a "super cabinet" at many times. Constitutionally, however, the President did not really appear to be the chief executive. It was the Premier who selected and presided over the cabinet; and, at least on paper, the Premier and the cabinet were responsible to the Legislative Yuan (Ch'ien 1950; Gurtov 1968; Hsieh 2006).
It is somewhat ambiguous, therefore, whether the ROC Constitution created a presidential or cabinet system because the exact division of labor between the President and Premier has been somewhat unclear and has depended upon their personal power positions. In reality, except for the brief period after Chiang Kai-shek's death when his Vice President finished out his term, the President has always been preeminent. Still, Presidents and Premiers have not always been fully compatible. For example, President Lee Teng-hui and his Mainstream faction of the KMT clearly had strong differences with Premier Hau Pei-tsun, a leader of the Anti-Mainstream KMT in the early 1990s. This led to a joke about why Taiwan was the most democratic nation in the world: "The United States has a President and people drive on the right; the United Kingdom has a Prime Minister and people drive on the left; while Taiwan has both a President and a Premier and people drive on both sides of the street."
The Legislative Yuan or Taiwan's parliament was a directly elected body that was constituted much like the National Assembly. Even during the long authoritarian era, it passed budgets and legislation and exercised oversight over the
84
executive (e.g., the Executive and Legislative Yuans had vetoing and overriding powers fairly similar to those exercised by the President and Congress in the United States). In reality, the Legislative Yuan was fairly weak; and it is probably fair to describe it as a "rubber stamp" on major policies before the 1990s. Still, the Legislative Yuan held the very important formal power of having to approve presidential appointments of Premiers (Ch'ien 1950; Hsieh 2006). More informally, legislators did exercise considerable initiative in such important areas as amending legislation, constituent service, local development projects, and overseeing the executive in public interpellation sessions (Chou, Clark and Clark 1990).
The other three major branches of government or Yuan have been much less important but still significant in Taiwanese politics. The Judicial Yuan, whose members were appointed by the President, interpreted the Constitution and served as the Supreme Court for the ROC. The Control Yuan, whose members were initially elected indirectly by sub-national governments (provinces in China), exercised oversight over other parts of the government. It held general auditing powers, had to consent to the appointments to the Judicial and Examination Yuans, and could censure and (with the approval of the National Assembly) impeach government officials. Finally, the Examination Yuan, which was also appointed by the President, oversaw the system of civil service examinations and served as a personnel agency for the government (Ch'ien 1950).
As originally established in China, the governmental structure was a federal one with three levels--national, provincial, and county. The retreat from the Mainland left essentially one Province (Taiwan) that encompassed almost all the territory governed by the ROC, with some "offshore" islands near China under military administration. The provincial administration was directed by a Governor who was appointed by the President. There also was a directly elected Provincial Assembly, whose relationship to the provincial executive paralleled that between the Executive and Legislative Yuans. Legislative politics in the Provincial Assembly were much livelier than in the Legislative Yuan both because the members were directly elected and because the issues that the Assembly could deal with were not all that important (Lerman 1978). In addition, the two largest cities in Taiwan, Taipei in 1967 and Kaohsiung in 1979, were made "special municipalities" under the Executive Yuan with structures fairly similar to the provincial government (including their mayors becoming appointive rather than elective).
85
Figure 1: Government structure of the Republic of China. (Source: Clark 1989, 120)
Figure 1 outlines this basic governmental structure and the relationships among its various components. Solid arrows indicate the formal power to select and dashed arrows show check-and-balance relations. This diagram suggests three central characteristics of Taiwan's politics during the authoritarian era of the 1950s through the 1980s. First, the electorate possessed substantial power in theory, but it was quite circumscribed in practice by two important factors: 1) the indirect election or selection of a large number of key leaders and bodies and 2) the fact that large majorities of the Legislative Yuan and National Assembly continued to be "senior legislators" elected in China in the late 1940s. Second, the large number of dotted lines has ambiguous implications. On the one hand, it could have promoted checks and balances among the various governmental institutions. On the other, there was certainly the potential for institutional incoherence, especially in the key set of relationships among the President, Premier and cabinet, and Legislative Yuan. Third, the foundation certainly existed for a strong presidency, despite the ambiguity over whether the President could even be considered the chief executive.
86
The formal constitutional structure for any country, of course, is subject to significant modification by informal political practices. This occurred to an extreme extent in authoritarian Taiwan. Not only were the Constitution's democratic intent and institutions subverted by the authoritarian controls exercised by the state, but the outline of the nation's political bodies in Figure 1 completely ignores the central role of the ruling Kuomintang Party. The party's institutions were greatly influenced by Soviet advisors to Sun Yat-sen in the 1920s; and once it came to power it created something of a Leninist party-state. Consequently, major decisions about policy and personnel were evidently approved, if not made, by the top party organizations rather than the official government (e.g., the KMT's Central Standing Committee had to approve the Premier's cabinet choices); and the Executive Yuan was viewed as much more of a policy implementer than initiator. The party also had fairly extensive ties with society through such organizations as the China Youth Corps and Farmers' Associations. The strong presidential leadership that has marked Taiwan's politics was based to a goodly extent on control of the ruling party as both Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo were strong leaders of the KMT through their presidencies (Bedeski 1981; Clough 1978; Copper 1979; Tai 1970). This continued in the democratic era, as Lee Teng-hui was Chairman of the Kuomintang throughout his presidency (19882000) and Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou have been Chairs of their respective parties for part of their terms.
Despite this structure of a party-state and a substantial amount of repression directed against those who challenged the regime, the KMT on Taiwan departed from the classic Leninist strategy of control in one vital respect. Rather than destroying all pre-existing political and social groups, the regime tried to co-opt and manipulate them whenever possible. This resulted in the Mainlander "national" elite playing "local" Islander factions off against each other and retaining power by acting as the arbitrator among them. This also made elections for local governments and Farmers' Associations "real" and often fiercely competitive, which had somewhat contradictory implications for Taiwan's future political development. On the one hand, a significant basis or starting point was created for democratic development and expansion; on the other, these local bodies were strongly focused on political patronage which was often tied to corruption (Bosco 1994; Clark 1989; Rigger 1999; Tien 1989).
This turns attention to the somewhat rare type of election system which Taiwan imported from its former colonial master Japan. As noted in the
87
Introduction, the two major types of election systems are single-member districts (SMDs) in which the person who gets the most votes wins and proportional representation (PR) in which a party wins the number of seats in a multi-member district that is proportionate to its share of the vote. Taiwan's system of what is called the single nontransferable vote or SNTV combined elements of both systems (the SNTV system was abolished at the time of the 2008 Legislative Yuan elections). The candidates for legislative seats ran in multi-member districts as in PR. However, each voter only could cast one ballot for a specific candidate (not a party) which could not be transferred to a second or third alternative if the candidate did not win. The candidates were then ranked according to the votes they received; and the number elected was determined by the size of the district. For example, if a district had eight seats, the eight candidates with the highest number of votes were the winners. Consequently, in large districts fairly small minorities could elect a representative (Hsieh 2009).
This system appears to have ambiguous implications for the party system. SMDs are usually considered to promote competitive two-party systems because minor party candidates are difficult to elect. This promotes the ability of the citizenry to hold a government accountable but makes the representation of some specific constituencies hard because the catch-all major parties must retain broad appeal. Conversely, a PR system promotes a multi-party system that is good for representation but can undermine accountability. The SNTV system promoted representation by individual legislators but undermined representation by a party because candidates of the same party had to compete against each other as well as against the representatives of other parties, which undercut the cohesion and responsibility of the parties. As John Hsieh (2009, 12) explains nicely:
Since the vote shares of these two parties [the DPP and KMT] are, under normal circumstances, relatively fixed, it can be expected that candidates from the same party will compete against each other for the same pool of voters. In fact, this kind of intraparty competition is more often than not fiercer than competition between the two parties. As voters make their choices, they often first determine which party to vote for, and then pick one out of several candidates from that party. Since the platforms of these candidates are likely to be similar, voters need to rely upon other cues to make their choices, including personal connections, pork-barrel projects, or even vote buying. Elections may become very personalized. In addition, since each party, in general, wants all its candidates to win, and often needs to show impartiality among its own candidates, these candidates may have to turn to other sources of support to compete against their co-partisans. Factions, big businesses, or
88
even gangsters may be dragged into the process. Corruption may thus sneak in. Moreover, because a candidate may need only a small portion of the vote in the district to get elected, he or she may choose to take extreme positions to attract the support of certain groups of voters. In this way, radicalization may become a constant feature of political life.
There seems to be a parallel between Taiwan's constitutional and electoral systems, therefore. The constitutional system combined elements of both parliamentary and presidential governments in a somewhat incoherent system that was held together by authoritarian one-party rule. The election system was neither SMD nor PR and appeared to undercut the incentives that one or the other might have provided for establishing a particular type of party system. Democratization, as might well have been expected, exacerbated these problems. The incoherence and ambiguities of the constitutional system became increasingly apparent as competing political forces were given free rein to pursue conflicting interests and goals; and the growing importance of elections accentuated the dysfunctions of the SNTV system.
4 Ineffective Constitutional Reforms
In response to the problems sketched in the previous section, Taiwan has amended its Constitution quite significantly over the last two decades during the democratic era. Yet, the efficacy of these reforms for surmounting the institutional imbroglio facing the nation remains rather problematic. Shelley Rigger (2007) developed a model of four rounds of constitutional change in democratic Taiwan over the last two decades, extending the work of Lin Jih-wen (2002) for the 1990s. Lin and Rigger differentiated two major initial motivations for constitutional reform. One was the ideological perspective on the existing Constitution; and the other concerned pragmatic power considerations. Ideologically, the DPP challenged the legitimacy of the old Constitution, which the traditional KMT generally supported; and during the 1990s, President Lee Teng-hui and his Mainstream KMT took an intermediate position with their goal of solidifying Taiwan's sovereignty within the existing constitutional structure. After the turn of the century, according to Rigger, a new justification for constitutional reform emerged because of growing dissatisfaction with the dysfunctional operations of the country's political institutions.
89
Round #1 (1991-97)
Goals: Facilitate Democratization and Re-Balance Powers among Political Institutions
1.	Direct election of Legislative Yuan, National Assembly, Provincial Governor, Special Municipality Mayors, and President;
2.	More power to President (e.g., Legislative Yuan lost power to confirm Premier); and
3.	Phasing out of Provincial Government.
Round #2 (1999-2000)
Goal: Define the Role of the National Assembly
1.	Initial attempt to extend terms draws major public backlash; but
2.	Ultimately, powers downgraded substantially.
Round #3 (2001-05)
Goal: Make Government More Effective
1.	Legislative Yuan cut in size;
2.	New election system strengthening major parties;
3.	National Assembly abolished; and
4.	Changing Constitution made much harder without very broad-based support. Round #4 (2005-07)
Clashing Perspectives: Promote Governmental Efficiency vs. Create New Constitution (Country)
1. Major DPP push ended with no proposal, while KMT not interested in major constitutional change.
Figure 2: Rounds of constitutional reform in democratic Taiwan. (Source: Rigger 2007)
Figure 2 summarizes these four rounds of constitutional change. The first round included constitutional amendments in 1991, 1992, 1994, and 1997. Rigger (2007) sees these as facilitating democratization and balancing the powers among Taiwan's basic political institutions. The first three clearly were essential to establishing a democracy since they allowed the direct election of the Legislative Yuan, National Assembly, Provincial Governor, Mayors of Taipei and Kaohsiung, and finally the President. Ideologically, these reforms conformed to the DPP critique of the old Constitution, helped increase the power of the DPP and of Lee's Mainstream faction against the KMT old guard, and were overwhelmingly supported by the general public. The 1997 amendments, in contrast, focused on the relationships among governmental bodies. The power of the President was strengthened by removing the Legislative Yuan's power to confirm the Premier; and the Provincial Government was drastically downsized. According to Rigger, this represented a trade-off between President Lee's ambition to increase
90
presidential power and the DPP's ideological goal of removing links to China from the Constitution (see Yeh 2002 for a somewhat similar interpretation).
This first round of constitutional reform was based on an overlap of the DPP's ideological interests and the Mainstream KMT's power considerations. It left the DPP still advocating the need for major constitutional change but satisfied the Mainstream KMT, thereby making it hard, if not impossible, to create sufficient support for more reform (Rigger 2007). A second round emerged, though, in a battle over the status of the National Assembly which had lost its major function of electing the President. In 1999, it passed an amendment that extended the term of its members which led to a great popular uproar and which was then declared unconstitutional by the Council of Grand Justices. The widespread opposition to the National Assembly's self aggrandizement led to a new amendment in 2000 that substantially downgraded its status as the DPP's long-standing ideological opposition to the body dovetailed well both with the KMT's desire to avoid an election that would benefit a new party founded by KMT defector James Soong and with the general popular revulsion against the National Assembly (Rigger 2007; Yeh 2002).
President Chen Shui-bian's presidential victory in 2000 was soon followed by a vicious confrontation with the KMT-controlled Legislative Yuan (Clark 2006). The public seemingly agreed with the DPP that the legislature had become overly obstructionist and bore the brunt of the blame for the polarized gridlock that was afflicting Taiwan. In addition, there was a widespread perception that the SNTV electoral system promoted political polarization and corruption in public affairs. Thus, the new push for constitutional reform during the first Chen administration focused on making what had become a chaotic government more effective and efficient. While the Kuomintang was far from enthusiastic about this third round, it did not feel that it could defy overwhelming popular support for reform. Consequently, a new set of amendments was passed in 2005 that cut the size of the Legislative Yuan in half, replaced the SNTV system with a combination of mostly single-member districts supplemented by some proportional representation of major parties (which ironically worked to the KMT's favor in the next elections in 2008), abolished the National Assembly, and made further constitutional change very difficult without broad-based support (Hsieh 2009; Rigger 2007).
The actual constitutional change produced by the third round focused on making Taiwan's government work better. President Chen and many others in the
91
DPP, though, had ambitions for more drastic reform in line with the DPP's ideological goal of creating a new Constitution. The DPP, thus, renewed a campaign for revising the Constitution that combined Chen's periodic proposals for creating a "Second Republic" with initiatives to make the structure of the government more effective. However, this fourth round was essentially abandoned in mid-2007 when the DPP switched its focus to supporting a referendum at the time of the 2008 elections on whether the nation should join the United Nations under the name Taiwan, while the Kuomintang showed little interest in major constitutional reform (Rigger 2007).
While not a major constitutional issue necessarily, the potential use of referenda in Taiwan politics also has some relevance for the question of how to make the political system work better. The Democratic Progressive Party had initially advocated a referendum for declaring Taiwan Independence in the early 1990s. Thus, the idea of adopting legislation to allow referenda and of holding referenda strongly appealed to the DPP "base." Referenda, of course, can be held on many issues that have nothing to do with Taiwan Independence and the island's status and sovereignty (e.g., a township referendum that was held on whether it should get a freeway exit). Indeed, when Chen Shui-bian began to push for a referendum law in 2003 with the goal of holding a referendum simultaneously with the 2004 presidential election, he took more than a little care to choose issues that did not involve a direct change in Taiwan's status or declaration of Independence (e.g., whether Taiwan should be granted membership in the World Health Organization or WHO which appealed to the presumably large majority of citizens who were frustrated and angered over the PRC's ability to deny Taiwan status and "face" in international affairs). As Shelley Rigger (2004, 186) argues, this certainly appears to have been politically motivated in terms of the upcoming election:
The theory is that referendums, especially symbolic ones like that on the WHO, will help the DPP politically by mobilizing the party base and perhaps even exciting patriotic emotions that will draw votes beyond the DPP's traditional supporters. Holding the referendum together with the presidential election would allow enthusiasm for the referendum to spill over into the presidential race.
Chen Shui-bian's advocacy of establishing referenda turned out to have two quite distinct and separate appeals. It certainly appealed to supporters of Taiwan Independence among the Pan-Green forces. It also had wide support among the
92
general public who rejected Independence as too radical and provocative, because referenda were seen as a way of surmounting the ongoing gridlock in Taiwan's politics and as deepening Taiwan's democracy by allowing the people to directly determine policy (Mattlin 2004; Rigger 2004). Consequently, the politics of the referendum issue during 2003-2004 turned out to be quite convoluted. The legislative enactment involved a three-sided struggle among Chen, more radical advocates of using the referendum to achieve Taiwan Independence, and the narrow KMT-led majority in the Legislative Yuan who initially opposed passing a referendum law but came to support the idea when its strong popular support became apparent. The final law set a high threshold for approval, support by 50% of all registered voters, which has greatly limited its effectiveness. For example, Chen was able to hold referenda simultaneously with the 2004 and 2008 elections, but they were defeated by boycotts of the referenda organized by the Kuomintang (Clark 2006; Gold 2009).
The 1947 Constitution of the Republic of China, to sum, created an unwieldy government whose institutional incoherence was covered up by the KMT's authoritarian rule. The shortcomings of the constitutional system became increasingly apparent as the democratic era progressed; and a series of constitutional reforms were enacted between 1991 and 2005 which sought to redress these problems. These reforms were certainly successful in some regards. The institutional basis for a democratic polity was constructed; several bodies of dubious effectiveness (e.g., the Provincial Government and the National Assembly) were eliminated; and, more recently, the SNTV election system was reformed. Still, the continuing gridlock and polarization in Taiwan demonstrate that the country's institutional imbroglio has yet to be satisfactorily resolved. These shortcomings are often attributed to the fact that the constitutional reforms have been incremental, piecemeal, ad hoc, and opportunistic, both by those who want a more effective government and by those who advocate a new constitutional order (Rigger 2007; Yeh 2002).
