V. C. GOLOVACHEV

Candidate of Historical Sciences

The first global crisis of the XXI century dispelled the last illusions about the imminent arrival of an era of global material prosperity. Until recently, the ridiculed ideas of spiritual " marginals "are taking over the world, and yesterday's" pillars "and" idols " of man-made Olympus were on the verge of spiritual bankruptcy, often being in a state of shock, confusion or apathy.

Old shoes are flying at the world's fate-makers. Major multinational companies are shutting down factories around the world and openly admitting to the failure of their models and forecasts of development. Life's seemingly unshakable values are being devalued. The whole world is looking for ways of salvation, for which it is forced to recognize the inadequacy of the usual self-perception and the need to reevaluate its global identity, which was often relegated to total Westernization before.

Taiwan, unlike most countries, has been living in this state of transition for more than a century, also faces the challenge of changing its identity. The deep crisis of global identity gives the island a chance to make a breakthrough and, finally, really accelerate the long-delayed formation of a new "Taiwanese identity".

The main factors of this process are the trends of Decitaization (going beyond the traditional Chinese identity), Taiwanization (the revival of "aboriginal" Austronesian* or "island" identity) and globalization (unification or denunciation of all forms of native identity) of social ideology in Taiwan. But in the current form, all these factors work against each other and are not able to give the final result.

The process of modern Decitaization was preceded by the 230-year-old Sinization of the 17th and 19th centuries, the Japanization of 1895-1945, and the Sinization of Taiwan after 1945.

The Chinaization of Chiang Kai-shek (1945-1975) included the forced de-Japonization and "Recitaization" of Taiwanese. Regardless of the ethnic and cultural roots and self-perception of citizens, the authorities imposed a single Chinese identity, based on the fact that Taiwan is an unconditional part of China, and Taiwanese are unconditional Chinese. It was not until the early 1980s that President Jiang Ching-kuo corrected the monoidentity attitude, recognizing that he and all the inhabitants of the island are both Chinese and Taiwanese, since their fate is inextricably linked with the island. However, the "Taiwanese identity" served as a subordinate sub-ethnic (local) form of Chinese identity, and the official attitude towards the dominance of Chinese identity remained until the mid-1990s.

The 1996 Taiwan presidential election of the Republic of China (i.e., Taiwan), Lee Deng-hui, was described by official propaganda as "the first direct national democratic presidential election in the entire 5,000 years of China's history." And President and then-Kuomintang leader Li Deng-hui himself proclaimed in the mid-1990s the extremely symbolic slogan: "Let's turn Taiwan into a new Middle Plain!", hinting that Taiwan could become the" true " new incarnation of traditional China. But it was Lee who initiated decitaization, saying in a 1994 interview with a Japanese magazine: "Up to this day, all those who ruled Taiwan have belonged to foreign regimes."¹.The second half of the 1990s was marked by an increase in decitaization, which reached its peak after 2000, when President Chen Shui-bian came to power.

The birth date of the "Taiwanese identity" was 1895, when China, after its defeat in the Sino-Japanese War, signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, under which Taiwan was" forever " ceded to Japanese rule.

But the island's inhabitants, abandoned by the Chinese emperor, tried to fight back against Japan and proclaimed the "republic of Taiwan", the first republic in Asia. 50 years of Japanese rule (1895-1945) significantly alienated the Taiwanese from the Chinese mainland. At the same time, the violent Japanization and war of Japan with China (1937-1945) caused a backlash, provoking the preservation and growth of the Chinese identity of the island's inhabitants.

However, the new national policy of the Kuomintang after 1945 quickly dispelled the illusions of ethnic kinship, and the mass repression of Taiwanese in 1947 (the February 28 incident) became the second significant "birthday" of their identity.

The growing Taiwanization process since the late 1970s led to the creation of the first opposition political party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), in 1986. In 2000, the pro-independence DPP became the ruling party and found a unique opportunity to form a new "Taiwanese identity".

For 8 years, from 2000 to 2008, the Taiwanese authorities, represented by President Chen Shui-bian and the DPP, pursued a policy of active Decitaization and Taiwanization of the island's public life. These efforts, as two sides of the coin, were

* The Austronesian (Austronesian) language family includes the Malayo-Polynesian languages and the indigenous languages of Taiwan. There is a hypothesis about the ethnocultural community of native speakers of these languages and even Japanese, although Japanese is most often referred to as the Altai language family. ed.).

It is an attempt to reorganize existing ethnic and social groups in Taiwan by adjusting their collective consciousness. Namely, by moving the latter beyond the traditional sinocentrism, focusing on the uniqueness of Taiwan and the revival of local cultures, expanding the Austronesian component of these cultures and, as a result, creating a new supralocal community by bringing non-Chinese ethnic identity to the level of national identity (a new "Taiwanese identity").

