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Postcolonial Studies, Vol 2, No 2, pp 199 ± 211, 1999

Postcolonial studies in Taiwan: issuesin critical debates

PING -HUI LIAO

Is there anything postmodern or postcolonial about contemporary Taiwanesepublic culture? From time to time we have heard from scholar-critics of differing

discursive positions that it is `neither’ postmodern `nor ’ postcolonial, or `not

post- yet.’ But that is too easy and indeed evasive an answer. I am not suggesting

that we can go for the project of identifying the general discursive forces and

codes that have penetrated Taiwan and rendered it part of a global imperialenterprise. On the contrary, I would like to see more critical accounts of the

material effect of those forces as they operate in different times and places.

However, we should not forget that, in spite of its local particularities, Taiwan

does share some common elements as well as experience multiple layers of

colonial and neo-colonial cultures. In that regard, Taiwan is worthy of compar-ative postcolonial studies. Here, I propose to examine the current situation of

postcolonial studies in Taiwan and to re¯ ect on its implications for Asian or

even world literature. I shall draw upon several recent debates to analyse their

respective discursive positions with regard to the emergent critical regionalism

and nationalism. While these debates are invariably tied to the cultural politicsof place and identity, the issues raised can be of general interest to students of

literature in other cultural contexts. For, at the core of these debates, scholars are

not just having disagreements on what constitutes postcoloniality in Taiwan but

expressing discontent over critical frameworks as well as cultural translation

mechanisms that help make these models available. My concerns are hencetwofold, one theoretical, centring on the applicability of a `globalising’ postmod-

ern and postcolonial theory, and the other more pragmatic, in terms of the

tensions of ethnic relations and con¯ ict of interpretations in response to the

factors that contribute to the build-up of tensions.

To rephrase our initial question then: when can Taiwan be said to have enteredthe postcolonial phase? This is where the controversies begin. The orthodox

view is that, with the demise of Japanese rule in 1945, Taiwan has attained that.

However, to many scholars and intellectuals of Taiwan, 1945 marks a tragic

beginning, of yet another 50 years of KMT internal colonisation. To New Party

members and a number of pro-uni ® cation nationalists, Taiwan still has a dif ® culttime freeing itself from Japanese colonial legacies and American neocolonialism.

They often point their ® nger at President Lee Teng-hui and criticise him for his

rather ambiguous attitudes in relation to Taiwan’ s colonial and postcolonial

histories. These diversifying discursive positions testify to the fact that there are

Ping-hui Liao is professor of General Literature at National Tsinghua University, Taiwan.

1368-8790 Print/1466-1888 On-line/99/020199-13 Ó 1999 The Institute of Postcolonial Studies 199

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PING-HUI LIAO

gaps and lags among divergent ethnic groups living on the island, who because

of their different racial heritage and colonial encounters have had different

senses of what constitutes Taiwanese modernity and coloniality. To describemore adequately the postcolonial condition in Taiwan, we will have to take into

account the multiple and mutually contesting communalities and temporalities.

For instance, the aborigines in Taiwan have been victims of different periods of

foreign and domestic colonial culturesÐ Dutch, Spanish, southern Chinese,

Japanese and KMT. Their concern for cultural autonomy has almost never beenaddressed in the mainstream nationalism or postcolonialism talks put forth by the

Han scholars because of their different ethnic background. For on the one hand,

the `® rst-generation’ mainland Chinese, who came with the KMT government

around 1947, and their descendants would consider 1945 as a year of Taiwan’ s

decolonisation and hence of its postcolonialism. On the other, `local’ Tai-waneseÐ to be more precise, Minnan and HokkaÐ scholars tend to refer to 1987,

the year martial law was lifted, as a new era of postcoloniality. And all these

critical opinions will have to be made more complex by the ongoing debates

among the First- and Third-World academies concerning what postcolonialism,

postcolonial and postcoloniality mean.

Postcolonial/postcolonialism/postcoloniality

Scholars such as Benita Parry, Arif Dirlik, Aijaz Ahmad and many others have

pointed out the pitfalls of literary postcolonialism. Their argument has to do withtheir unease with the transhistorical theoretical account, as provided by postcolo-

nial critics such as Gayatri C Spivak and Homi K Bhabha, of a wide range of

postcolonial experience across areas.1

Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Grif® ths and Helen

Tif® n have succinctly summed up the debates as having differences in empha-

sisÐ either on `material effect’ or on `discursive power’ of colonialism. In agesture to reconcile the two camps, they suggest that `clearly any de® nition of

post-colonialism needs to include a consideration of this wider set of local and

speci® c ongoing concerns and practices’ .2

`At the present time,’ they warn, `no

matter how we conceive of the ª the post-colonial,’ and whatever the debates

around the use of the problematic pre ® x ª post,’ or the equally problematichyphen, the ground ing of the term in European colonialist histories and institu-

tional practices, and the responses (resistant or otherwise) to these practices on

the part of all colonised peoples, remain fundamental’ . In other words, we need

to pay attention to the materiality and locality of various kinds of postcolonial

experience. Granted that, I hasten to point out that these three critics seem tobase their observations solely on the effects of the formal European and British

colonial empires. In their framework, political differences between cultures are

not only de® ned in relation to, but also subordinated to their temporal distance

from, European colonialism. Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, American and other

imperial powers are left out from their cultural map. Better to comprehend theuneven trajectories of colonialism’ s cultures on a global scale, I propose we use

the term `postcolonialism’ as a concept that urges us to rethink the limitations

of the Eurocentric aesthetic norms.3

That way, we may be able to develop certain

perspectives with regard to our speci® c historical and geographical location. As

