Taiwan Today

When the Dutch landed on Taiwan in the early 17th century, they established a foothold in the area now called Tainan, in southern Taiwan. Later, Koxinga made Tainan his capital after expelling the Dutch. During the Qing Dynasty, Tainan continued to be the most important economic and administrative center in Taiwan. However, toward the end of Qing rule in Taiwan, in 1885, Taiwan's status was upgraded from prefecture to province and, by 1894, just one year before the Qing ceded Taiwan to the Japanese, the provincial capital was ensconced in the northern city of Taipei.

The northern migration of the island's seat of power reflected the steadily increasing economic importance of northern Taiwan. Today, many southern Taiwanese feel their interests have been largely ignored by authorities in the more populous and prosperous north. Tainan Mayor Hsu Tain-tsai says the year Taiwan attained provincial status marked a turning point in Taiwan's history, triggering a shift of its center of political, economic and cultural activities from Tainan to Taipei. Hsu asks, "Taipei or Tainan--which one really stands for Taiwan?" This question, which few northern Taiwanese have ever contemplated, is considered often in southern Taiwan.

Taipei's Consolidation

The Japanese administration built Taipei up as the jewel of its budding colonial empire. Urban planners tore down the city walls built during the Qing period and can be credited with mapping out most of the city's current layout. The grand office of the Japanese governor-general, now the Presidential Office, was built in Taipei as a symbol of the new colonial power. The governor-general's dwelling next door, now called the Taipei Guest House, was designed to receive dignitaries from Japan and abroad and to serve as a venue for major ceremonies. This baroque structure, which underwent a major restoration completed in April last year, is widely seen as the most beautiful colonial-era building in Taiwan.

In 1949, when the Kuomintang (KMT) government lost the Chinese Civil War to communist forces, it based its government-in-exile in Taipei and referred to Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China (ROC), retaining Nanjing as the official, virtual capital. The KMT, or ROC, government continued to represent China at the United Nations for the next two decades. In 1971, the People's Republic of China was allowed to represent China at the United Nations, taking over the permanent seat hitherto occupied by the ROC on the United Nations Security Council. The KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek's leadership refused to accept a reduced role in the world body. To Taiwanese who embrace local-oriented cultural and historical views like Kuo Feng-yuan, a professor in the Department of Information Management at National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU) in Kaohsiung, Taiwan remained under colonial rule after the KMT took control of Taiwan after the 1945 Japanese withdrawal.

Settlement managed through colonialism contrasts with previous, more natural settlement efforts by immigrants from southeastern parts of China. The first wave of Chinese immigration was concentrated in areas near the administrative center in Tainan. While this occurred during the Dutch colonial period, the migration is not seen as a colonial action since immigrants were responding to a demand for labor instead of being directed to make the dangerous cross-strait passage by colonial masters. "Those immigrants, mostly male, soon found local spouses, adopted customs from plains-dwelling aborigines--such as their religious practices--and quickly identified with their new homeland," Kuo says. "The resultant southern communities are quite rooted in the soil."

An Alienated North

In contrast, immigration to northern Taiwan tended to leave local people with fewer things to identify with in their own environment. During a recent seminar on Taiwanese identity jointly held by the Government Information Office and the Tainan City government, Mayor Hsu said that Taiwan's history has seen various political authorities distort Taiwanese people's self-image and inhibit their true inclinations.

Kuo, a member and former vice director of the Southern Society, a group of pro-independence poets, writers and scholars based in southern Taiwan, says that while southern Taiwanese tend to identify with their environment, northern Taiwanese tend to be alienated from Taiwan--and even from the capital itself. "Taipei is a strange city where you can feel a distinct longing for sophisticated cities like New York or Paris but where the face of Taipei itself is indistinct," Kuo says. "It's an odd place where you can find many views expressed on American or European issues, but few authentic perspectives on Taipei itself." At the same time, if a stance about Taiwan emerges from Taipei, it tends to be seen by southern Taiwanese as divorced from context and therefore is not easily understood or accepted in the south. Liao Da-chi, a professor at NSYSU's Institute of Political Science, identifies with Kuo's perception that Taipei is somehow foreign. Liao says when her babysitter's son left home to study at a Taipei university, the family was as excited and worried as if the boy were crossing an international border. "That impression is really there," Liao says of the notion that Taipei is un-Taiwanese. "It's quite amazing."

The Jhuoshuei Line

In recent years, the psychological distance between southerners and northerners has produced a sharp division in voting trends in northern and southern Taiwan. The Jhuoshuei River, which runs between Changhua and Yunlin counties in central Taiwan, is the celebrated dividing line between voters who support KMT and other opposition party candidates who favor closer ties with China, and those who support Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and other pro-independence parties. Currently, all elected leaders of counties or cities south of the Jhuoshuei--with the exception Chiayi City--represent the DPP, the leading party in the "green" bloc. All local governments north of the Jhuoshuei are headed up by KMT representatives, who along with other parties that identify more closely with China, are color-coded "blue."