5 Explaining Taiwan's Polarization and Gridlock by Its Institutional Imbroglio
Taiwan's democratic era, welcome and successful as it has been in many regards, has been marked by growing political gridlock and polarization over the divisive
93
national identity issue and by the politicization of economic policy. To some extent, this represents a cost of success from democratization because the authoritarian Kuomintang party-state papered over a variety of problems in the country's political institutions. First, there was substantial institutional incoherence, in particular, with unclear and overlapping authority among the President, Premier, and Legislative Yuan. Second, a Constitution designed for a "tutelary democracy" in continental China had what seemed like superfluous institutions (e.g., the National Assembly and the Provincial Government) when applied to democratic Taiwan. Third, the SNTV election system was widely perceived to promote corruption and extremism. Finally, democratization brought a much greater politicization of economic and financial policy-making. Taiwan has adopted a series of constitutional amendments over the last two decades to address these problems. Their effectiveness has been limited, however, both because most have been piecemeal and/or opportunistic and because the nation suffers from a major rift over the legitimacy of the existing Constitution.
Figure 3: How two political institutional legacies proved dysfunctional during Taiwan's
democratization.
Figure 3 sketches the dynamics by which institutional legacies of the constitutional and electoral systems led to several untoward consequences. As indicated in the top part of the figure, the authoritarian tradition blurred governmental lines of authority and helped stimulate very personalistic politics.
94
These factors, in turn, had several deleterious consequences for policy-making, such as never-ending conflict and gridlock, burgeoning corruption, and the politicization of supposedly technical policy realms, such as financial regulation. For its part, as diagrammed in the bottom part of the figure, the election system of the "single nontransferable vote" (SNTV) contributed both to personalistic and patronage politics and to the election of extremist candidates who led the polarization of elite politics on the highly emotional issues of national identity and cross-Strait relations (Fell 2005; Lee 2005; Makeham and Hsiau 2005; Wachman 1994).
John Fuh-sheng Hsieh (2006) puts this into a broader and more theoretical perspective. He argues that constitutional systems can be ranked along a continuum from the liberal objective of protecting human rights to promoting efficient policy-making, with the checks-and-balances of a presidential system promoting the former and the unified decision-making of a parliamentary system conducive to the latter. Election systems, similarly, can promote the populist value of individual representation or efficient policy-making by majority parties with PR systems providing the former and SMD ones the latter. He then uses these distinctions to create a typology of four different kinds of democracies. He classifies Taiwan as a presidential system in practice (though fairly parliamentary in constitutional design) and quite populist, at least under the old SNTV system. This creates a "hyperdemocracy" which, according to Hsieh, is the least desirable type because of its tendency for political stalemate and ideological polarization, exactly the problems facing Taiwan today.
This might imply that the institutional imbroglio in the ROC is intractable. Yet, such problems should not obscure the substantial advancements that the nation has made politically. Taiwan is clearly a well functioning democracy. Elections are held regularly; and their results are accepted, albeit with a lack of good grace at times. Governmental transitions from one party to another are managed smoothly. Clearly, the country has had very significant democratic successes. Indeed, as described in the first section, democratic dynamics initially produced a de-escalation of polarization on the volatile national identity issue.
95
References
Barnett, A. Doak. 1963. China on the Eve of Communist Takeover. New York: Praeger.
Bedeski, Robert E. 1981. State-Building in Modern China: The Kuomintang in the Prewar Period. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California.
Bosco, Joseph. 1994. "Taiwan Factions: Guanxi, Patronage, and the State in Local
Politics." In The Other Taiwan, 1945 to the Present, edited by M.A. Rubinstein, 114— 144. Armonk, NY: M.E.
Cabestan, Jean-Pierre. 1998. "Taiwan's Mainland Policy: Normalization, Yes;
Reunification, Later." In Contemporary Taiwan, edited by David Shambaugh, 216239. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Chao, Chien-Min. 2002. "The Republic of China's Foreign Relations under Lee Teng-hui: A Balance Sheet." In Assessing Lee Teng-hui's Legacy in Taiwan's Politics: Democratic Consolidation and External Relations, edited by Bruce.J. Dickson and Chien-Min Chao, 177-203. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Chao, Linda and Ramon H. Myers. 1998. The First Chinese Democracy: Political Life in the Republic of China. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Cheng, Robert L. 1994. "Language Unification in Taiwan: Present and Future." In The Other Taiwan, 1945 to the Present, edited by Murray A. Rubinstein, 357-391. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Ch'ien, Tuan-Sheng. 1950. The Government and Politics of China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Chou, Bi-Ehr, Cal Clark, and Janet Clark. 1990. Women in Taiwan Politics: Overcoming Barriers to Women's Participation in a Modernizing Society. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Clark, Cal. 1989. Taiwan's Development: Implications for Contending Political Economy Paradigms. Westport, CT.: Greenwood.
Clark, Cal. 2002. "Democratization and the Evolving Nature of Parties, Issues, and
Constituencies in the ROC." In Taiwan's Modernization in Global Perspective, edited by Peter C.Y. Chow, 135-159. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Clark, Cal. 2006. "Taiwan Enters Troubled Waters: The Elective Presidencies of Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian." In Taiwan: A New History, edited by Murray Rubinstein, 496-535. Revised Ed. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Clough, Ralph N. 1978. Island China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Copper, John F. 1979. "Political Development in Taiwan." In China and the Taiwan Issue, edited by H.D. Chiu, 37-76. New York: Praeger.
Copper, John F. 2009. Taiwan: Nation-State or Province? 5th ed. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Fell, Dafydd. 2005. Party Politics in Taiwan: Party Change and the Democratic Evolution of Taiwan, 1991-2004. London: Routledge.
96
Gold, Thomas B. 1986. State and Society in the Taiwan Miracle. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Gold, Thomas B. 2009. "Taiwan in 2008: My Kingdom for a Horse." Asian Survey 49(1): 88-97.
Gurtov, Mel. 1968. "Taiwan: Looking to the Mainland." Asian Survey 8: 16-20.
Hickey, Dennis V. 2006. "Complicating the Complicated: The Role of Societal Actors in Taiwan's External Relations." Columbia, SC: Paper presented at the Conference on Taiwan Issues, University of South Carolina.
Hood, Steven J. 1997. The Kuomintang and the Democratization of Taiwan. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Hsiau, A-Chin. 2005. "Bentuhua: An Endeavor for Normalizing a Would-be NationState?" In Cultural, Ethnic, and Political Nationalism in Contemporary Taiwan Bentuhua, edited by John Makeham and A-Chin. Hsiau, 261-276. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hsieh, John F.S. 2006. "Institutional Design for a Mildly Divided Society." Issues & Studies 42(1): 81-102.
Hsieh, John F.S. 2009. "The Origins and Consequences of Electoral Reform in Taiwan." Issues & Studies 45(2): 1-22.
Jacobs, J. Bruce. 2005. "'Taiwanization' in Taiwan Politics." In Cultural, Ethnic, and Political Nationalism in Contemporary Taiwan: Bentuhua, edited by John Makeham and A-Chin Hsiau, 17-54. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lasater, Martin L. 2000. The Taiwan Conundrum in U.S. China Policy. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Lee, Wei-Chin. 2005. "Taiwan's Cultural Reconstruction Movement: Identity Politics and Collective Action since 2000." Issues & Studies 41(1): 1-51.
Lerman, Arthur J. 1978. Taiwan's Politics: The Provincial Assemblyman's World. Washington, DC: University Press of America.
Lin, Jih-Wen. 2002. "Transition through Transaction: Taiwan's Constitutional Reforms in the Lee Teng-hui Era." American Asian Review 20: 123-155.
Lynch, Daniel C. 2004. "Taiwan's Self-Conscious Nation-Building Project." Asian Survey 44: 513-533.
Makeham, John, and Hsiau, A-Chin, eds. 2005. Cultural, Ethnic, and Political
Nationalism in Contemporary Taiwan: Bentuhua. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
March, James G., and Olsen, Johan. 1989. Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics. New York: Free Press.
Mattlin, Mikael. 2004. "Referendum as a Form of Zaoshi: The Instrumental Domestic Political Functions of Taiwan's Referendum Ploy." Issues & Studies 40(2): 155-185.
Mendel, Douglas. 1970. The Politics of Formosan Nationalism. Berkeley: University of California Press.
97
North, Douglass C. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Phillips, Steve E. 2003. Between Assimilation and Independence: The Taiwanese
Encounter Nationalist Chinese Rule, 1945-1950. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Rigger, Shelley. 1999. Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy. London: Routledge.
