General Taiwanese view on China?

Question

What is the general attitude of the Taiwanese towards the PRC? I know that most Taiwanese' ethnicity is Han Chinese. Do most Taiwanese consider themselves Chinese but just not part of the PRC? What is the general view on Chinese renunification? Are they totally against it, for it under certain conditions or totally support it?

Answer 1

Most people in Taiwan don't despise China, but they surely DON'T TRUST them at all

in their impression China is full of liars that contradict themselves every minute

many people think the two nations differ too much in too many ways that it'll take a long long long time before unification happens

the two just do things differently

Answer 2

Most Taiwanese I have met openly despise the government of China, and the rather backwards methods that they take to ruin their country in a rather distorted interpretation of capitalism. Generally Taiwanese look down on average Chinese as hopeless, backward peasants cursed by the misfortune of having a poor government that cares nothing for them -but is awfully good at making short term attempts to look like it might help. China is seen as a welfare case, that is improving, fortunately, but still drags Taiwan down to a lower level than we should be at due to the majority's cultural ties and a willingness to help their poor relatives in the other country have a taste of what Taiwan already has.

There is a feeling that perhaps leading China on by telling them a few odd words that they want to hear can benefit the economy of Taiwan and a general willingness to use China for its cash, but little desire to reunify except by perhaps 2% of very old people and some more recent immigrants from China who uncritically believe all they memorized on pain of being beaten in their schools. (yet they still pragmatically leave to come here because they know it is better.)

They feel they are better off controlling their own destiny, rather than entrusting their fate to a system where they have no say, and is a closed network that cannot be accessed without large sums of cash. In Taiwan, one can openly criticize the government without fearing for ones family or personal welfare (well at least non-violently protest, anyways.) One can think what one wants to think, and we are free to change jobs or lifestyles as we wish. Generally people prefer this to the strange things that get reported by the visitors to China.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world feels it needs cheap slave labor more than human rights or a government that is accountable or open to change, hence the lack of open recognition for Taiwan's government, which will continue to control the destiny of the people of this island regardless of what name the rest of the world chooses to call us.

Until the last soldier falls, the last airplane is crashed, the last apartment building and university collapsed and smoking by a greedy invader's rockets, Taiwanese will stand, until broken and betrayed by the ungrateful world that they helped make a better place by trading our work and minds to create and to try teach China to be a better place as we were the only free people since HK fell who could speak a dialect related to poor China's in the free world.

Taiwanese are pragmatic and willing to lose imagined face to continue their current situation, but would rather have the 'china' in the R.O.C. removed as soon as possible. Chiang Kai Shek's brutal legacy of failure, fleeing, and oppression is still attached to this name which is not what Taiwanese respect. China, to us, is associated with war, oppression, pollution, unhappiness, pain, and money at all costs, slavery and pathetic juvenile attempts to insult our dignity at any opportunity, like a middle school bully. China isn't worth respecting except to pretend to respect it to get some of the cash Taiwanese and Hong Kong taught it how to make.

We don't hate China's people, but we don't want to be part of it's governmental system at all.  

Answer 3

The majority consider the themselves as Taiwanese, they've inhabited the island for hundreds of years and have no real cultural ties anymore to China. Lived under all sorts of Japanese oppression, the last thing they want is someone else (PRC) to control them. The Mainlanders (those who came after Chinese civil war), believe that everyone is Chinese, and the majority of them say that China should be unified, however there is a small minority that say Taiwan should be independent. Those who support unification say that they would, but under certain conditions, such as democratically electing our own government, and no control by the PRC over civilian matters. The fact is the majority support the status quo, which is Taiwan is the Republic of China and the Republic of China is Taiwan and that we shouldn't be unified nor independent. However with the way things are going by government policy, the road of maintaining the status quo is closing quickly.

Answer 4

Though sharing the same language and culture, there are people who think they are Taiwanese and also those who think they are both Taiwanese and Chinese.  

Unification under present circumstances is almost impossible because both countries have completely different political systems. For unification to take place, communism must go.  For China to transform to democracy with an independent judicairy is almost impossible in the near future.

Unification is not decided by the people alone. There is also a foreign factor involved - i.e. USA.  I would emphasize on this factor.

USA stance is that people-to-people exchange should take place in the initial stage.  If this fails, USA might change its stance.  One of the options could be declaring ROC as a nation (thus creating 2 Chinas).  Another could be declaring Taiwan as a nation (thus creating China and Taiwan).  

So far so good as people-to-people exchange is healthy and the trade between two sides are booming.

It seems like unification would be a long long process.

Answer 5

Whenever people answer this and similar questions, they tend to give their own opinion--which may not be the opinion of the majority of people in Taiwan.

I don't think, after having lived in Taiwan for some years, that there is anything approaching a consensus on this issue.  It seems to me that there are four different viewpoints that "general" Taiwanese people have about China.

1.  The Republic of China is the legitimate government of mainland China. Just because the communists prevailed in 1949 does not make them the legitimate government, any more than the defeat of France in 1940 made the n***s the legitimate government there.  Very few people, most of them old, hold this view.

2.  Taiwan is an independent, sovereign nation, over which China ought not to have any jurisdiction or control.  

3.  Taiwan is part of China, and peaceful reunification should take place in such a way that Taiwan's autonomy, democracy, and prosperity can be preserved.

4.  The status quo (that Taiwan is a de facto nation) should continue.

Opinion number one can be discounted, as it fails to face reality and is based more on nostalgia than on reason.

Opinion number 2 is held by less than 50% of the population, and a declaration of independence will neither be supported by the international community nor tolerated by the Peoples Republic of China.

Opinion number 3 is also less than 50%.  Some people see it as a sellout, others see it as the only way out of the impasse.

Opinion number four seems to make sense, but could be on borrowed time.

For some reason, it seems that most western foreigners in Taiwan agree with opinion number two.

Answer 6

Hello, sir. I am a E.E. student at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taiwan Tech). I think I am one of the general Taiwanese.

Here is my opinion. I do not consider me as one member of PRC, and none of people close to me deem themselves as PRC people, too.

Although we look the same sort of yellow skin, and speak similar language (not the same), we are totally different in ways we think. PRC people think they have dominion over Taiwan, but we Taiwanese think we are a independent country.

The issue is still kept alive.

Many decades ago, PRC and ROC went separate ways. While PRC was sovietizing, ROC was democratizing.

Chinese renunification? Pardon! I couldn’t find the meaning of it.