Chinese National Identity under Reconstruction

Chinese national identity is both indigenous and reconstructive. The ancient concept of the Middle Kingdom has been enriched continuously. From 1949 to 1979, Chinese people in the mainland were educated to liberate the “miserable” people of Taiwan and bring the island back to its motherland. From 1979 onward, Taiwan’s developmental experience and increasing cross-strait civic exchanges have expanded mainlanders’ imagination of modernization and understanding of national identity. Facing a growing Taiwanese identity, regardless of power turnover between different parties on the island, reconstruction of Chinese national identity requires economic modernization and integration, mutual cultural exchange and assimilation, and reinterpretation of contemporary Chinese history on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. It also calls for improvement of public governance and political engineering in the mainland.