Rigger, Shelley. 2001. From Opposition to Power: Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Rigger, Shelley. 2004. "Taiwan in 2003: Plenty of Clouds, Few Silver Linings." Asian Survey 44: 182-187.
Rigger, Shelley. 2005. "The Unfinished Business of Taiwan's Democratization." In
Dangerous Strait: The U.S.-China-Taiwan Crisis, edited by Nancy B. Tucker, 16-42. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rigger, Shelley. 2007. "The Politics of Constitutional Reform in Taiwan." Atlanta: Paper presented at the Conference on Taiwan's Democracy and Future: Economic and Political Challenges, Georgia State University.
Sutter, Robert G., and Johnson, William R., eds. 1994. Taiwan in World Affairs. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
Riker, William H. 1982. Liberalism Against Populism: A Confrontation between the
Theory of Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman.
Tai, Hung-Chao. 1970. "The Kuomintang and Modernization in Taiwan." In Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society: The Dynamics of Established One-Party Systems, edited by Samuel P. Huntington and Clement H. Moore, 406-436. New York: Basic Books.
Tan, Alexander C. 2001. "Taiwan: Sustained State Autonomy and a Step Back From Liberalization." In The Political Economy of International Financial Crises: Interest Groups, Ideologies, and Institutions, edited by Shale Horowitz and Uk Heo, 165-176. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Tan, Alexander C. 2008. "From State Entrepreneurs to Political Entrepreneurs: Democratization and the Politics of Financial Liberalization in Taiwan." In
Democratization in Taiwan: Challenges in Transformation, edited by Philip Paolino and James Meernik, 153-166. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Tien, Hung-Mao. 1989. The Great Transition: Political and Social Change in the Republic of China. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press.
Tien, Hung-Mao, ed. 1996. Taiwan's Electoral Politics and Democratic Transition: Riding the Third Wave. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Tu,Wei-Ming. 1998. "Cultural Identity and the Politics of Recognition in Contemporary Taiwan." In Contemporary Taiwan, edited by David Shambaugh, 71-96. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Wachman, Alan M. 1994. Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
98
Wang, Fu-Chang. 2005. "Why Bother About School Textbooks?: An Analysis of the Origin of the Disputes over Renshi Taiwan Textbooks in 1997." In Cultural, Ethnic, and Political Nationalism in Contemporary Taiwan: Bentuhua, edited by John Makeham and A-Chin Hsiau, 55-99. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wang, Teh-Yu. 2000. "One China, One Taiwan: An Analysis of the Democratic Progressive Party's China Policy." In Taiwan in Perspective, edited by Wei-Chin Lee, 159-182. Leiden: Brill.
Winckler, Edwin A. 1984. "Institutionalization and Participation on Taiwan: From Hard to Soft Authoritarianism?" China Quarterly 99: 481-499.
Wu, Jaushieh J. 1995. Taiwan's Democratization: Forces Behind the New Momentum. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Wu, Yu-Shan. 2011. "Strategic Triangle, Change of Guard, and Ma's New Course." In The
Changing Dynamics of Relations Among China, Taiwan, and the United States, edited by Cal Clark, 30-61. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Yeh, Jiunn-Rong. 2002. "Constitutional Reform and Democratization in Taiwan, 19452000." In Taiwan's Modernization in Global Perspective, edited by Peter C.Y. Chow, 47-77. Westport, CT: Praeger.
99
1QQ
UDK: 17:221.7(510) COPYRIGHT ©: JANA S. ROSKER
The Ideological Foundations of Taiwanese Modernity: Mou Zongsan's New Moral Philosophy
Jana S. ROSKER*
Abstract
In order to understand the social, political and intellectual process of Chinese modernization, it is necessary to evaluate their ideological foundations and to thus become able to place it in the suitable political context. Chinese philosophy of the first half of the 20th century was still determined by the conditions of the decline of the pre-modern era. The present article aims to explore and to introduce the rise and growth of Modern Confucianism, as well as some crucial philosophical elaborations in the field of the new moral philosophy, developed by the most well-known exponent of its so-called 2nd generation, Mou Zongsan.
Keywords: modern Confucianism, Mou Zongsan, new moral philosophy
Izvleček
Če hočemo razumeti družbeni, politični in idejni proces kitajske modernizacije, moramo med drugim tudi dodobra spoznati njihove ideološke temelje in jih postaviti v ustrezni politični kontekst. V prvi polovici 20. stoletja je bila kitajska filozofija še vedno v veliki meri opredeljena s pogoji zatona predmodernega obdobja. Pričujoči članek raziskuje in predstavlja vzpon in padec rasti sodobnega konfucijanstva ter nekatere osrednje filozofske nadgradnje na področju nove moralne filozofije, ki jih je izdelal najbolj znani predstavnik tako imenovane druge generacije tega gibanja, Mou Zongsan.
Ključne besede: sodobno konfucijanstvo, Mou Zongsan, nova moralna filozofija
* Jana S. Rosker, Full Professor of Sinology and head of the Department of Asian and African Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia. E-mail address: jana.rosker@guest.arnes.si
101
1 Chinese Thought between Tradition and Modernity: the Birth of new Era and new Philosophy
The principal aim of this article is the exploration and elucidation of the rise and growth of Modern Confucianism, as well as the introduction of some crucial philosophical elaborations in the field of the new moral philosophy by the most well-known exponent of its so-called 2nd generation, Mou Zongsan.
In order to understand the social, political and intellectual context of his work, we shall begin with a brief survey of the political and social conditions and the main philosophical currents that defined the development of modern Chinese thought during the beginning of the modernization era.
Chinese philosophy of the first half of the 20th Century was still determined by the conditions of the decline of the Chinese New Age. Almost all the theorists of this period were forced to deal with the ideas and contradictions imposed by the incomparably more advanced (technologically speaking) Western countries. While the radical "pro-Western intellectuals" (^Mffi^M) engaged in the iconoclastic repudiation of all traditional culture and sought to resolve China's crisis through the complete Westernization of Chinese society, the more "conservative intellectuals" (® ^ M) argued for a modernization of ancient, especially Confucian thought, which they believed provided the only possible spiritual basis for re-establishing an independent and sovereign Chinese state. However, ultimately the majority of the intelligentsia preferred to follow a middle course, focusing their efforts on a possible synthesis of both traditions. Based on their command of Western philosophy, they tried to reinterpret their own tradition through the most appropriate methods for integrating Western systems of thought into the framework of traditional Chinese discourses. During this period, which lasted approximately until the outbreak of WWII, Chinese philosophy was distinguished by two main currents:
1)	The first was characterised by a faith in progress and in the redemptive potential of reason and the natural sciences; in social terms it manifested itself in a wide range of liberal ideologies, while philosophically it tended towards the neo-realistic and pragmatic discourses of the more recent American philosophical schools.
2)	The second current was instead distinguished by a comprehensive attempt to revitalize traditional (particularly Confucian and Neo-Confucian) thought by
102
means of new influences borrowed or derived from Western systems. In this search for synthesis, the spirit of German idealism was especially important, while certain approaches of the Viennese circle also attracted a number of exponents of this current. During the first twenty-five years of the People's Republic this current, at least officially, was reduced to silence; however, their main concerns continued to be developed by Taiwanese theorists and, to a certain extent, also by those from Hong Kong. Over the last two decades, with the explosive economic liberalisation of the People's Republic of China, this current had been gradually rehabilitated and its tendency to revitalize traditional thought, generally known as "Modern Confucianism" (xin ruxue ^SP)1, still forms one of the mainstreams of contemporary Chinese theory.
2 The Confucian Revival
After representing the central state doctrine and ideological foundation of traditional Chinese society for two thousand years, beginning in the 19th century it became clear that Confucianism, at least in its orthodox traditional form, could no longer serve as an ideal basis for the further development of modern society. In the early 20th century, this criticism of Confucianism was best exemplified in the May 4th Movement, which had both a nationalist aspect in its opposition to Japanese and Western imperialism, as well as a function of internal reform in its sweeping criticism of the ossification and deleterious effects of traditional state doctrine. However, this period also planted the seeds of so-called Modern Confucianism2, which arose as a critical attempt to revitalise and modernize this fundamental ancient tradition of thought.
ii^M^M^M	ft Miftim, £ + Sift ®
1	There are several different denotations of this current; I shall only name the two most common ones: xiandai xin ruxue lift^SP (literal: Modern new Confucianism) and dangdai xin ruxue ^ft^S P (literal: Contemporary new Confucianism).
2	The term Xin ruxue ^SP has sometimes been translated literally as "The New Confucianism" or as "Contemporary Confucianism" by some Western authors. To avoid confusing it with the traditional "School of Principles" (li xue SP), generally denoted as Neo-Confucianism or New Confucianism in Western sources (including the present work), we shall omit the literal translation and apply the most frequently used term, Modern Confucianism.