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POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES IN TAIWAN

manifested by several debates that concern me here, postcolonial studies in

Taiwan become sites of discursive struggles in response to local constituencies

and to global postmodern or neocolonial forces. For these postcolonial criticsdraw heavily on poststructuralism and postmodernism, to challenge the old

canonical texts from China and Europe. However, they also attempt to ® nd ways

to move beyond the post-s. Such is the case with the 1992 debate between Chiu

Kuei-fen and Liao Chao-yang concerning the status of Taiwan as a postcolonial

state. It originally took place at the sixteenth annual ROC Comparative Litera-ture conference (1992) , but soon developed into more critical exchanges between

the two at Chungwai Literary Monthly, a leading journal in the ® eld, and won

quite a bit of attention as the war between anti-essentialism and anti-anti-essen-

tialism. Since Chiu is a female scholar from Chung-hsin University, Taichung,

and Liao a male critic at National Taiwan University, Taipei, the debates aremade more complex by gender and geographyÐ the north versus the south.4

Language and memory projects: questions of the agency

Of course, there have been a number of debates and critical responses onTaiwan’ s postcolonial subjects before 1992. But they are often political in

nature, invariably on the emergence of a civil society and of a Lee Tenghui era

that in a sort of calm revolution moves towards localisation and strategic

ambivalence about Taiwan’ s national identity. The crucial question raised in

those debates is whither Taiwan after lifting of martial law: to in¯ uence andeventually join PRC as a Chinese model of democratisation and consumerism,

or to assert its own independence and to become a member of the UN? While

these issues still play important roles in the 1992 debate, they are so reoriented

as to adopt the methods of literary and cultural studies to explore the possibility

of conceiving a postcolonial Taiwan. In the 1992 debate, Chiu Kuei-fen tries tode® ne Taiwan as a multi-ethnic society in which different racial heritages are

® nally able to mix with the rise of Taiwanese consciousness. To Chiu, postcolo-

nialism is a historical stage of collective memory retrieval and of nation

rebuilding. That is to say, after 50 years of Japanese rule (1895±1945) and

another 50 years of KMT internal colonisation, Taiwan is on its way to rewriteits national history. She draws upon Anthony D Smith’ s theory to stress the

importance of nationalists rediscovering and reinterpreting the communal past in

order to regenerate the community.5

She relates the emerging memory project to

literary and cultural ® elds, in which Chinese orthodox texts are being brough t

into question. A crucial site of such a discursive struggle is the ideologicalfunction of language as a medium of knowledge and power. For Chinese has

been instituted as the of ® cial language by the KMT government since 1945, but

it is a mother tongue to only 15% of the population in Taiwan. Minnan and

Hokka are major ethnic groupsÐ up to 83%; however, their languages are

considered to be not only minor but also backward. At the bottom of thehierarchy, the aboriginal languages are on the verge of extinction. In response to

the cultural and political situations of the 1990s, Taiwanese now urge `decoloni-

sation of the language’ . They push forward textbook reform in the process of

`re-placing the language’ , ® rst, by denying the privilege of Chinese and its

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PING-HUI LIAO

power over other means of communication, and, secondly, by remoulding the

vernacular culture and local dialects to new usages, in order to more adequately

address social experience.6

Chiu sees such decolonisation of the languagealready at work in a masterpiece of nativist literature, i.e. Rose, Rose, I Love you(meikuei meikuei er yai ni) by Wang Chen-he, published in 1984. There she ® nds

many levels of polyglossic postcolonial utterances: appropriation of the of ® cial

language, pidgin English, hybrid Taiwanese dialects, etc.

Chiu draws upon such poststructuralist notions as `decentring’ and `syn-cretism’ in her discussion of the postcolonial condition in present-day Taiwan.

On the one hand, she cherishes language and memory retrieval projects,

considering them to be an important part in the reconstituting of the imagined

community. On the other, she criticises `essentialism’ in the name of cultural

hybridity. She writes, `In the case of Taiwan, if its history is that of colonialism,its culture is hybrid and indeed transcultural in character.’ 7 `Since translinguality

is a unique feature in the languages of Taiwan,’ she continues, `we should rid

such myth as reclaiming the pure native languages, as if uncontaminated by

colonialism, in our attempt to debunk the ethnocentrism of colonial regimes.’

