Ma Ying-jeou’s China-Leaning Policy and the 1683 Fall of the Zheng in Taiwan: A Cross-Centuries Geopolitical Comparison

Stéphane Corcuff

Chapter Chapter 5 in National Identity and Economic Interest, 2012, pp 93-131 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract On October 22, 2001, Rupert Murdoch’s Star TV Chinese Channel started to broadcast on Formosa a 50-episode Chinese drama series, Kangxi’s Empire out of which 18 episodes were devoted to a theme to which Taiwanese were quite sensitive: the attack of island in 1683 by the Chinese Admiral Shi Lang (1620–96), who obtained the submission to the Manchu throne of the Zheng insular regime who had resisted the new Qing dynasty. 1 It was quite an event on Taiwan, just a few years after Taiwan’s Government Information Office had authorized the first China-made dramas to be broadcasted in Taiwan.2 Most importantly, it was a year and a half only after proindependence Chen Shuibian was elected president of the Republic of China, on the island. For Taiwanese opposed to unification—around 70% at that time3—it sounded like a clear warning and a bitter experience. As history was sounding like an alarm, the anxious audience was large. Taiwan’s China Television Channel, or CTV bought the rights and started to air Kangxi’s Empire on its own waves early the following year, in the midst of an ongoing debate about the oppor- tunity of showing Chinese historical dramas considered as simplifying history with propaganda intentions. A decade after, one of my interviewee, a young second-generation half-Mainlander in his forties, still recalled vividly his feel- ings: “I felt very bothered. I had the feeling that that story was a little bit simi- lar [to the current course of events].”4

Keywords: Chinese Communist Party; Taiwan Strait; National Anthem; United Daily News; Anxious Audience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-01105-3_5

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781137011053

DOI: 10.1057/9781137011053_5

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().