103
The contemporary current of Modern Confucianism can be seen as a phenomenon which emerged during the last period of the May 4th Movement, which was striving for a cultural modernization. This current occupies an important position in the history of recent Chinese thought and still exercises considerable influence among the Chinese living abroad, as well as among those, living in Hong Kong and Taiwan. (Song 1991, 10)
This primarily philosophical re-creation of the Confucian system of thought thus bore its first fruits in Hong Kong and Taiwan, to which the defeated Nationalist government fled after 1949. While the Chinese philosophers who lived and worked in Taiwan or Hong Kong after this date dealt much less with the sinification of Marxism and its semantic connotations, they were also forced to confront the issues of modernization and capitalism much earlier than their colleagues in mainland China. We are thus dealing with a current that had a continuous development from the early 19th century onwards, and was interrupted only by the upheavals of WWII and later by the Chinese Civil War.
Most theorists focused their efforts on formulating the most appropriate, philosophically rooted criticisms of the autocratic ideologies and systems that prevailed in Taiwan during the first decades of the government in exile. In this regard, they were driven by the need to solve certain urgent problems of a practical nature in the spheres of politics, society, economy and culture. Thanks to the West's support of Hong Kong, due to its semi-colonial status, and Taiwan, because it was seen (especially by the Americans) as a democratic alternative to Chinese communism, both areas began to undergo an explosive process of Westernization as early as the 1950s. This rapid integration into the world of Modern capitalism was (in the ideological sense) accompanied by traditional Confucian ethics based upon a hierarchical system of obedience to authority, which had already proven itself in Japan to be quite compatible with the demands and the often intolerable social conditions of early capitalism.
In contrast to the People's Republic, where until the 1980s3 Confucianism was regarded as the ideology of a superseded feudalism (Song 1991, 11), a number of intellectuals living in these societies (both of which were determined by postcolonial discourses) began to oppose the increasingly dominant Westernization of
3 During the last two decades, in the PRC there has been an increasingly animated debate and a series of widening investigations into Modern Confucian philosophical approaches. An organisation named "The Research into the thought currents of contemporary Modern Confucianism" (xiandai xin rujia sichao yanjiu SftWiSSS^W^), which was founded in 1986 by two professors of philosophy, Fang Keli ^^^ and Li Jinquan	is playing a particularly important role in this process.
104
their countries, and started looking mainly to the framework of Confucian thought for alternatives to these developments.
3 The Declaration and the Second Generation of Modern Confucians
Modern Confucians viewed modernization mainly as a rationalization of the world. As a discourse in which the "signposts" for a rehabilitation of traditionalism were most clearly expressed, Modern Confucianism can be considered as originating with the famous Declaration for a Renewed Valuation of Chinese Culture as a World Heritage (Wei Zhongguo wenhua jingzao shijie renshi xuanyan ft®^ ffi^AA^W), which was published by a group of philosophers from Taiwan and Hong Kong, on January 1, 1958. The declaration included an anti-communist panegyric of Western-style democracy and affirmed the importance of patriotism while preserving traditional values. In defining the goals and contents of Modern Confucianism, it represented the basic manifesto of this current. The key under signers of the declaration were Carsun Chang (Zhang Junmai 1887-1969), Mou Zongsan ^^H (1909-1995), Tang Junyi	(1909-1978)
and Xu Fuguan ^MM (1903-1982), who are still widely regarded as the founders of "Contemporary Modern Confucianism" (dangdai xin ruxue
understood as a system which provided a more systematic reinterpretation of traditional Chinese philosophy based on a profounder and more integral command of the foundations of Western, especially Platonic, Kantian and Hegelian, thought (Bunnin 2002, 11).
In the declaration, the four authors expressed the ultimate goal of the new Confucian movement:
The human existence as formed by Establishing Man as the Ultimate is that of a moral being which, at the same time, attains a higher spiritual enlightenment. Hence, this human existence is simultaneously moral and religious. Such a person is, in politics, the genuine citizen of democracy; in epistemology, one who stands over and above the physical world. Not being bound by his/her concepts, his/her intellectual knowledge does not contradict his/her spiritual apprehension (Declaration, cf, Bresciani 2001, 54)
Actually, the authors and signers of the Declaration are most commonly viewed as the second generation of Modern Confucianists. The movement has been carried
105
by philosophers, who were functioning as the factual pioneers of the movement and are thus belonging to the so-called 1st generation of Modern Confucianism. They have been followed by the 2nd and even the 3rd generation, which consists of living and active philosophers, who mostly live in the USA (see the table bellow):
FIRST GENERATION				
Liang Shuming	Xiong Shili	Zhang Junmai	Feng Youlan	He Lin
mmm		rnmrn		MM
(1893-1988)	(1885-1968)	(1886-1969)	(1859-1990)	(1902-1992)
SECOND GENERATION				
Fang Dongmei	Tang Junyi	Xu Fuguan	Mou Zongsan	
		femm		
(1899-1977)	(1909-1978)	(1903-1982)	(1909-1995)	
THIRD GENERATION				
Cheng	Liu Shuxian	Du Weiming	Yu Yingshi	
Zhongying		ftmw		
	(1934)	(1940)	(1930)	
(1935)				
Table 1: Modern Confucianists. (Source: Bresciani 2001, 33-36)
Mou Zongsan, who will be introduced a bit more in detail in the following sections, is widely considered as the most important exponent of the second generation. With the exception of Fang Dongmei, all the other scholars were disciples of Xiong Shili, who is considered to be one of the most crucial pioneers of the Modern Confucian thought. Their investigations have been based mostly on the supposition that Confucian thought could be completely amalgamated with the system of capitalistic development. Many of its proponents also believed that a renewed form of this traditional Chinese system of social, political and moral thought could serve as a basis for endowing modern life with ethical meaning and as a spiritual salve for the alienation which appeared as an undesirable side-effect of capitalist competition and profit-seeking. (Wang 1996, 63) Their efforts to
106
revitalize and reconstruct traditional Confucian thought can therefore be seen as an attempt to counter the dominant ideological trends and preserve Chinese cultural identity, while also contributing to the development of philosophical and theoretical dialogue between China and the West.
4 The Ideal Foundations of the New World
In order to achieve these aims, these philosophers mostly focused upon ontological problems which had been introduced by Western systems of thought, in the belief that questions related to the ultimate reality of the cosmos, the substance of being and the Absolute determined the meaning of life and were crucial to the establishment of a new system of values, compatible with current social conditions and the preservation of an integral cultural and personal identity. They thus looked to ontology as the philosophical discipline that would provide clear solutions to the problems they faced, beginning with that of Western modernization, and with the conviction that only through a genuine and clear comprehension of the cosmic substance would a modern man be able to find his spiritual home again. The crucial task, therefore, was to find the "proper" orientation, i.e. new, clearly marked signposts which pointed the way towards modern culture, while also providing basic criteria for solving practical problems in the sphere of politics and the economy. Without such a framework of orientations, society would slip into a generalized spiritual malaise, in which the actions of individuals would be determined by the purely mechanistic laws of technocratic utility. In this case, the comprehension of Western thought for the purposes of finding spiritual guidelines for the modernization in course would necessarily remain fragmentary, incoherent and superficial, and would therefore not only be incapable of enriching the Chinese spiritual world, but would actually accelerate the processes of spiritual disorder and alienation.
The focus upon ontological questions can thus be seen as a specific reaction of traditional Chinese philosophy to modernization.
Most of the modern Chinese philosophers from the P.R. China were following the presumption, according to which Indian and Western philosophy both speak of the noumenon as something more real (than the phenomenon) and think that the phenomenon is delusion while the noumenon is reality. This conception of reality has never emerged in Confucianism or any other classical Chinese philosophical
107
discourse. Chinese philosophers recognized the distinction between the root and things. It rests not with the distinction between reality and delusion, but with the distinction between root and branches, between headstream and offshoots. Ordinary things are all real, and it is not the case that only the root is real. Hence, traditional Chinese philosophers did not hold any theory that treats the noumenon as the only reality (Cheng 2002, 240).
According to Modern Confucian interpretations, however, classical Confucianism saw "Heaven" or "Nature" (tian A) as the ultimate noumenon, which was transcendental and represented the elementary entity, creating and changing everything that exists. The Modern Confucian Heaven was also immanent; it presented human beings with "nature" (xing tt), essentially determined by the elementary Confucian virtue of "humanity" (ren f). However, in their interpretations of traditional systems, the Modern Confucians went a step further: in their discourses, human nature became that potential which not only formed the moral or spiritual Self, but simultaneously also transcended the individual's empirical and physiological characteristics. By acting in accordance with humanity, man could experience the unification with "Heaven/Nature" (tian ren heyi AA^—), and thus comprehend the genuine meaning and value of his existence.
