Erin Huang
GOVT 3967
Nov. 16th, 2021
Prof. Allen Carlson
Prof. Shelley Rigger Lecture Response
Prof. Shelley Rigger’s short history of Taiwan highlights a distinction between
internal and external perceptions of China as a series of modifiers, some of them
being Ancestral/Cultural China, or Internal/External China. Like in Prof. Millward’s
discussions about the importance of wording, translation, and meanings, the modi-
fiers indicate the presence of an alternate context than just whatever the singular
condition of “China” may be.
Rigger’s explanation about how Taiwan and its residents largely missed the
train that was the formation of a national identity through the tumultuous period of
Chinese history post-1949 leads to some additional thoughts about her framing of a
historical Taiwanese view of China. As she says, “In Taiwan, the China that was hap-
pening from 1895 through the early decades of the 20th century was Ancestral
China, Cultural China, the memory of our origins in Mainland China, but it was not
the everyday reality of Taiwanese people that they were living in, or participating in
a Chinese state.” The collective memory of China from the standpoint of somebody
in Taiwan is thus one in a suspended state of animation, largely unchanged even
during events such as the Cultural Revolution. In an interesting reversed condition,
however, what Taiwan knew of “Cultural China” was actually under rapid change
during the years of the Cultural Revolution—if anything, Taiwan remained “Cultural
China” while Mainland China arguably lost, and destroyed that culture.
For some Chinese, especially overseas Chinese, Taiwan is seen as a place
where Chinese cultural and religious traditions have been preserved, unaffected by
the sweeping and destructive actions of the Red Guard towards old customs, cul-
ture, and arts. The religious buildings, temples and sacred spaces of Mainland China
that were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution remain in Taiwan, and many
families in Taiwan, uninterrupted by the Great Leap Forward and work placements,
are able to trace their ancestry back many generations. Folk religions, superstitions,
and customs that are still common in Taiwan were squashed in the PRC during the
Cultural Revolution and under a Marxist framework. One such example of Taiwan as
a preserve of traditional Chinese culture is the National Palace Museum, a store of
historical and cultural artifacts often lauded as better than anything the PRC has to
offer in its own museums.
The CCP doesn’t often speak of or acknowledge the role the Cultural Revolu-
tion has played in damaging traditional Chinese culture, but Xi Jinping’s encourage-
ment and cultivation of old cultural traditions points to the central government’s
new focus and prioritization of a national identity, wholly and fully, from conceptions
of ethnicity and race to cultural identity as well. Children are encouraged to learn
traditional arts such as calligraphy and ink painting, and official state programs
have been instated to facilitate the traditions. The recent explosion in the popularity
of Hanfu and traditional dress, especially in young people, are also encouraged by
the state, reinforcing an ethnic and cultural identity. This neotraditionalism has be-
come an important party stance, with Xi calling traditional culture the “foundation”
of the Party’s own culture and “vital wellspring” of the Party’s own socialist values.
Like how the CCP drew its modern bounds from historical Qing boundaries at the
peak of their size, support of cultural traditions offers a sense of historical legiti-
macy to the modern nation, as if directly engaging in the same actives (calligraphy,
music, art), etc that previous dynasties have also done. Neo becomes the modifier
in this situation, with new conceptions and meanings of a Chinese culture and tradi-
tion embedded in this kind of traditionalism. Key in this understanding is also the
implication of place: that it is most authentic because it happens in China, com-
pared to cultural production in other diasporas, or even a territory like Taiwan.
