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Social Construction of National Reality: Tibet and Taiwan

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Abstract

This paper uses the theory of social construction of reality deriving from the writings of Max Weber, Alfred Schutz, Thomas Luckmann and Peter Berger to explain the origin of national identity and hence the emergence of a nation. It argues that social construction of national reality originates from everyday life experience taken for granted during the process of socialization. Individuals make sense out of the external world. Experiences taken for granted become actor’s stock of knowledge. A common scheme of knowledge shared by the community serves to differentiate in-group (nationals) and out-group (foreigners). Collective consciousness thus defines national identity and hence a nation. Unless people (both in-group and out-group) interact with and learn from each other, different stocks of knowledge taken for granted will create political tension. This theory will be applied to understand the tensions in Tibet and along the Taiwan Strait. The paper further argues that Taiwan can hardly separate from mainland China in the future, while strong Tibetan consciousness continues to defy against powerful Chineseness, resulting in endless upheavals in the region.

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Notes

  1. For a critique of these arguments, see Yu and Kwan [79, 1–3].

  2. As will be argued below, individuals’ actions, if socially constructed under the same environment, will give rise to collective consciousness.

  3. According to Overgaard and Zahavi [52, 97], “the life-world is the world we ordinarily take for granted, the pre-scientific, experientially given world that we are familiar with and never call into question”.

  4. Other approaches argue that power, interests and resources are the sources of conflict.

  5. For the Chinese legends in details, see Yu and Kwan [78].

  6. Chairman Mao Zedong addressed to the people at the Tiananmen Square that “the Chinese people have stood up!” during the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on September 21, 1949.

  7. Tibetan Liberation Day falls on May 23, a day when the Seventeen-Point Agreement was stipulated. It celebrates China’s territorial integrity and state sovereignty over Tibet and the expulsion of foreign imperialist powers in the region.

  8. Communist China strongly believes the “Tibet model” ensures a high degree of autonomy and can be applied to peaceful reunification with Taiwan. For the application of the “Tibet model” on Taiwan, see Norbu [49, 1–19], [50, 298–314], Chai [12, 1309–1323] and Chung [16, 233–245].

  9. Kham locates between the Tibet Autonomous Region and Sichuan. Most of the area was known as Xikang Province. Amdo is a part of Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan Provinces and regarded as the home of many Tibetan Buddhist monks. Kham and Amdo are within de jure Chinese territory.

  10. Tibetans and Han Chinese have different appearances, languages and cultures [70, 19]. Tibetans look less oriental and have sharper features. Tibetan spoken language belongs to Tibeto-Burman. Tibetan words are derived from medieval Sanskirt. They are alphabetical, polysyllabic and inflected with case and gender structure. Chinese words are written in ideograms, monosyllabic and non-inflected. The Dalai Lama [20, 59] says “Our [Tibetans] physical appearance and our language and customs are entirely different from those of any of our neighbors. We have no ethnological connection with anyone else in our part of Asia”. More importantly, Tibetans believe in Tibetan Buddhism whereas Han Chinese are strongly influenced by Confucianism and Taoism.

  11. Avalokiteśvara, the Buddha of Compassion, incarnated as a monkey, met and married a mountain ogress. They had six offsprings who were the ancestors of modern Tibetans. Avalokiteśvara worked with other bodhisattvas and buddhas and created a Buddhist Tibet.

  12. In Tibetan Buddhism, there is no valid Tibetan word of a Buddhist [11]. Instead, they use nang-pa to define we-group or phyi-pa they-group.

  13. http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=213&catid=6&subcatid=35#08; retrieved on March 4, 2013.

  14. From the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, “From Birth to Exile”, archived from the original on 20 October 2007, http://www.dalailama.com/page.4.htm; retrieved on March 7, 2013.

  15. However, the mainland government states that Tibetans are minority nationality in China and hence patron-priest relationship is equivalent to the sovereign and the subject. Hence, Tibetan patron-priest relationship confronts with traditional Chinese relationship. It raises the Sino-Tibetan tension [59], [28, 186–229], [39, 214–229].

  16. In 1969, a young nun announced that she was possessed by the goddess of Buddhism. She demanded for freedom of religion and the return of the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile 10 years earlier. Over a thousand of inspired Tibetans came to attack Chinese communist cadres. The Nyemo Incident of 1969 shows an example of persistent Tibetan consciousness under the mainland China in Tibet. For details, see Goldstein et al. [29].