This sort of postmodern gesture leads Chiu to confuse anti-colonialist resistancewith essentialism or even ethnic fundamentalism. It is on this point that Liao

Chao-yang brings her to task. While sympathetic to the memory and mother

tongue projects as laid out by Chiu, Liao ® nds Chiu’ s postmodernist stance

concerning anti-essentialism misleading. For Chiu seems to forget that Chinese

is still the metropolitan language of power and that the stress on heterogeneityor multiplicity can be a hegemonic discursive strategy to subjugate as well as to

suppress the Other. Liao teases out the warring forces between subjectivity

reclamation and multilinguality talk in Chiu’ s argument. To reclaim one’ s

cultural subjectivity involves struggle and resistance, whereas to stress hybridity

is to move beyond opposition and to recognise the self in the other.8

Almost inperpetual con¯ ict, the two discursive positions, one assertive while the other

reconciliatory, can be brough t together only on the ground that postcolonialism

is quite the same thing as postmodernism, i.e. the metropolitan power is

decentred to give full voice to the marginal. However, that is hardly the case in

present-day Taiwan. As Anthony Appiah and Cornel West demonstrate in theAfro-American context, postmodernism is hardly the same as postcolonialism:

cultural syncretism is but one co-optive strategy to trade in the local, to

repackage it for global market. In this regard, postmodernism is another form of

neocolonialism, or at least in complicity with the latter. Thus, Liao Chao-yang

looks upon Chiu’ s view on cultural hybridity and impurity as a compromisedand messed-up version of conservative albeit liberal multiculturalism. Appar-

ently, Chiu is completely on the wrong track when she advocates that the mother

tongue retrieval project aims to return to the primordial state of the language in

its singularity and subalternality. To Liao Chao-yang, the reclamation is an

ongoing process in which each ethnic group can only have a relative, rather thanabsolute, autonomy. The urgency of survival and of a critical multiculturalism in

reaction to the potential danger of disappearance is not to be deterred by

hybridity talk or such `melting pot’ discourse as `translinguality’ . Even the

primary text that Chiu uses to make the point about linguistic hybridity is ® lled

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POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES IN TAIWAN

with colonial languages. For the protagonist in Rose, Rose, I Love You teaches

the prostitutes English, so that they may serve American soldiers more

ef® ciently. And throughout the text, the dominant language remains Chinese.In her rebuttal to Liao’ s criticism, Chiu makes another attempt to de® ne

`cultural syncretism’ by mainly relying on the works of Bakhtin and Bhabha,

particularly the latter concerning such notions as `ambivalence’ and `hybridity’ .

She persists in resorting to hybrid and border line cases, in order to appropriate

and to subvert the metropolitan language of power. Here, one can detect thein¯ uence of cultural feminism on her discourse, more speci® cally the stress on

textual strategies to transform the system of social signi ® cation from within and

the tactics of `repetition with a signal difference’ .9

She also draws on African

and Afro-American colonial discourse and postcolonial theory to make her point.

However, the essay does not fare any better in winning over Liao Chao-yang,who employs a cloning metaphor to suggest that Chiu is creating a monstrous

theoretical body that mimics and appropriates many things but actually resem-

bles none of them. The question raised in his critical response concerns the

adequacy of applying postcolonial theory to Taiwan studies. Liao distinguishes

the British colonialism from the Chinese, indicating that, whereas the formersubord inates the colonisedÐ South Africans or Indians, for instanceÐ the latter

attempts to incorporate the minority or marginality to attain the goal of

uni ® cation. In the case of Taiwan, as made complex by its relationships with

China (PRC), colonialism is coupled with Chinese nationalism. The mass media,

for example, are but one sector of the Chinese nationalist ideological appara-tuses. In other words, postcolonial mimicry may be able to achieve sly civility,

but as a strategy it is deployed by such Taiwanese statesmen as James Soong,

the provincial governor, further to strengthen the internal colonial rule and

ironically with the approval of a majority of Taiwanese. Unless we relate the

Taiwan situation to the larger Chinese context, Taiwanese will not be, Liaoargues, able to push forward a postcolonial Taiwan.

In advocating a postmodern notion of anti-essentialism, Chiu takes herself to

be criticising `communitarian’ conceptions of the self, which view people as

embedded in particular cultures, contrast to more liberal conceptions of the self,

which emphasise the ability of individuals to question and revise inherited waysof life. Yet it is of interest to note that Chiu also bases her argument on

communitarianism, to make the point about language and memory retrieval

projects. One may say that Chiu is actually trapped in the pitfall of a `kaleido-

scope or even bricolage of cultures’ , in proposing that Taiwanese have not only

adopted customs and cultural values of internal ethnic groups, but incorporatedideas and practices from other parts of the worldÐ particularly from Japan and

America. However, the fact that some Taiwanese eat Japanese food and listen to

Peking opera does not mean that they cease to form a distinct culture. Chinese,

one should not forget, is still the language of public and private schools, of court

proceedings, and of the mass media. In his commentary on Charles Taylor’ sessay on nationalism and modernity, Will Kymlicka suggests that `it is very

dif ® cult for languages to survive in modern industrialised societies unless they

are used in public life’ .10

`Given the spread of standardised education,’ he goes

on to say, `the high demands for literacy in work, and widespread of interaction

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PING-HUI LIAO

with government agencies, any language that is not a public language becomes

so marginalised that it is likely to survive only among a small elite, in isolated

rural areas, or in a ritualised form, not as a living and developing languageunderlying a ¯ ourishing culture.’ The `mother tongue’ program in Taiwan’ s

public schools does very little in guaranteeing the passing on of the languages

and their associated traditions to the next generation, as the time allocated runs

only from 2 to 4 hours per week. The `language retrieval’ project is hence not

without its problems. But Chiu does raise the question of whether minority rightstalk will encourage the `freezing’ or `closure’ of group identities, preventing

people from adopting a wider perspective that takes into consideration the

interests of other groups, and from exercising the right to expand and challenge

traditional values.

