‘Taiwan identity’ Chinese

According to a recent poll conducted by Taiwan’s CommonWealth magazine, young people’s sense of a “Taiwan identity” has hit a new low over the past five years, with more identifying as Chinese. Such a poll does not necessarily represent the full picture of the whole of Taiwan, but it is enough to lay bare the sheer lie the Democratic Progressive Party has been trying to peddle that there is an inborn “Taiwan independence” propensity among Taiwan people, young people in particular.

During Lee Teng-hui’s tenure as leader on the island from 1988 to 2000, some people on the island did have a sense of a “Taiwan identity” as a result of Lee’s educational and cultural campaign aimed at promoting such an identity. Such a momentum has been furthered since the independence-minded DPP came to power under Tsai Ing-wen, as it has sought to spark hostility toward the mainland in an attempt to divorce the island from China and cultivate among local people a “Taiwan awareness”.

However, the ever-growing dissatisfaction among Taiwan people with the leadership of the DPP has exposed the lie of its separatist ambitions.

The same poll indicated that 71.6 percent of those surveyed were more pessimistic than optimistic about Taiwan’s economic prospects and 59.2 percent said they were pessimistic about the island’s future.

Facing the island’s stubborn economic woes, more and more young people in Taiwan have shifted their attention to the mainland and increasingly shown support for the 1992 Consensus that there is only one China. More and more people on the island have been explicitly expressing their opposition to “Taiwan independence”.

All Taiwan residents are Chinese; that is an unalterable fact. Any attempt to create a different identity for people on the island will fail.