It has been the Confucian orthodoxy that moral ideas, cosmological insights, and ontological claims cannot be separated. It is an atypical Confucian belief that how a person should be is inherently related to how the world really is, and that only a person living according to what the world really is can be a good person (Yu 2002, 144)
In contrast to the prevailing modern Western philosophy, they maintained that original reality can be comprehended. Most of them followed the presumption that we cannot regard truth as something outside of our mind, waiting for us to explore, but that we must study ontology through understanding the human nature. Through such an introspective view, human beings could realize that original reality is in each of us, and that they cannot seek to know it in external things through reasoning. Thus, they should turn inward and let original reality present itself. In this way, the Modern Confucianists synthesized several main doctrines of Confucianism and integrated them into a coherent system in order to show that the cultivation of virtue has an ontological and cosmological foundation.
108
On a more general level, at the turn of the new millennium, the modern Confucian movement underwent a rapid and radical transformation, a change in method, in metaphysical outlook, and in the plans for its practical realization in the spheres of society and interhuman relationships (Bresciani 2001, 31).
5 Mou Zongsan: His Life and His Work
In the present section, we shall provide a brief introduction to the theoretical system of Mou Zongsan ^^H (1909-1995), the most famous Taiwanese philosopher of the latter half of the 20th century and generally regarded as the chief exponent and spiritual father of this new current. He was one of the first and best known advocates for the revitalization of traditional Chinese (especially Confucian) thought in modern times. He was born in Shandong lU^ province and studied at Peking University (Beijing daxue ft^A?) where he was, as already mentioned, one of the three "most gifted students" (Tang 2002, 327) of the founder of Modern Confucianism, Xiong Shili Mi^.
Mou reached the highest level of intellectual achievement. He was widely read and had a deep understanding of both Chinese and Western philosophy. His extensive learning provided a unique vantage point from which to compare Chinese and Western thought. His new Confucianism not only established a complete system of Chinese philosophy, but also provided the basis for the critical assessment of Western philosophy. (Tang 2002, 327-328)
Xiong's other two "most gifted students", Tang Junyi	(1909-1978) and
Xu Fuguan ^MM (1903-1982) are also considered to be founders of the Second generation of Modern Confucianism.
While being still a student, Mou published his first important work, entitled Researches into the School of Mystery and Chinese Moral Philosophy in the Light of the Book of Changes (Cong ZhouYi fangmianyamjiu Zhongguo zhi xuanxue yu dao zhexue	This study represents an
attempt to analyze traditional Chinese thought of the period of the Six Dynasties (222-589) from the perspective of Western categorical premises and concepts. As a consequence of his intensifying focus on traditional Chinese philosophy, Mou would change his methodological approaches later on, while in his more mature investigations he tried to proceed from specific traditional
109
Chinese methodologies, which he epitomized in his work: Special Features of Chinese Philosophy (Zhongguo zhexuede tezhi
Although their professor, Xiong Shili, decided to remain in Peking after the establishment of the PRC in 1949, all three of his students escaped to Hong Kong and Taiwan where they lived under the patronage of the exiled guomin dang government. In the first phase of his academic work, Mou dealt mainly with logic and the theory of knowledge, and published the results of his inquiries in The Models of Logic (Luoji dianfan S^^R) and A Critique of Comprehensive Mind (Renshi xinde pipan iS^^Utb^lJ). In these works, one can clearly sense the impact of Whitehead's and Wittgenstein's philosophy, though of Western philosophers it was Immanuel Kant who most influenced Mou Zongsan's intellectual development. In spite of his admiration of Kant, Mou developed his own thought through the criticism of Kantian claims. His philosophy of moral metaphysics focused on human beings as moral subjects who, unlike Kantian selves, took part in infinite mind with a world-creating capacity for intellectual intuition. (Bunnin 2002, 13)
During the 1950's, he focused increasingly upon classical Chinese philosophy, studying not only Confucianism, but also Daoist and especially Buddhist philosophy, with particular attention to their epistemological approaches. He elaborated these studies of traditional Chinese thought during his tenure at the Chinese University in Hong Kong (Xianggang Zhongwen daxue where he taught until the mid-70s. The books Mind and Nature (Xinti yu xingti ^ Talent and Rationality of Mystery (Caixing yu xuanli ^tt^^ffl) and Buddha's Nature and Prayna (Fuoxing yu banruo tttt^®^) are among his most important works from this period. In the mid-1970s he published his most important epistemological work, in which he examined the quality and functions of human perceptive potential according to his understanding of the Chinese epistemological tradition. This work, entitled Mental Intuition and Chinese Philosophy (Zhide zhijue yu Zhongguo zhexue ^l^^^^H^^), together with his work On Summum Bonum (Yuanshan lun H®^), which appeared ten years later and summarized his moral metaphysics, contains the basic framework of Mou's own philosophical system. At the end of the 1970s he also resumed his reinterpretation and revision of Kant's philosophy under the title Phenomena and
110
Asian and African Studies XV, 2 (2011), pp. 101-122 things as such (Phenomena and noumenon) (Xianxiang yu wu zishen	§
From his retirement in 1974 until his death twenty-one years later, Mou Zongsan remained an extraordinarily active philosopher and a very productive writer, researcher and teacher.
The period of Mou Zongsan's intellectual maturity began at the age of 60, and resulted in important theoretical syntheses. During this period, he devoted most of his attention to questions of Chinese and Western philosophy, being especially interested in a fusion of Confucian and Kantian thought. Thus, in the process of accepting and modifying Kant's philosophy, he managed to reconstruct Confucian moral metaphysics. (Wang 1996, 57)
Today, Mou Zongsan is still highly regarded by both Chinese and Western scholars, and as one of the founders and main representatives of Modern Confucianism is considered to be one of the most important Chinese philosophers of the 20th century.
6 Mou's Crucial Sources
Over the course of his intellectual and academic development, Mou focused increasingly upon the ancient Chinese tradition. Based on his solid command of Western discourses and an intercultural understanding of Kantian philosophy, he reinterpreted and updated a number of central concepts of Daoist, Confucian and Buddhist philosophy, of which he considered the latter to be one of the highest achievements in the history of thought. He saw Buddhism as a "very contentful and complicated" doctrine. He held that Buddhist philosophy was "the most illuminating and has opened up the newest states of reason and involved the most levels".
Mou believed that Daoism was also an important current of ancient Chinese thought, although he mainly saw it as a kind of bridge towards a better understanding of Buddhist philosophy. In traditional Chinese thought, however, his preference went to Confucianism, particularly the Neo-Confucian system of
111
the Song (A 960-1279) and Ming (BJ 1386-1644) dynasties. Of the three main doctrines, Mou considered Confucianism to be the mainstream of Chinese philosophy because the structure of its thought originated in China and because it was primarily concerned with moral consciousness. (Tang 2002, 330)
The emphasis on ethical problems, which was typical of Modern Confucianism, was also present throughout all of Mou Zongsan's work. Mou pointed out, however, that moral philosophy was not the only priority of ancient Chinese thought. In his view, all three central philosophical discourses of the Chinese classics belong to vertical systems (Mou 1983, 103), and each dealt with metaphysics in its own way. Here, too, he saw Confucianism as the current which had contributed most to the formation of related, specific Chinese discourses. He explicitly rejected the claim that Confucianism is concerned only with morality and has nothing to do with existence. According to Mou, Confucian morality implies a moral metaphysics, that is, a metaphysics based on morality. (Mou 1983, 330-331)
Contrary to current views of Confucianism as authoritarian, Mou argued convincingly that moral autonomy was implicit in Confucian philosophy. But even Kant was inadequate in this regard. Limited by his Christian background, Kant could treat free will only as a postulate of practical reason, the other two postulates being the immortality of the soul and the existence of God. He could therefore only establish a metaphysics of morals, at best a moral theology, but never a moral metaphysics. Mou felt that Chinese tradition went further than Kant in this respect. (Liu 2003, 484)
7 Elaborations and Develpoments of Traditional Confucianism
In his view, the Confucian comprehension of being arose mainly from the concept of Heaven/Nature (A):
MMm^TO^M««? MM "A" Mm^.
Which concept can lead us to break through existence? It is the concept of "Nature". (Mou 1970, 75)
According to Mou, the basic feature of the Confucian worldview was its focus on positive aspects of human life, and the fact that it proceeded from the concept of the subject. He doubtless saw this positive approach in the repeated Confucian
112
negation of mystical and rationally incomprehensible aspects of life, which also explained why all of Confucian metaphysics was imbued with the problem of morality. In this discourse, ethics and ethical implications transcended the world of strictly mechanistically structured pragmatics. The search for possible ways to endow existence with ethical meaning, which in Western philosophies was most often seen as belonging to the domain of religious studies, remained very much a problem for the rationality of metaphysics in the context of Confucian thought. From a Western perspective, this somehow shifted the boundary between the philosophical and religious ethics that were specifically expressed in Confucian and Neo-Confucian discourses of subjectivity and social nature, something which is also reflected in Mou Zongsan's philosophy:
To many Western philosophers, Mou's system seems to be a religious faith rather than a philosophy [...]. Although Mou specifically denied that he was a theologian, he was conscious of the religious aspects of Confucianism, and argued for their acceptance. Nevertheless, Mou believed that Confucian thought qualified as a philosophical doctrine. (Tang 2002, 340)
The second specific feature of Confucianism, which was likewise based upon subjectivity, was also closely connected to morality and ethics.
The Confucians took their departure mainly from the subject. The object was established by assimilation through the subject. The transmission of the subject assimilates the object and returns into the subject. Even when Confucians talked about metaphysics, they therefore referred to a metaphysics based upon morality. (Mou 1971, 79)
The central Confucian virtue of "humanity" (ft) thus also belonged to the sphere of subjectivity.
A concept which represents entirety within Confucianism is the concept of humanity, as explained by Confucius. Humanity represents the subject. It also represents the mind. (Mou 1971, 79)
But this does not refer to the subjectivity of a subject in the common sense, but concerns his concept of objective subjectivity (Mou 1971, 79) in the sense of a
113
social (political) being. This objective subjectivity, which he thus identified with the traditional concept ren, Mou denoted by the term "the real subjectivity" (zhenshide zhutixing	(Mou 1971, 80):
This real subjectivity is not to be equated with the subjective subjectivity we generally talk about. This is an objective subjectivity of all people, of sages as well as of ourselves (common people).4 (Mou 1971, 80)
8 Daoist and Buddhist Approaches
His investigations into Daoist philosophy were especially important for his redefinition of the concept of "absence" (fa), which in both China and the West has been generally and acritically equated with the Western idea of nothingness and non-existence:
MW^WtâW» 'fa' ¿^MMfMft«, -TOM
(practical),
Absence is not of an ontological nature; but once the wisdom concerning it is complete, it can also imply ontology. But this is not an ontology of the Western type; it is an ontology which has been defined by practise, and which can therefore be called "practical ontology". (Mou 1971, 93)
According to Mou, "nothingness" is not an ontological concept, but a practical concept which ultimately means letting things be. Mou concurred that letting things take their own course through a mental state of "emptiness and with no attachment" was great wisdom. Thus, Daoist metaphysics is based on a practical concept of "nothingness". In this sense, Daoism has a "practical ontology" or "practical metaphysics." (Tang 2002, 331) Analogously, the Daoist concept you (W) can in no way be equated with being or existence, since it expresses a mental orientation:
4 This refers to the famous statement by Mencius:	MM&fc, MSM^AM®^, MA
("All things that belong to the same kind are similar. Why do we start doubting this when it comes to men? The saint and I are of the same kind"). (Mengzi 2011. XI, Gaozi shang, 151)

114
"Being" is not taking something to put into empty "nothingness"; it is the directing of mental states. And with "nothingness" and "being", we can understand "dao". (Tang 2002, 331)
In his Buddhist studies, Mou mainly concentrated on the notion of "empty mind" (kongxin ^fr). This is a cognitive construct of a transcendental mind without any possessiveness, attachments or obsessions. Mou found corresponding ideas in Daoist (the "way of mind" dioxin ^fr) and Confucian ("original mind" benxin ^ discourses. For him, these three notions represent different forms or different names for the "infinite (or limitless) mind" (wuxiande zhixin	(Mou
1971, 237) While this pure, original and boundless mind is an innate attribute, possessed by all people, he believed that most people were, unfortunately, unable to preserve it. Those who succeeded in doing so were becoming "sages" (shengren MA) or Buddhas. Reaching this stage was very desirable, for the enlightened not only possessed many mental privileges and advantages, such as wisdom, cheerfulness, mental (and often also physical) invulnerability or insensitivity to pain, but were also equipped with a perfect, or infallible apparatus for perception, the so-called "mentally direct perception" or "mental intuition" (zhide zhijue fiX), which not only comprehended appearances, but also recognized and understood both things in themselves and substance. Mental intuition was, therefore, not only an instrument for understanding the world and our position in it, but also a divine quality that created both. Hence, according to Mou, the quintessence of Chinese philosophy is in its metaphysics. These metaphysics views human beings as moral subjects who have the capacity for intellectual intuition5 that creates the world. (Mou 1971, 332)
The above mentioned problems, regarding the direct perception, are important not only in respect to epistemology, but also in the methodological sense.
The endeavours for a reconstruction of Chinese philosophy have always been connected to the research in philosophic methodology. Mou Zongsan's theory
5 Mou's term zhide zhijue	is generally translated in English with the phrase "intellectual
intuition". This translation is inadequate, however, for with this term Mou wished to express a kind of "direct perception" (zhijue fiX), which is not limited only to the cognitive (or intellectual) aspects of comprehension, but also includes emotions, feelings, sensations, experiences, inclinations, interests, memories and, above all, the potential for moral and ethical valuation.

115
of mental intuition is doubtless representing a wilful expression of such endeavours. (Gong 2002, 42)
9 Mou and Kant: the Crossroads to New Understandings
Like most other Taiwanese and Hong Kong philosophers, Mou Zongsan also tried to find a framework for the revitalisation of traditional Chinese theories in Western methodologies and by applying Western categorical structures. In this regard, he followed Kantian theoretical approaches, which he found to be culturally closer to his own tradition than any other European discourse. Mou saw Kant's philosophy as the only philosophy that can engage in dialogue with Chinese philosophy. (Tang 2002, 332)
While Mou accepted Kant's ontological division of the world (in the Critique of the Pure Reason) into the spheres of appearances (phenomena) and of substance (noumenon), he differed from the German philosopher regarding human perceptive potential. Kant argued that human beings could only comprehend appearances because the senses were too limited to also comprehend things as such; these were identical with substance and comprehensible only through pure reason and thus solely by God.
Based on the assumption that morality was the basic quality of human beings, Mou accepted Kant's concept of the categorical imperative, but replaced the category of free will, which had served Kant as the basis for acting in accordance with this imperative, with the category of infinite mind. For him, free will as the source of the categorical imperative must be only a cause, and not an effect. It can limit other principles, but cannot be limited by them. (Tang 2002, 333)
Infinite mind, which can be found under various names6 in most traditional Chinese philosophical discourses, according to Mou is the transcendental foundation of moral behaviour and is itself absolutely and infinitely universal. Thus, for human beings to be moral beings, in the Kantian sense, means they
6 Among these we can mention the Buddhist terms "empty mind" (kong xin S'h) or "Buddha's mind" (fo xin tt'fr), the Daoist "Way of mind" (dao xin	as well as the Confucian notion
"original mind" (ben xin and the Neo-Confucian concept of "innate knowledge" (liang zhi H to), etc.
116
cannot issue unlimited imperatives, and the categorical imperative as the basis of morality is impossible. (Tang 2002, 333)
Mou went a step further by presupposing that human infinite mind possessed divine qualities, or, in still more radical terms, human infinite mind had to be necessarily equal to the divine mind, given that the simultaneous existence of two different, infinite and absolute substances was not possible. Kant had ascribed the ability to recognize things as such (noumenon) to God and to the divine mind, while human comprehension was limited only to the recognition of appearances (phenomena). Mou denoted this general human comprehension with the term "direct sensual perception" or "sensual intuition" (ganchu zhijue However, because unlike Kant he acknowledged no boundary between divine and human mind, he concluded that human mind also had to imply a potential of direct mental perception or "mental intuition" (zhide zhijue ^lS®)7.
Mou Zongsan argued, that men as rational beings do possess mental intuition. But that is not all: besides, mental intuition, according to him, was also a basis of any metaphysical questions. If we would neglect mental intuition, than the entire Chinese philosophy would not be possible at all and the same also held true for the entire moral philosophy, as explained by Kant—in that case it would also be regarded only as idle talk. (Gong 2002, 42)
10 Direct Mental Perception or Mental Intuition
Although mental intuition is not a kind of sensual perception, it is also not only a cognitive comprehension. Thus, mental intuition is not a discursive one (Mou 1971, 191) and can therefore not be based upon concepts. Its function, however, is not only a perceptive, but also creative one.