But these attempts did not bear the desired fruit, as the DPP was not able to offer the people a real consolidating ideology (national idea). The emphasis on Austronesian roots could not be the basis for social cohesion, if only because Aborigines make up only 2% of the island's population. And the forced decitaization only deepened the split, causing alarm and protest of" born outside " Chinese (immigrants and their descendants after 1949), who are firmly connected with China and its culture. Their discontent, coupled with the collapse of the expectations of" native " Taiwanese, who are increasingly moving closer to mainland China2, was one of the main reasons for the failure of the DPP during the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2008.

The result of the extremes of Decitaization and Taiwanization (and this is also a symptom of the DPP's negative mental dependence on China) was an increase in internal division, global isolation and marginalization of the island.

The Kuomintang Party's return to power in 2008 led to the expected rise of a new, increasingly visible wave of "Recitaization" of Taiwan. In the first year of its rule, the new government revoked a number of symbolic acts of the DPP, reopening the mausoleums of Presidents Chiang Kai-shek and Jiang Ching-go to the public, as well as returning the guard and the former name to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial in Taipei.

President Ma Ying-jeou and his administration no longer use the word "Taiwan" on the international stage and have returned the word "China" to the names of large state-owned companies. So, the state postal administration "Taiwan Post" returned to the former name "China Post", and the postage stamps returned, instead of the word "Taiwan", the inscription "Republic of China"removed from the DPP.

However, unlike the times of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the current "Requitaization" is not forced and today rather compensates for the imbalance from the excesses of Taiwanization over the past 8 years. In its moderate form, while many Taiwanese people are growing anxious about another rapprochement with the PRC, it also cannot yet play the role of a new (perhaps old) unifying national idea. In this situation, Taiwan seems to be left with only a third real path: assimilating a supranational, globalist perspective of the world. But this path is not viable: it is fraught with the loss of its national roots.

As a result, for more than a century, Taiwan has been in a state of uncertain present, "transitional" or "split" identity, and the question of the essence of the new "Taiwanese identity" remains open and still gets bogged down in a tangle of old political and ethno-cultural contradictions.

Taiwan can no longer live as someone else's identity, but it can't have its own identity yet, at least not in the foreseeable future. This borderline condition has created a special "identity trauma"for Taiwanese people³. The feeling of inferiority from not belonging to a monoculture, the fear of new annexation, assimilation, repetition of past humiliations in the present and future, the acute rejection of discrimination, totalitarianism and the spirit of colonialism-all this gave rise to a special "colonial idiosyncrasy" among Taiwanese, a complex of infringed marginality and self-perception, in the apt words of a local writer Wu Zholyu, " an orphan Asia". Obviously, the formation of a new identity is unthinkable without removing the "orphan complex", devoid of ancestral roots, offended by other people's "adult uncles" and fatally dependent on them. Taiwan needs a way out of this spiritual dependence on external forces or "spiritual decolonization" that will allow it to change the role of an "unhappy marginal" (orphan and epigone) to a "happy marginal" (beloved offspring), i.e. a free and full-fledged carrier of different cultures.

Relations between Taipei and Beijing are currently in an extremely delicate state. The resumption of peaceful dialogue offers a real chance to end 60 years of hostility, and the loss of this chance is unacceptable for supporters of future unification. But the" split identity " of Taiwanese prevents both sides from reliably calculating the medium - and long-term consequences of concrete steps towards rapprochement.

Obviously, a way out of this impasse is impossible within the framework of traditional forms of social identity. It can only be opened by moving to a higher, qualitatively new level, which encourages the synthesis and consolidation of cultural roots, and is also free from the former obstacles of the political-ideological or racial-ethnic order.

Taiwan's uniqueness and advantage lies precisely in its far-reaching transitivity, which allows it to play the role of a new spiritual core at the intersection of different policies, cultures and civilizations.

Politically, Taiwan is the only fully established democracy in East Asia that is free of imperial ambitions, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and one-party rule. Culturally, it is a prominent representative of the Austronesian world and, at the same time, a bearer of the best Chinese traditions, which allows the island to become a mediator in the dialogue of "Greater China" and other regional cultures. For example, in the complicated history of the dialogue between China and Korea and Japan.

And advanced education, science, technology, and deep Westernization help Taiwan make its unique contribution to the reinterpretation and synthesis of both a new "Taiwanese identity" and a renewed global identity.

¹ The full text of Lee's conversation with renowned journalist Retaro Shiba was published in Asahi Weekly, May 6-13, 1994.

² About 1 million Taiwanese live and work in the PRC. 290 thousand Taiwanese are officially married to Chinese citizens, and every year the Taiwanese authorities register about 30 thousand such marriages, the children of which have a mixed identity.

^{Malyavin V. V.} 3 Uroki Taiwanskoi demokratiki [3 Lessons of Taiwanese Democracy]. Otechestvennye zapiski. Log for slow reading. 2007, N 7 (69) - http://www.strana-oz.ru/?numid=40&article=1585

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