Referring to the polarized electoral map of Taiwan, Liao says, "Even the most competent election campaigners can do little to change this color distribution for the time being." At the same time, Liao stresses that she believes the perception of a wide north-south gap is more constructed than real, despite some obvious disparities between the north and south.

Power Transition

President Chen Shui-bian, who led the DPP to election victory in 2000, marking the first transition of power in Taiwan since the KMT arrived 55 years earlier, is seen as a paradigm of southern Taiwanese tenacity. The son of a poor tenant farmer in a rural township of Tainan County, Chen studied hard and graduated from Taiwan's most prestigious law school at National Taiwan University before eventually embarking on a political career.

For southern Taiwanese who are often mocked by northern residents as backward, Chen's victory at the helm of a party that was founded a mere 14 years earlier, is a repudiation of north-centric stereotypes. Chen's win in 2000 came largely thanks to a split in the blue vote that allowed him to gain a plurality of national ballots, winning by a margin of 2.5 percentage points over then independent candidate James Soong. While the split vote certainly was central to Chen's victory, Kuo points to Chen's typical "southernness" as a factor contributing to his popularity. "Many Taiwanese people sense in the rise of Chen something that echoes their own life and work experiences," Kuo says, "such as similar family backgrounds and similar self-reliance for hard-won success."

President Chen was re-elected by an even narrower margin of 0.22 percent over KMT challenger Lien Chan in 2004, but the margins were much wider in cities and counties south of the Jhuoshuei River, ranging from 11 percent in Kaohsiung City to 30 percent in Tainan County. "The KMT, which has long neglected the needs of the southern regions, deserved the defeat," says Liao. NSYSU was established in 1980 as one of the few universities in southern Taiwan during the martial law period. "Social, political and economic studies were not encouraged by the KMT government in the potentially rebellious south," Liao adds.

Ethnic Divisions

Regional differences in voting preference have been reinforced by historical tensions between ethnic Taiwanese, or Holo, and Hakka groups. People who identify themselves as Hakka are concentrated in the northern counties of Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli. Residents of these areas have to date voted overwhelmingly in favor of the KMT and against the Holo-dominated DPP.

When pro-democracy, liberalization and localization movements were mobilized against the KMT's authoritarian rule in the 1970s and 1980s, support was especially pronounced in the south. Much of the south's momentum for change was fueled by resentment against the KMT government's resource allocation policy, which was seen to strongly favor the north to the detriment of the south.

Over the past decade, dissatisfaction with the KMT administration's decades-long emphasis on commercial and high-tech industrial development in northern Taiwan at the expense of the agricultural sector and labor-intensive industry in the south has been reinforced by the emergence of China as a source of low-cost manufacturing labor. When the KMT seeks to build stronger business links and a closer economic relationship with China, people in southern Taiwan feel the impact keenly in the form of mounting unemployment as local manufacturers pull up stakes to set up plants in China.

In contrast, northern areas can still attract significant investment thanks to a more developed business infrastructure. Their stronger knowledge-intensive business sector has proven more resistant to the lure of lower labor costs than labor-intensive industries concentrated in the south. Although the KMT has been replaced by the DPP in government, reaction against the KMT's China-oriented economic policies continues to affect voting patterns. In agricultural Yunlin County, the KMT candidate in the magistrate election garnered 17 percent fewer votes in 2005 than the KMT candidate in 2001. The DPP candidate saw a corresponding increase of 15 percent and won the election.

Gaining Confidence

Liao points out that while it might be true that southerners feel looked down upon and have a stronger sense of local identity, it is also true that politicians and pundits often play up this kind of sentiment. "Because of the China factor, ethnic tension and unbalanced allocation of national resources will not be solved anytime soon," she says. "There is always room for manipulation."

Hsu Tain-tsair says the cultural divide between north and south is a natural consequence of Taiwan's unbalanced levels of regional development over time. "The distinction is not that substantial," the mayor says. "From the standpoint of national identity, it just means that there isn't a collective identity accepted by all Taiwanese. The Taiwanese people have yet to agree upon what country they want to build." Still, he believes that southern Taiwan can take the lead in building a subtle, confident Taiwanese identity by absorbing, among other things, significant elements of Chinese culture.

Some thinkers and politicians see a need to restore a balance between north and south. The Executive Yuan has proposed moving some ministries and government agencies southward. There has also been some discussion in the government of relocating the capital to Taichung or further south. Critics say it is unnatural that Taipei should be Taiwan's exclusive political, economic and media center. Kuo Feng-yuan says media concentration in the capital is noteworthy. "It is rare elsewhere in the world to find all major media company headquarters in a single city as is the case in Taipei," he says. "Reporters based in southern regions find it difficult to get their voices heard as editors prioritize views that originate in Taipei." The professor says the homogenizing social and cultural forces representing Taipei have penetrated blue and green camps alike and it has become even more apparent since the DPP assumed power in 2000. It would be impossible to present a holistic portrayal of Taiwan without significant reference to southern Taiwanese cultural, political and even economic factors. The political party--whether it's blue, green or some other color--that has a better grasp of and greater connection to the area south of the Jhuoshuei River stands a good chance of prevailing in Taiwan elections.

Write to Pat Gao at pat@mail.gio.gov.tw