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Taiwan: A People's History


pprendeville

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Isn't there an issue here of the Western-style nation state model not 100% correlating to China, because

1. China is basically an empire anyway

2. Hong Kong and Macao are part of the nation state but also separate

3. Taiwan is not part of the nation state but is claimed by it

4. Enduring sense that "Chinese" = genes+cultural heritage rather than national boundaries; also applicable to established diaspora.

The idea of the modern nation state is a pretty new one for most of the world and there's no reason to believe it's necessarily a good (or bad) one.

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Plus, 'Chinese' can refer to a range of different things, from ethnic to linguistic to national to cultural to all kinds of other areas.

Li Wei, the semantics are still very much a part of this issue. At the green newspaper I used to work at, it was verboten to write 'mainland China' 'as that implies there is something like an offshore China'; Taiwan-as-a-nation was emphasized to the point that 环岛 was to be translated as 'around the nation', even though strictly speaking that was incorrect, as the nation includes Jinmen and Mazu (not to mention the South China Sea).

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Let's just say... in Texas, they say the pledge of allegiance to the US flag, and then to the Texas flag. That really weirded me out.

As a long time Texan, it weirds me out that they even say the pledge of allegiance to the US flag at all.

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