7 Originally, Mou actually applied the term zhijue S®, which is generally translated with the somewhat misleading expression "intuition", as a translation of Kant's notion Anschauung (Gong 2002, 43). But in Mou's philosophy, this expression only refers to epistemology in a narrow sense (i.e. as a "theory of perception"). To express this idea in Chinese, it would be more correct to use the word zhiguan SM (lit.: "direct observation"), since the term zhijue S® (lit.: "direct perception") mainly refers to comprehension in a broader sense, or to an epistemology which also implies ethics, art, religion etc. (Gong 2002, 43)
117

J®
Mental intuition as such can transmit objects to us. Its activities as such can realize existence, for intuitive perception of objects is at the same time their realisation; that is the creativity of mental intuition. (Mou 1971, 191)
Mental intuition could not, therefore, be completely equated with rational comprehension; despite similarities, this form of direct perception differed in various respects from theoretical rationality, and also from Kant's concept of practical reason. While Mou's "mentality" (or "intellect") (zhi W )is "moral reason" (daode lixing ISStt), it differs from Kant's principle of moral reason, which was determined by pure form. According to Kant, this formalized principle was both the driving force and the duty of moral subjects. This principle thus manifests itself as an external force which is not identical with the Self, but functions as a kind of moral pressure. According to Mou, however, the greater this pressure, the less the possibility of genuine moral action:
mm^immmm^m "Mtm- i^m M^mw^MM
Mou Zongsan's criticism of Kant was focused precisely upon autonomous morality. Mou believed that the real foundations and motivations of autonomous morality were qualities inherent to the subject, such as inclinations, interests, feeling etc. These qualities had the ability to integrate the transcendental formal principle, which manifested itself in duties, i.e. in the need to do something. Therefore, he could unify them with the concrete existence of the subject. This unification caused the fulfilment of the moral principle and removed the mutual contradiction between this principle and the subject. This power, which was originally separate and different from the Self, thus became ones own, innate need. (Gong 2002, 44)
The moral and values system also provided Mou with the means for defining the existence of mental intuition. In this respect, he was following Kant's assumption that the world of appearances (phenomena) could be revealed to us through direct sensory perception (or intuition), while the world (i.e. the world of concrete actuality, in which we live) could be managed and controlled by us through "knowledge" (zhixing	and "reason" (lixing Stt). But the world of values,
118
which Mou identified with the substance of being, and which also represented the foundation of knowledge, reason and the world of appearances as such, could not be revealed to us through sensory perception. But because concrete actuality could not exist without values, and human beings could not live and act within that reality without knowledge and reason, we must also possess a method for recognizing the essence of values and substance as such.
HM, MftfMBM^ATP^MWm
mm
mE^MMm^mmmim
s.
According to Mou Zongsan, Western discourses, with Kant in the lead, could not solve this problem, because their basic paradigms already defined the answer they would ultimately arrive at. Because they originated in pure epistemology, and applied it as a criterion for treating values, the problem of values as such had lost all meaning or significance for them. If we truly want to solve this problem, we must follow moral assumptions; if we want to master the existence of values, we must first acknowledge the existence of mental intuition. (Gong 2002, 44)
11 Is Ultimate Happines Possible? An Experimantal Conclusion
In his work On the summum bonum (Yuan shan lun H®^), Mou also departs from Kant's moral philosophy, in which the entities of happiness and goodness (summum bonum; yuan shan H®) were not possible in our imperfect concrete world and could only be incorporated in the perfect world of God. In this context, Mou stressed the value and contribution of philosophical pragmatism, which determined traditional Chinese, especially Confucian thought. This thought focused upon the concrete world of human actualities, the here and now, in which there was no need to escape into other, supernatural worlds. And while Chinese philosophy was likewise incapable of solving Kant's problem of the summum bonum, Mou showed the equivocal way in which this problem was posed by Western, especially Kantian philosophy.
The Chinese know only too well that in real life, happiness and the good rarely go together. But the Chinese do not need to look to an otherworldly kingdom of God. No matter what happens in our lives and no matter how
119
imperfect the earthly world is, we can always find fulfillment in this world... Consequently, we can always find fulfillment in non-fulfillment; the summum bonum is realized here and now; and there is no need to look for a kingdom of God in the other world. (Liu 2003, 485)
Critics of Mou's theory reproached him with placing an exaggerated emphasis upon the moral aspects of ancient Chinese thought and philosophy in general.
«M«, ... MWMMSPW^M XWMM (i^), mm
immsmmtifm?
"Mental intuition" was by no means a cornerstone of Chinese philosophy. Although traditions emphasizing intuition did exist in Chinese philosophy, [...] they were usually expressed either in religious (as for instance in Chan Buddhism) or in epistemological (for example in Zhu Xi) terms; hence, how could they be summarized by any concept of moral intuition? (Gong 2002, 46)
A similar concept of mental intuition would also logically and necessarily be connected to reasoning. According to this critical assumption, the existence of the concept of mental intuition had necessarily to be defined as a structural part of human cognition:
Mou Zongsan sees mental intuition as being in contradiction to any kind of cognitive activity and thus ultimately wades into mysticism. The assumption that it represents a cornerstone of Chinese philosophy is undoubtedly his own subjective surmise. (Gong 2002, 46)
Because Mou used basic epistemological categories of Western thought in his attempt to resolve the philosophical problem of recognizing substance through the concept of mental intuition, which doubtlessly belongs to the traditional concepts of ancient Chinese philosophy, his philosophy could be defined as an attempt to synthesize Western (particularly Kantian) and traditional Chinese thought. However, the concept of mental intuition appears (although under different names) throughout the history of Chinese thought as part of tradition which necessarily manifested itself in the perspective of a holistic comprehension of reality. In this context, any division of reality into the spheres of appearances and substance was seen as an artificial one, because both spheres were equally subject to direct perception. Thus, despite his originality, Mou's philosophy could be defined as an
120
intercultural hybrid which is incapable of being coherently developed in either tradition. Despite this limitation, Mou Zongsan is still regarded as one of the most influential Chinese thinkers of the modern era by most Western sinologists and contemporary Chinese scholars alike.
References
Bresciani, Umberto. 2001. Reinventing Confucianism: The New Confucian Movement. Taibei: Ricci Institute for Chinese Studies.
Bunnin, Nicholas. 2002. "Introduction." In Contemporary Chinese Philosophy, edited by Cheng Zhongying /Chung-ying/, and Nicholas Bunnin, 1-15. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Cheng, Lian. 2002. "Zhang Dainian: Creative Synthesis and Chinese Philosophy." In Contemporary Chinese Philosophy, edited by Cheng Zhongying /Chung-ying/, and Nicholas Bunnin, 235-246. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Gong, Huanan ÜÄ. 2002. "Zhide zhijue heyi keneng."	("How is a
Direct Mental Perception Possible?")Xue hai 2: 42-47.
Liu. Shu-hsien. 2003. "Mou Zongsan (Mou Tsung-san)." In Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy, edited by Antonio S. Cua, 480-485. New York: Routledge.
Mengzi ^^ (Mojster Meng, Mencius). 2011. V: Chinese Text Project. Pre-Qin and Han. Accessed Septembre 2, 2011. http://chinese.dsturgeon.net/text.pl?node=3925&if=en.
Mou, Zongsan	1941. Luoji dianfan Äf^Äffi (Logical Paradigms). Hong Kong:
Shangwu yinshu guan.
Mou, Zongsan	1963. Caixingyu xuanli.	(Inborn Qualities and
Metaphysical Reason.) Taibei: Xuesheng shuju.
Mou, Zongsan	1970. Xinti yu Xingti.	(The Substance of Mind and the
Substance of Inborn Qualities.) Taibei: Zhengzhong shuju.
Mou, Zongsan. 1971. Zhide zhijue yu Zhongguo zhexue. ^ÖMS^^HW^
(Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy.) Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshu guan.
Mou, Zongsan	1975. Xianxiangyu wu zishen.	M (Phenomena and
Noumenon.) Taibei: Xuesheng shuju.
Mou, Zongsan	1983. Zhongguo zhexue shijiu jiang. ^HW^AAbS (Nineteen
Lectures on Chinese) Taibei: Xuesheng shuju.
Mou, Zongsan	1985. Yuanshan lun. H^^ (On Summum Bonum.) Taibei:
Xuesheng shuju.
121
Mou, Zongsan ^^H. 1989. Wushi zishu.	(Autobiography at Fifty) Tabei:
Penghu chuban she.
Song, Zhiming	1991. "Xiandai xin ruxue yanjiu miyao."
("Aberrations and Significance of the Research in Modern Confucianism.") Zhexue dongtai 2: 10-12. Beijing.
Tang, Refeng. 2002. "Mou Zongsan on Intellectual Intuition." In Contemporary Chinese Philosophy, edited by Cheng Zhongying /Chung-ying/, and Nicholas Bunnin, 327-347. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Wang, Yuechuan	1996. "Mou Zongsande shengming yu xueshuzhi si." ^^H®
(Mou Zongsan's Life and His Theoretical Thought.") Zhonghua wenhua luntan 3: 56-58.
Yu, Jiyuan. 2002. "Xiong Shili's Metaphysics of Virtue." In Contemporary Chinese
Philosophy, edited by Cheng Zhongying /Chung-ying/, and Nicholas Bunnin, 127-147. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
122