To do justice to the debates between Liao and Chiu, then, I should point outthat Chiu’ s approach is good for describing the loosening effects at the macro

level, calling attention to the urgency of inter-ethnic and translingual dialogues

in present-day Taiwan. By linking postcolonial theory with postmodernism, she

aims to project emancipatory new signi ® cations of the hybrid within cultural

difference. However, her view of language misleadingly posits unity andcoherence among what are actually multiple contesting arenas of discursive

regimes, subject positions, signifying practices, political interventions, public

spheres, and con¯ icting signi ® cations of ethnicity and history. On the other hand,

Liao provides us a more discrete moral-political account at the micro level,

privileging the local divisive particularism. He analyses the uneven intra-ethnicand cross-strait power relations, putting into question such postmodern notions

as `heterogeneity’ , `liberating fragmentation’ , and `radical democracy’ . His

framework underestimates the expansive, border-crossing performative possibil-

ities of everyday language use in relation to structural dynamics of the counter-

publics. Not very helpful in conceptualising the social totality, it has a dif ® culttime mapping the links among various discursive regimes or theorising inter-

subjectivity. Often he invokes a quasi-Zizekian account of the phantasmic

and exclusivist character of politicised collective identities, among them,

`Taiwanese’ or `Minnan’ , to the dismay of Chinese nationalists.

Postcolonialism or postmodernism?

These issues raised concerning language, colonialism and nationalism again

feature in recent debates between Liao Chao-yang and Liao Hsien-hao (Sebatian

Liao) at Chung-wai Literary Monthly.11

Both teaching at the Department ofForeign Languages and Literatures of the National Taiwan University, Liao

Chao-yang and Liao Hsien-hsiao share many common experiencesÐ raised in

the countryside, educated at the National Taiwan University, getting advanced

degrees in the States, using the same of® ce, and having only 1 year age

differenceÐ except their ethnic backgrounds. Like Chiu Kuei-fen, Liao Chao-yang has Minnan ancestry. Liao Hsien-hao, on the other hand, belongs to the

ethnically more ambivalent group normally labelled as second-generation Chi-

nese mainlanders, i.e. offspring of the Chinese eÂmigreÂs who came to the island

around 1947 with the KMT government. Though not explicit, ethnicity in fact

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POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES IN TAIWAN

has a vital role to play throughout the debates on postcolonialism and multicul-

turalism. In fact, it was Chen Chao-ying, a junior Chinese literature instructor at

the National Taiwan University, who opened up the debates. A member ofUni® cation Association, Chen launched her critique on Taiwan literary studies

with regard to its limitations in the August 1995 issue of Chung-wai LiteraryMonthly. According to Chen, Taiwan literature should be considered to be part

of Chinese literature, for the former has got a lot of inspiration from the latter

and should not be studied independently. A number of scholars, among themChiu Kuei-fen and Chen Fang-ming, wrote critical responses to the essay in

question. They insist that Taiwan literature has its own relative autonomy and

that to subordinate it to Chinese literature is simply an act of symbolic violence

and an outrageous claim in complicity with Han chauvinism as well as Chinese

imperialism. At the request of Wu Chien-cheng, editor of Chung-wai LiteraryMonthly, Liao Chao-yang and Liao Hsien-hao joined the debates. After two

exchanges on such postcolonial subjects as multiculturalism and nationalism,

Liao Hsien-hao singled out Liao Chao-yang as a major target and the subsequent

debates almost completely ignored contributions of other participants.

Though a feud within the family, the discussions nevertheless touch onimportant issues in the public sphere. Liao Hsien-hao highlights the problematic

of cultural identity and of imagined community, suggesting that Northern Ireland

is hardly a model for Taiwan if the latter is to seek independence. On the issue

of identity, he advocates the idea of cultural China or of `Chinese cultural

federalism12

. As for the concept of an imagined Taiwanese community, hecautions that there are other ethnic groups which are not easily assimilated under

the aegis of Taiwanese or Minnan nationalism. He fears that internal colonisation

will be reintroduced to replace the KMT rule if postcolonial discourse as

proposed by several leading Minnan scholars is to prevail. The anxiety is centred

on the politics of inclusion and exclusion. For example, how would members ofdifferent ethnic groups be able to communicate with each other once Minnan

dialect is substituted for Chinese, the metropolitan language? In what way can

the people recognise the values in other cultures and learn to live in harmony?

What is the material basis for Taiwan’ s radical independence movement? Won’ t

that put lives on the island in peril or at least, in the abyss of uncertainty? Sincethe desire for independence and postcoloniality can only lead the majority group

to exclude others, it should be re-examined in more rational light. Consequently,

Liao Hsien-hao hints that multiculturalism and postmodernism, rather than

postcolonialism, are the solutions. He evokes the case of Yugoslavia to indicate

people’ s fear of unwanted ethnic con¯ icts, but at the same time he alsoacknowledges the sense of entrapment on the part of Taiwanese citizens in

response to the growth of Chinese power to `contain’ and even subjugate

Taiwan.

