The Frankensteinian distortion of culture in Taiwan

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Imagine this: You are an ethnic Han person living in China's Taiwan region. One day, you wake up, log onto the island's executive body's official website, and find yourself marked as "others" in the demographic categories.

Yes, in an island where the population is composed of 2.6 percent indigenous residents, 1.2 percent immigrants, and 96.2 percent of the Han ethnicity, you've become "others."

Confused? Bewildered? Or perhaps a bit enraged by being labeled "others"?

This is not a fictional scenario, but something that the residents in Taiwan found themselves in earlier in the year. In May, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities quietly changed the description of the Han ethnicity on their official website to "others," drawing rage from the people. One social media user wrote, "We are the others now, and soon we will be the spares."

This may seem like a minor nuisance made by the political bureaucracy. But for those steeped in the political world, this "minor" change is part of a bigger cultural warfare, waged by the successive DPP authorities, on the Chinese heritage in order to peel the Taiwan region from China and become what they've dreamed of for years – an independent country.

Lai Ching-te, the current leader of the region, had pushed through policies to investigate Taiwan residents holding mainland identity documents, setting up systems to scrutinize cross-Straits exchanges in culture and education. Arts and artists have been put under the microscope, examined for things that could be deemed as "pro-mainland."

The war isn't just about eradication. It's also about setting up a "new" identity. In 2023, the DPP launched the "Black Tide" initiative, endowing it with an NT$10 billion budget over four years from 2024, supporting cultural and artistic projects that incorporate both "international appeal" and "elements of Taiwan." The infamous "Zero Day Attack" TV drama, which depicts the Chinese mainland's "invasion" of Taiwan, benefited from the initiative.

Neither history nor even ecology escapes that foul touch. Lai once insinuated that Taiwan is "independent" because it has had "its own independent ecological system since ancient times." And when it comes to history, he cherry-picked facts as the world commemorated the 80th anniversary of the war against fascism and constructed a false narrative of "Taiwanese defending their own country of Taiwan" and reframed Taiwan's contribution to the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression as disconnected from the broader Chinese national struggle.

There is no doubt that culture and politics have the ability to shape each other. DPP's strategy is simple. Through brute force, it is attempting to create a cultural environment where residents in Taiwan would take "independence" as a given, a semi-truth unchallenged by the elements they encounter in their daily lives, thus paving the way for politicians to push for actual "independence" through political means. It is about creating an environment where the populace could be herded into a false sense of security and unity, becoming the cannon fodder in the politicians' struggle for power.

It is a twisted environment. Truths are cherry-picked, facts are reframed in a different light, and the line between right and wrong is blurred.

This is dangerous. Weaponizing culture risks unleashing forces that no one could control. "De-sinicization" takes away the foundation upon which the society in the region is built. If that's gone, if heritage is lost, the region's future will be nothing but void. And that would benefit no one, not the people, not even the politicians themselves.

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