Taiwanese eager to keep separate identity despite warming ties with rival China

Taiwanese wary about China amid warming ties

TAIPEI, Taiwan — In the crowded Taipei theater, Eddy Fang laughs politely at the Chinese ensemble’s comic references to jealous husbands and overweight wives but can’t help thinking it’s all a bit lowbrow in relatively sophisticated Taiwan.

The performance by the Zhao Benshan troupe from China’s Liaoning province ostensibly aims to bring the Chinese and Taiwanese closer culturally and overcome the love-hate relationship they have shared for decades.

But the crude comedy “underscores more of our cultural differences than our similarities,” observes Fang, a 36-year-old office worker in Taipei, the capital of the island that broke away from China 61 years ago.

Despite China’s efforts to win over local sentiment and hasten the return of the island to mainland control, the cultural gap between the two peoples remains as large as the 100-mile (160-kilometer) wide Taiwan Strait that separates the two sides.

In the two years since Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou took office, relations between the once-bitter enemies have warmed considerably, sparked by a sharp uptick in commercial initiatives — including last month’s landmark trade deal — and China’s soft pedaling of its long-standing threats to take over Taiwan by force.

Rather than calling attention to the estimated 1,300 missiles now aimed at Taiwanese targets, Beijing is resorting to a well-modulated charm offensive led by free spending tourists, freer spending purchasing missions and entertainment ensembles like the Zhao Benshan.

But the closer ties and the attempts by Beijing to play up both sides’ common cultural history may actually highlight the ways the island and mainland have grown apart in their decades of postwar separation.

Taiwanese artist Su Hui-yu, 34, insists the island’s 23 million people don’t identify culturally with the mainland — despite their common language — because 50 years of Japanese colonial rule and another six decades of political separation has created a distinct Taiwanese identity.

“In Taiwan, you can see traces of the Chinese culture,” Su said. “But unlike China’s continent-based culture, Taiwan has a young, ocean-based culture, which is more adaptable and open to all foreign influences.”

Su noted that Taiwanese authorities have switched to using an ultramodern Taipei skyscraper as a symbol of the island, dropping the long-used image of the National Palace Museum — the celebrated Taipei repository of Chinese art, whose contents were spirited to Taiwan in 1948 and 1949 by Chiang Kai-shek’s retreating Nationalist forces.

“Young Taiwanese see the museum’s artifacts as Chinese, not Taiwanese,” he said.

Tour guide Tai Kai-lin, 34, identified another aspect of the cultural gap: the tendency of some mainlanders to be — in the eyes of some Taiwanese — less cultivated and polite than their island cousins, who pride themselves on their good manners and restrained behavior.

“All they bring here is their litter and their spittle,” said Tai, referring to the tendency of some mainland visitors to expectorate freely during their visits to Taiwanese landmarks.

Recent college graduate Quentin Hu, 24, says all that’s unimportant because of the considerable economic benefits the Chinese visitors are bringing to the island. Government statistics show that in 2009, 953,000 mainland tourists spent $1.13 billion and accounted for 0.49 percent of Taiwan’s GDP. Expectations are that the number of tourist arrivals could grow by as much as 25 percent this year.

“In the long run, mainland visitors will boost our service industry and economy substantially and everyone here will benefit from that,” Hu said. “So I don’t mind some of the minor inconveniences they bring.”

Hu’s comments were echoed by freelance writer Jean Chiu, 52, who said initiatives like last year’s government decision to end a long-standing ban on advertising by Chinese companies will deepen understanding between the sides, despite charges that some Taiwanese publications might slant their treatment of China to gain ads from mainland firms.

“Our media are heavy with China coverage because people need to know more about the mainland,” she said. “We don’t have to worry too much.”

But many Taiwanese do worry. Their belief that Beijing is camouflaging the true purpose of its cultural exchanges and tourist onslaught — bringing the island into its fold — may have led them to focus on the cultural differences between the two sides and fed the desire to keep a separate Taiwanese identity.

Opinion polls remain split on how friendly Chinese intentions toward Taiwan really are, but all show a continuing resistance to accepting Chinese control, the ultimate aim of Beijing’s Taiwan policy for the past six decades.

“The Chinese are more friendly lately, but with a political purpose,” said Fang, the theatergoer.

Bao Guozhong, a tour operator from Fujian’s capital of Fuzhou on the mainland, doesn’t see what all the fuss is about.

“We have the same roots and should get along well,” he said.

Associated Press Writer Debby Wu contributed to this report from Taipei.