Interestingly enough, both Chiu Kuei-fen and Liao Hsien-hao think in terms

of multiculturalism and postmodernism, but for totally different purposes.Whereas Chiu considers the postmodern notion of `decentring’ will contribute to

multicultural education and the constitution of postcolonial condition, Liao

Hsien-hao tends to put multiculturalism in opposition to postcolonialism. To

Liao Hsien-hao, postmodernism means a cultural politics of re-negotiation in an

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PING-HUI LIAO

uneven world, rather than a poetics of re-vision. Here, he is at the crossroad of

Marxism and liberalism: every group should have its rights; however, one tends

to dominate others when it has more. The stress he puts on the postcolonialism/multiculturalism debates is on equality or exploitation, rather than on esteem.

Apparently, he does not have faith in civic nationalism and critical multicultur-

alism. To him, the rise of Taiwan consciousness inevitably introduces a danger-

ous form of cultural nationalism, of inclusion and exclusion. As a result, he leans

on the totalitarian rhetoric of repressive nationalism while addressing ethnictensions and their potential problems in the name of civic nationalism: `We are

one, so long as we don’ t raise our eyebrows at each other and no less so, disturb

China with the argument of Taiwan independence. Unwittingly, he celebrates

national unity at the expense of multiculturalism, which as a social movement

highlights the identity and self-con® dence of multiple subcultures.The question can be rephrased as follows: should postcolonial identity assume

a singular form and must it be exclusive of others? Can postcolonial histories be

so written as to displace and even negate colonial legacies? Liao Hsien-hao

seems to opt for a `yes’ as the answer. However, Liao Chao-yang disagrees. He

draws on Slavoj Zizek to make the case of a `blank’ and yet ¯ uid postcolonialidentity. Also, he warns that there are gaps and lapses between literary discourse

and social practices. For there are many material effects to be taken into account

if one wants to talk about nation building. If viable, any postcolonial discursive

positions can be taken to make the best of the life situation. Deep down, Liao

Chao-yang does not believe in the notion of a ® xed identity although he doesacknowledge material and historical constraints on identity formation. Regarding

the historical effects of Japanese colonialism, he uses the term `borrowed

modernity’ to give an alternative reading of such ® lms as Dosan and BananaParadise . He argues that the con¯ icts of interpretation between postcolonial

scholars and nationalists, between appropriation and rejection of Japanesecolonial culture, actually open our eyes to the problematic of differential

communalities and temporalities in dealing with the colonial past. For example,

Dosan reveals a `divisive confrontation with the historical real’ . At one level, the

historical trauma is thematised by the admiration for the Japanese felt by the old

father, who is a clown by profession and a failure in real life. At another, it isre-enacted by the system of signi ® cation, as the dialogue is in Minnan while its

voice-over is in Mandarin. The divisive and contradictory ways to make sense

of colonial and postcolonial histories on the part of the father and son nonethe-

less urge them to rethink identity issues, in order to comprehend the relations of

colonial subject and citizenship. Unless we come to terms with this constitutivelack of identity, with the impossibility of symbolic pedagogy to subsume

everything, he concludes, `advocacy of radical democracy would not lead to

fruitful intervention either in postmodern culture or in the settling of political

con¯ icts in Taiwan’ .13

Chen Fang-ming, a professor of Chinese literature at the ProvidenceUniversity and a major force in Taiwan studies, has recently made similar

points about postmodernism and multiculturalism talk in relation to the develop-

ment of postcolonial studies in Taiwan.14

According to him, it is only after 1989,

the year Lee Teng-hui assumed presidency, that Taiwan ® nally entered its

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POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES IN TAIWAN

postcolonial phase. However, due to the 50 years of Japanese colonial rule

(1895±1945) and another 50 years of the `second colonisation’ by the KMT

(1945±87), Taiwanese suffer a great deal from the loss of language and the lossof memory. The majority of people can no longer speak their own languages, let

alone rewrite their own histories using the language. As if to resist the coming

of a postcolonial age, the mass media and a number of intellectuals keep

promoting postmodernism to the suppression of postcolonial demands. Global

trends, codes and fashions are made to appear attractive and accessible, whereasthe local culture is so appropriated and interpreted that it becomes components

to be cut and pasted. One such example is Chu Tien-wen’ s Fang-ren sou-chi(The Queer’ s Notebook), in which queer theory, hybrid genres, poststructural-

ism, and local politics intermix. Chang Ta-chun, Luo Yi-chun, Cheng Ying-shu

and Hung Ling are some more names that immediately come to mind. And inthe ® eld of cultural studies, these postmodernist scholars tend to look upon the

localisation movement as a form of cultural imperialism. In part as a reaction to

the movement, they adumbrate queer body politics, to promote the privatisation

or trans-sexualisation of the public sphere. The resurgence of local dialects is

often seen as the exercise of power of one language over the others. So in thename of multiplicity and ¯ uidity, they reject any attempt to reclaim a cultural or

national identity. Ethnicity and history become violent categories of partial truth,

as they inevitably do harm to or repress the interests of the peripheral. However,

the concern with political justice is simply a displacement of postmodern guilt

and an empty rhetoric of postcolonial manipulation. For when these postmod-ernists speak of the unjust situation the aborigines have to live with, the target

of their criticism is the emergent Minnan population who ® nally have their

chance to overturn the language of the centre and to replace it with their own.

It is as if these postmodernists were speaking outside history and outside any

speci® c location to articulate a cosmopolitan concept of justice, in order todisguise their status as cultural elite and transnational intellectuals.

`To portray the postcolonial condition in Taiwan,’ Chen Fang-ming reminds

us, `one should pay attention to the urgent need of language and memory

reclamation projects.’ Postmodernist discourse of multiculturalism can be mis-

leading in this regard, for whereas the postcolonial critics respond to theperceived crisis of disappearance, the postmodernists poke fun at such urgency

and render it into trivialities. Indeed, one sees this sort of postmodern twist in

the 1997 debates on a junior high school history textbook Renshih Taiwan(Knowing Taiwan History). For those who criticised the textbook for its

mistaken details and `political incorrectness’ in labelling 1895±1945 as a periodof Japanese Rule rather than Japanese Occupation, the urgency of having the

history told from Taiwan’ sÐ instead of China’ sÐ perspective seemed ridiculous.

Thus, the New Party members as well as intellectuals from right and left wings

launched attacks on minute details, voicing their uncompromising opinions in

newspapers columns and call-in programs. They even suggested that aboriginalperspectives be told. As a matter of fact, several months after the textbook

debates, the novelist Chen Ying-cheng and several others started another battle

in the literary supplement section of United Daily, blatantly denouncing the

Kominka literature from Taiwan’ s Japanese period. It is therefore instructive that

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after witnessing the outcome of these debates Chen Fang-ming tries to dis-

tinguish the postmodern from the postcolonial, in order to readjust to the

emergent cultural imaginary. As Chang Sung-sheng demonstrates, Chen didappeal, in a slightly earlier stage, `to a utopian vision supposedly embodied by

postmodern pluralism and feminist egalitarianism as hope for the future of

cultural reconstruction in contemporary Taiwan’15

. The shift toward a more

sophisticated postcolonial mode of articulation is self-evident in the promotion

of the Taiwanese language movement. Here, let me quote Chang Sung-shengagain: `In an earlier stage of the nativisation discourse, the pure/impure binary

opposition and the concept of ª origin’ featured prominently, and one frequently

encountered the fetishised image of the ª land’ and ª mother tongue’ . Such

romantic notions, however, have been harshly criticised in intellectual circles,

and recently we have seen a notable change in the strategy employed byproponents of the revivalist Taiwanese language movement. For instance, with

tactics of identity politics inspired by the discourse on multiculturalism, Lu

Hsin-ch’ ang has effectively justi® ed his promotion of the Taiwanese language

movement as an effort to remove the ª sinocentrism’ (Han-tsu chung-hsin chu-yi)

so far dominating language use in contemporary Taiwan’ .16

Such a shift as Chen Fang-ming’ s or Lu Hsin-ch’ ang’ s is triggered by the

postcolonialism debates I have just outlined. To grasp the recent trends in

Taiwan postcolonial studies, however, we must examine the genealogy of critical

terms such as `postmodernism’ or `postcolonialism’ . Both Chen Fang-ming and

Chiu Kuei-fen would agree on such postcolonial subjects as language andmemory projects. But they develop con¯ icting views about what postmodernism

can do to help or to hurt postcolonialism. Arguably, these terms also mean

different things to different scholars in the West. Nevertheless, the appropriation

of foreign ideas can have extremely complex impacts, as these imported

concepts may not only transform indigenous culture and society, but also createenabling and disabling distance or time-lag between postcolonial scholars and

their objects. Take `postcolonialism’ for example. The term was used by

historians and political scientists after the Second World War as a chronological

label to designate the post-independence societies. However, increasingly, liter-

ary critics and cultural studies people tend to evoke the concept of `postcolonial-ism’ to discuss the diversifying cultural effects of colonisationÐ especially of

late European imperialism. The pitfall is that `the term confers on colonialism

the prestige of history proper ’ and that `the world’ s multitudinous cultures are

marked not positively by what distinguishes them, but by a subordinate,

retrospective relation to linear, European time’17

. In the context give byChiu Kuei-fen, `postcolonialism’ signals a new post-martial law period in

which multi-vocality is to prevail and various arena of contesting identities

are reconstituted. The trajectory she has in mind is that of sequential and

linear progress toward `postmodernity’ . Though sharing, with Chiu, that sort

of post-Enlightenment mentality in evoking the term `postcolonial’ ChenFang-ming, also expresses a reluctance to interpret contemporary Taiwanese

public culture in terms of `postmodernism’ . But the question Liao Chao-yang

raises for Chiu and in part also valid for Chen concerns the prematurely

celebratory and eventually evasive character of such a framework. Put another

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POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES IN TAIWAN

way, `postcolonialism’ as proposed by Chiu cannot adequately describe

Taiwan’ s colonial and postcolonial histories in relation to China.

Alternative modernity in Taiwan

I want to push Liao Chao-yang’ s argument one step further by suggesting that

we need to re-de ® ne the term `postcolonialism’ in terms of the continuities and

discontinuities of power that have shaped the legacies of the Japanese andChinese colonial empires. To grasp the context of Taiwanese intellectuals

travelling and translating in the early-twentieth century between the two cultures

to render their identities problematical, `alternative modernity’ may be a more

appropriate framework to re-narrate Taiwan’ s colonial and postcolonial histories.

As Anne McClintock has pointed out, many contemporary cultures, whileprofoundly affected by colonisation, `are not necessarily primarily preoccupied

with their erstwhile contact with Europe’ 18. The histories of African colonisation,

for example, `are certainly, in part, the histories of the collisions between

European and Arab empires, and the myriad African lineage states and cultures’ .

And in the case of Taiwan, its colonial histories are not simply marked by thecollisions between Japanese and Chinese empires, but also made complex by the

multiple levels of ambivalence on the part of these imperial forces toward

Taiwan. First of all, Taiwan was handed over to Japan in 1895 by the Ching

dynasty on the grounds that the island had never been seriously considered to be

part of China. But the irony was that Taiwanese intellectuals turned Chinesenationals when they heard the bad news. As a result, the psychic structure of

cultural identi® cation became very unstable during and even after Japanese rule.

Second, at that time Japan was, Stephen Tanaka tells us, forming its new

Oriental discourse to overcome its inferiority complex in relation to Chinese

culture, in order to become new China in the Orient. The traces of Chinesecivilisation in Taiwan nevertheless reminded Japanese colonial of® cers of their

cultural af® nity with Taiwanese and of the dif ® culty to rid the anxiety of Chinese

in¯ uences. To make friends with their cultural `brothers’ , Japanese colonisers

allowed Taiwanese to move freely between China and Japan. Consequently,

instead of suffering from the perpetual collision between the Chinese andJapanese identities, Taiwanese, merchants in particular, developed ¯ uid albeit

ambiguous onesÐ labelling themselves Japanese to avoid Chinese tax, while

addressing their `countrymen’ in Chinese to do trade, for example. Third,

because of the worsening situation in other parts of AsiaÐ Korea and Manchuria,

to be speci® cÐ Taiwan occupied an important place in Japan’ s `southwardadvance’ colonial project. As a side effect to such moral luck, however,

Taiwanese won such bad names as `Japan’ s underdogs’ or `traitors to China’ . In

his representative work, Ya-hsi-ya-te-ku-erh (Asia’ s Orphan) , Wu Chou-liu

describes Taiwan’ s colonial condition as a case of `neither-nor’ . The protagonist

Hu Tai-ming remembers vividly that his Grandpa says to him one day, `Nowthat Taiwan is in the hands of Japanese, there are fewer reports about bandits and

robbers. The roads are also getting wider. For all the merits, you are no longer

entitled to enter Chinese civil examination. And to make things even more

unbearable, such heavy taxes on us Taiwanese!’19

In spite of the bene® cent

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aspects of Japanese colonialism, Taiwanese are, Grandpa Hu laments, losing

touch with Chinese traditional way of life. Deep down, Grandpa Hu considers

himself a Chinese subject. However, Papa Hu is keenly interested in Japaneseand Western learning. Tai-ming is an unfortunate product of the con¯ icting

cultural dictates: the early stage of his upbringing is in Chinese classics, later on

sent to a normal school of national language (Japanese), and then for advanced

study in Tokyo. He is constantly troubled by the lack of a presentable identity.

In Tokyo, he is advised to pretend to be Japanese. But on several occasions withChinese intellectuals, he has to keep Taiwanese identity a secret. Often he has

to come to terms with the Chinese Minnan label. Once, when he declares himself

a Taiwanese, he is condemned as a `spy’ and a `traitor’ to the nation20

. During

the Sino-Japanese War, his projected long-term stay in Nanking, following a

grand tour to the fatherland, ends in censure and arrest. By then his Taiwaneseidentity has been revealed and his status as a high-school teacher is considered

to be a mask for illicit activities against the state. Assisted by two former

Chinese students, he manages to escape from prison and to return to Taiwan.

But back home, he becomes insane, unable to stand the impact of Japanese

colonialism.The story of Hu Tai-ming represents the effects of Chinese and Japanese

imperial powers in their unstable mixtures and mutual contestations on Taiwan

culture. As the effects are very different from those of European colonialism, the

dominant postcolonial theory can only partially describe what constitutes the

`postcolonial’ condition in Taiwan. This problematic is made even more com-plex by the fact that Taiwan is still uncertain about its own identity and destiny.

For identity has by now turned into a plurality of contested arenas, as practically

all the indigenous counter-traditions and colonial legacies that were suppressed

or marginalised are being mobilised. Being a `state without nationhood’ , Taiwan

has experienced the KMT internal colonisation and, more recently, localisationas a process toward decolonisation, which for all its merits receives challenges

and censures not only from within but also from withoutÐ particularly from the

PRC and several overseas Chinese communities. To theorize its current situation,

I would like to suggest that aspects of postcolonial theory can be coherently

combined with aspects of alternative (post-)modernity. However, it remains to beseen precisely how an eclectic and more nuanced postcolonial theory will

develop to do justice to the Taiwan case study. The critical debates and their

concrete elaborations indicate that more collective tasks are called for in such a

political and intellectual enterprise.