  17. For the One-China policy, see State Council [66]; Ministry of Foreign Affairs [48].

  18. For some Taiwanese people, the Mainlanders are not the ‘outsiders’.

  19. On 28th February 1947, a group of government agents suspected a local woman sold illegal cigarettes and confiscated all her money and cigarettes. They beat her badly when she tried to get her possessions back. One of the government investigators shot to a crowd of people who came to intervene. The incident of February 28 provoked a widespread protest in Taiwan on March 8 in that year. The KMT troops brutally suppressed the riot and slaughtered up to 20,000 people. Many intellectuals and elites were prosecuted, killed and exiled. For details, see Lai et al. [43].

  20. The situation was similar when the Americans were furious with British brutal suppression in Boston Massacre (1770) before the American Revolution. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776) condemned that Britain, being a “mother country” of the America, should be shameful on her “cruelty” and “tyranny” on Americans. He criticized Britain as “being false, selfish, narrow and ungenerous” (http://www.constitution.org/tp/comsense.htm, retrieved on 7 July, 2012).

  21. There are four types of national identification preferences in Taiwan, namely Taiwan nationalists, China nationalists, Pragmatists, and Conservatives [47, 299–314]. 1. Taiwan nationalists favor Taiwan independence and oppose unification with China even if China becomes a democratic and economically advanced nation. 2. China nationalists favor unification with the mainland. They oppose Taiwan independence because they see it as morally wrong. 3. Pragmatists favor Taiwan independence (providing that doesn’t provoke military attack from China). However, they also favor unification with the mainland (if China catches up with the level of democracy and economic development in Taiwan). 4. Conservatives reject both Taiwan independence and unification with mainland China. They prefer status quo in which Taiwan is and will remain as the Republic of China, with some attributes of an internationally-recognized sovereign nation [47, 300–301].

  22. “Taiwan has already been an independent sovereign country. Currently, Taiwan is already a country, an independent sovereign country. There is of course no question of declaring independence, because it is already a country. This is reality. This is the status quo. There is no doubt. It is not to be questioned whether you admit it or recognize it or not. It is an existing fact.” (Time Asia [February 16, 2004]: Interview of President Chen Shui-Bian [71])

  23. We thank the referee of this Journal to bring out the concept of knowledge heterogeneity regarding social identity.

  24. In particular, Taiwan has gained a full back-up from the US government.

  25. While some analysts call on Beijing to recognize the reality of ROC within “the greater China” (Hickey 2013: 17, [31]), this paper argues that “the greater China” can be constructed through cross-Strait interactions and exchanges.

  26. The 1992 Consensus between China and Taiwan is an informal, oral understanding that there exists only one China, inclusive of the mainland and Taiwan, with both sides agreeing to differ on its precise political definition. (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=192442&ctNode=413; retrieved on 27 June, 2012).

  27. Want China Times (2012 June 4) “Ma Ying-jeou calls on Beijing to address Tiananmen massacre”, from http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20120604000131&cid=1101&MainCatID=0; retrieved on 27 June, 2012.

  28. According to the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, there are about 300,000 Chinese soldiers stationed in Tibet. See http://www.dalailama.com/page.4.htm; retrieved on March 7, 2013.

  29. According to Jacobs [36], since 2009, at least 39 Tibetans have set themselves on fire. Of those, 30 were died. Committing suicide is a major taboo in Tibetan Buddhist culture. Senior monks are fully aware of the ramifications of self-immolation for reincarnation. Hence, self-immolation of a living Buddha confers legitimacy on political protest.

  30. The Dalai Lama blames the Beijing government “cultural genocide” for a wave of self-immolations among monks and nuns in ethnic Tibetan parts of Sichuan (BBC News, 2011 November 7, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15617026; retrieved on 6 March 2013).

  31. Obviously, the Beijing government does not want to have a supreme religious leader in Chinese territory, challenging Beijing’s ruling authority in China. The same logic applies to the Beijing’s policy on the Vatican City. For a detail analysis of religious policies of PRC, see Lai [42].

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Acknowledgement

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 6th Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA) Congress 2012: “Policy and Politics in Changing Asia” jointly organized by the Hong Kong Institute of Education and City University of Hong Kong, 31 November – 1 December 2012. We thank the two anonymous referees of this Journal for their constructive comments. Any errors that remain are our sole responsibility,

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Yu, F.L.T., Kwan, D.S. Social Construction of National Reality: Tibet and Taiwan. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 18, 259–279 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-013-9249-z

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