The national identity of the Taiwanese, who have experienced the colonial rule by both the Japanese and the Chinese Nationalists, is a complicated topic. Both alien ruling powers indoctrinated Taiwanese with either a Japanese identity or a Chinese identity. The Japanese employed Dōka (assimilation) to integrate the Taiwanese into the Japanese Empire, and the Chinese claimed the Taiwanese as the descendants of both the "Yan Emperors and Yellow Emperor" of the Chinese nation. Since democratization and Taiwanization under Lee Teng-hui's presidency, the Taiwanese can express dissent as well as their Taiwan identity; since democratization, Taiwan identity grows steadily in contemporary Taiwan.Since the late 1890s, the media, serving as an ideological apparatus, has been one of the major battle fields for constructing or debating national identities in Taiwan. Both the Japanese and the Chinese colonial rulers utilized the media in efforts to shape Japanese and Chinese identities for the Taiwanese. Taiwanese elites used the media during Japanese rule to push alternative identities in opposition to Japanese identity. Some opposition to Chinese Nationalist's martial law also utilized the media during that period to reveal a Taiwanese consciousness. After democratization, Taiwan identity media, including underground radio stations and the Internet, rose to occupy a remarkable market share competing with China identity media. Meanwhile, media ownership became the main factor that determined the media's national identity-whether it be China identity or Taiwan identity. However, the rise of China's economy, the close Cross-Strait economic relationship and the media owners' close relationships with China have grown to influence the national identity favored by some media outlets.For over a century of Taiwan's history, the media have exerted influence on the shape of the people's national identity through the representation of some societal elements such as language, kinship, religion, culture, myth, and democracy. Both the Japanese and the Chinese pushed a "national language" policy in the media to make the Taiwanese people a part of the Japanese Empire or the Chinese nation. The Japanese official media pushed Dōka onto the Taiwanese people while many Taiwanese elites expressed alternative national identity against Dōka in some newspapers. The Chinese Nationalist party-owned, state-owned, and military-owned media as well as its patron-client media propagated Chinese nationalism by using kinship, religion, culture and myth to represent a fundamental association of the Taiwanese people with the Chinese nation. By contrast, some opposition in their concern for Taiwan tried to connect "democracy" to a Taiwanese consciousness. After democratization, the media demonstrated diverse formulations of national identity. The China identity media repeated the same arguments used during the martial law period to construct a China identity. The Taiwan identity framed a Taiwan identity through such things as kinship (Austronesian descent) and language. The Taiwan identity media further employed the notion of "democracy" to make Taiwan identity distinct from China identity. The thesis concludes that the media have served as an agent for the construction of three broad conceptions of national identity-Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese identity-over the last century of Taiwan's history.

National identity has been an ongoing political issue in Taiwan since the late-1890s. The Construction of National Identity in Taiwan’s Media, 1896-2012 breaks new ground with the most comprehensive analysis of the development of Taiwan’s media and the construction of national identity in Taiwan’s media. Using a variety of media contents including newspapers, opposition magazines, broadcasting radio, news TV stations and the Internet as well as numerous interviews with journalists, senior media staffs and academics, Dr Hsu provides many original insights into the formation of national identity in Taiwan's media. Taiwan's media began to demonstrate a variety of new identities under democratization. Part of this change responded to market conditions as a majority of Taiwan's population stressed their Taiwan identity.

The product of five years of North American Taiwan Studies Conferences, this book carefully analyzes the emergence of national feelings in Taiwan, its historical roots and its contemporary manifestations. It addresses questions central to the looming international issue of Taiwan/China. Part one considers the historical events that help to explain the emergence and development of a separatist, dissident discourse. The second part deals with the current issue of national identity transition in Taiwan. The final part places the national identity debate in a broader perspective by focusing on the larger issues of the maturation of the national identity question.

Mainly focusing on the transition in national identity experienced during the last years of Lee Teng-hui's tenure as President of Taiwan, ten essays, presented by Corcuff (Asian politics and Chinese language, U. de la Rochelle, France) explore how residents of Taiwan have begun to differentiate themselves from China in the past two decades. After exploring some of the historical roots of national identity, essays explore the symbolic representations of nationhood, the political constraints imposed by Chinese policy, the effect of political ideologies, and the relationship of national identity with processes of democratization. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Taiwan: Manipulation of Ideology and Struggle for Identity chronicles the turbulent relationship between Taiwan and China. This collection of essays aims to provide a critical analysis of the discourses surrounding the identity of Taiwan, its relationship with China, and global debates about Taiwan’s situation. Each chapter explores a unique aspect of Taiwan’s situation, fundamentally exploring how identity is framed in not only Taiwanese ideology, but in relation to the rest of the world. Focusing on how language is a means to maintaining a discourse of control, Taiwan: Manipulation of Ideology and Struggle for Identity delves into how Taiwan is determining its own sense of identity and language in the 21st century. This book targets researchers and students in discourse analysis, Taiwan studies, Chinese studies, and other subjects in social sciences and political science, as well as intellectuals in the public sphere all over the globe who are interested in the Taiwan issue.

This study examines the problems which will inevitably arise as a result of China's claims on Taiwan, and analyses Taiwan's 'post-nationalist' identity.

Taiwan has become a democracy despite the inability of its political elite to agree on the national identity of the state. This is a study of the history of democratisation in the light of the national identity problem, based on interviews with leading figures in the KMT and opposition parties.