Notes1

Benita Parry, in `Current problems in the study of colonial discourse’ , Oxford Literary Review 9, 1987, pp

27±58, for example, sets the tone, followed by, among others, Arif Dirlik `The postcolonial aura: Third

World criticism in the global capitalism’ , Critical Inquiry, 20, 1994, pp 328±356, and Aijaz Ahmad, `The

politics of literary postcolonialism’ , Race and Class, 36, 1995, pp 1±20. These essays have been made

available by anthologies; Arif’ s is included in his own book under the same title from Duke University Press

(1997).2

Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Grif® ths and Helen Tif ® n, Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies, New York:

Routledge, 1998, p 189.

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3Cf, Meenakshi Mukherjee, `Interrogating post-colonialism’ in (eds), Interrogating Post-colonialism; Theory,Text and Context, Harish Trivedi and Meenakshi Mukherjee Shimla, Indian Institute of Advanced Study,

1996: 3±11.4

Throughout the paper I use Wade system, as it is the most popular mode in Taiwan. I put the family name

® rst, following the common practice in most Chinese societies. The major texts include:

Chiu Kuei-fen, `Rediscovering Taiwan: constructing Taiwan’ s postcolonial histories’ [Fa-hsien Taiwan’ :

Chien-kuo Taiwan hou-chih-ming lung-shih], paper delivered at the 16th Annual ROC Comparative

Literature Conference, May 1992. Reprinted in Chen Tong-jung and Chen Chang-fang (eds), Canons andNew Methods of Teaching Literature [Tien-lu yu wen-hsueh chiao-hsueh], Taipei: Bookman, 1995,

233±253.

Chiu Kuei-fen, `We Are Taiwanese: reply to Liao Chao-yang’ s comments on Taiwan’ s postcoloniality’

[Cha-lung-shi Taiwan-ren: Ta Liao Chao-yang yu-kuan Taiwan hou-chih-ming te wen-ti], Canons and New

Methods, pp 259±276.

Liao Chao-yang `Commentary’ Canons and New Methods, pp 254±258.

Liao Chao-yang, `Errors plus confusion don’ t make a ® ne case’ [Shih shi-pu-hsiang, hai-shih fu-pao-shih-

hsiang], Canons and New Methods, pp 277±292.5

Chiu, `Cultural memory and the Nationalism Project’ [Li-shih chi-yi te chung-chu he kuo-chia hsi-su te

chien-ku], Chungwai Literary Monthly, 25(5), 1996, p 10.6

Chiu, `Rediscovering Taiwan’ , p 238.7

Chiu, `Rediscovering Taiwan’ , p 240.8

Chiu, `Rediscovering Taiwan’ , p 255.9

Chiu, `Rediscovering Taiwan’ , p 265.10

Kymlicka, `The sources of nationalism: commentary on Taylor’ in The Mortality of Nationalism , Arthur M.

Melzer et al. (eds). Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998, p 58.11

I Sum up their main arguments based on the following texts:

Liao Hsien-hao, `Beyond the national: why identity talk?’ [Chao-yeh kuo-tsu: wei-so-mou yao-tan

ren-tung], Chungwai Literary Monthly, 24(4) 1995, p 61±76.

Liao Hsien-hao, `Myths of blank subjectivity and Ethnicity’ [Fu-li yu pai-lang: kung-pai yu hsueh-yuan

te mi-shi], Chungwai Literary Monthly, 25(5), 1995, pp 154±157.

Liao Chao-yang, `The pathos of Chinese history and ethnicity’ [Chung-kuo-ren te pei-ching], ChungwaiLiterary Monthly, 23(10), 1995, pp 102±126.

Liao Chao-yang, `Reconsidering the blank subjectivity’ [Tsai-tan kung-pai chu-ti], Chungwai Literary

Monthly, 24(7), 1995, pp 122±129.

Liao Chao-yang, `Hsien-tai te tai-hsien: Chung tien-yin dosan kan chu-ti yu li-shih’ , Chungwai Literary

Monthly, 27(3), 1998, pp 4±30, originally published in English under the title `Borrowed modernity: history

and the subject in A Borrowed Life’ , boundary 2, 24(3), 1997. Revision forthcoming in Arif Dirlik and

Xudong Zhang (eds), Chinese Postmodernisms, Durham: Duke University Press, 1998.12

Liao Hsien-hao, `Beyond the national’ , p 64.13

Liao Chao-yang, Chinese Postmodernisms, p 25.14

Chen Fang-ming, `The problems of constructing Taiwan’ s postcolonial discourse’ [Taiwan te hou-chih-

ming wen-ti], paper delivered in Writing Taiwan Conference, Columbia University, 30 April±3 May 1998.15

Chang Sung-sheng, `Beyond cultural and national identities: current re-evaluation of the Kominka literature

from Taiwan’ s Japanese period’ , Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese, 17(1), 1997, p 94.16

Chang, `Beyond cultural and national identities’ , p 89±90.17

Anne McClintock, `The angel of progress: pitfalls of the term ª Post-colonialism’ ’ Rpt in Patrick Williams

and Laura Chrisman (eds), Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory, New York: Harvester, 1993, p

293.18

McClintock, `The angel of progress’ , p 294.19

Wu Chou-liu, Orphan of Asia [Ya-hsi-ya te ku-erh] (1945), rpt Taipei: Tsao-ken, 1995.20

Wu, Orphan of Asia, pp 96±97.

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