Taiwan Today

The recent expansion in ties between Taiwan and mainland China is having an increasing influence on their respective cultural communities. This is evidenced by the growing links between creative groups on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and the introduction of new government units to promote artistic exchanges. When the Cabinet-level Council for Cultural Affairs was re-organized as the Ministry of Culture (MOC) in May 2012 as part of the Republic of China’s (ROC) government restructuring program, it led to the creation of a new department with the objective of boosting cross-strait cultural connections. While the MOC’s Department of Cultural Exchanges is tasked with promoting interactions with the international community, developing cultural ties with mainland China is one of its primary missions. The ROC government hopes to promote peace and understanding between people on both sides by drawing and building upon Taiwan and the mainland’s shared Chinese cultural heritage.

According to Andy Sun (孫安迪), former president of the Taipei-based nongovernmental Strait Academic and Cultural Exchange Association (SACEA), cross-strait interactions are having a positive impact on the ROC’s national development. “Since the opening of cross-strait communications and transportation links, the two sides have been working to address disagreements and increase mutual understanding,” says Sun, who is a lecturer in the School of Dentistry at National Taiwan University (NTU) and a dentist and immunologist at NTU Hospital. Sun and other members of an NTU professors’ association were among the first academics in Taiwan to develop ties with their mainland Chinese counterparts after the ROC government relaxed restrictions on travel to the mainland in the late 1980s. They established the SACEA in 1993 to promote cooperation, information exchanges and visits between individuals and groups in the academic and cultural sectors on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

The SACEA also helps arrange forums in the mainland that bring together Taiwanese and mainland Chinese academics. For instance, the group, which has been cooperating with the Beijing-based China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) since the late 1990s, co-organizes the annual Cross-strait Popular Science Forum, during which participants discuss methods for explaining scientific advances to mainstream audiences. This year’s forum, which was held in Nanjing in September, was co-organized by CAST’s branches in Jiangsu and Fujian provinces.

Cross-strait transportation links have expanded rapidly since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office in May 2008. As a result, direct academic and cultural exchanges such as those organized by SACEA have increased significantly in recent years. Statistics from the Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) show that the number of mainland Chinese traveling to Taiwan for cultural and educational visits rose from about 21,600 in 2007 to more than 87,000 last year. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s artistic presence has also been growing in mainland China. For instance, in February and March last year, celebrated modern dance group Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan embarked on a tour of major mainland Chinese cities such as Beijing, Chongqing, Guangzhou and Shanghai.

The dance troupe’s current popularity in the mainland is in part due to ROC government efforts to promote cultural exchanges. Cloud Gate’s 2009 tour of mainland China with its show Cursive, which features dance performances intended to evoke a flowing style of traditional Chinese calligraphy, was sponsored by the MOC as part of a cross-strait cultural promotion program initiated that year.

In 2013, the ministry’s Department of Cultural Exchanges subsidized 95 performances by 11 groups that were staged in mainland Chinese cities including Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai and Tianjin as well as Hong Kong. In recent years, the initiative has introduced many renowned Taiwanese performing arts companies to audiences in mainland China, including the Ming Hwa Yuan Arts and Cultural Group, which performs Taiwanese opera; the Ju Percussion Group; the Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra; the Paper Windmill Theatre, which presents children’s plays; and Performance Workshop Theatre.

Fresh Perspectives

Performance Workshop Theatre’s play The Village, which toured six major cities in the mainland in 2010, illustrates how artistic works can improve cross-strait understanding. The production depicts everyday life in one of the villages that sprang up around Taiwan to house military personnel and their dependents who came to the island in the late 1940s with the Nationalist government. As it is set against the backdrop of major events in Taiwan such as the 1987 lifting of martial law and the relaxation of the ban on travel to mainland China, the play offers a concise history of the cross-strait relationship from the Taiwanese perspective.

Cultural exchanges that enhance mutual understanding are now occurring on a daily basis in a variety of fields. However, just a handful of groups were involved in such efforts in the first few years following the loosening of restrictions on visits to mainland China. One of the first organizations to build cross-strait cultural links was the Taipei-based Chinese Writers’ and Artists’ Association (CWAA), which was established in 1950. “During the initial stage of cross-strait exchanges in the early 1990s, we were the major source of contact with artists and writers in mainland China,” recalls poet and CWAA president Wang Chi-lung (王吉隆), who writes under the pen name Lu Ti (綠蒂), referring to his group’s collaboration with the MAC immediately after the government agency was formed in 1991. For example, novelist Guan Moye (管謨業), who uses the pen name Mo Yan (莫言), visited Taiwan at the invitation of the CWAA around a decade before winning the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Since the 1990s, Wang and other members of the CWAA have been invited to visit the mainland to attend the national congress held every five years by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles (CFLAC). The federation, whose last congress took place in November 2011 at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, consists of mainland Chinese associations in areas such as calligraphy, dance, film, fine art, music and theater.

The CWAA has also formed a close partnership with the China Writers Association (CWA). In January this year, for example, Wang attended a forum on his poetry that was organized by the CWA and held at the National Museum of Modern Chinese Literature in Beijing. “There is great talent in Taiwan in the field of modern poetry,” he says. “Mainland Chinese authors, on the other hand, are typically better at producing full-length novels, which is in part due to the enormous size of the mainland’s publishing market.”

Wang notes that while mainland China’s economic rise is leading to huge growth in its creative and cultural sector, Taiwan retains an advantage due to its free and open political and social environment. This view is echoed by Kuo Meng-yung (郭孟雍), an associate professor in the Department of Music at Chinese Culture University in Taipei City. “Taiwan is home to greater artistic and cultural diversity,” he says.

Kuo is the head of the Taiwan Strait Music Association, which cooperates with the Chinese Musicians Association, one of the CFLAC’s subordinate organizations. The two music associations, together with local governments in Taiwan and mainland China, co-organize the Cross-strait Choral Festival, an annual event that features contests and performances. The festival was launched in 2008 in the mainland Chinese coastal city of Fuzhou, and has since been held alternately in that city and a location in Taiwan. In 2009, central Taiwan’s Taichung City hosted the second festival, while the 2011 and 2013 editions of the event took place in the northern city of Hsinchu. Pingtung County in southern Taiwan has expressed interest in hosting the festival in 2015.

The choral event has grown considerably since its inaugural edition. According to Kuo, the number of mainland Chinese participants visiting Taiwan for the festival increased from approximately 280 in 2009 to around 680 in 2013. “Choral associations from the two sides have much to learn from each other,” he says. “For example, while mainland groups tend to have superior vocal abilities, Taiwanese choral societies often employ more creative and diverse performance styles.”

Kuo notes that the seven years of exchanges have helped choral groups from both sides learn about different musical traditions and, in so doing, expand their repertoires. For the 2015 festival, organizers plan to invite participating groups to sing songs concerning the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), Kuo notes.

In the early days of cross-strait exchanges, different historical interpretations concerning the war against Japan were a major source of disagreement between scholars in Taiwan and the mainland. “Now both sides have developed a sense of mutual understanding that allows them to discuss this matter rationally,” Sun says. Similarly, CWAA president Wang believes that growing artistic exchanges, which are typically based on the shared Chinese cultural heritage in Taiwan and mainland China, are helping the two sides build trust, emphasize similarities and improve relations. “Time can help resolve all disagreements,” the poet notes.

Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw