China's National Identity:A Source of Conflict between Democracy and State Nationalism

Abstract

China faces a number of pressing problems that concern national identity. At the heart of these problems is the contested issue of nationhood. Chinese authorities confront separatism and resistance to national reunification. Sections of the national population do not identify with the Chinese nationstate in which they live, and endeavor to create their own political identity through reconstructing a distinctive cultural and ethnic identity. The Tibetan people and their efforts to rebuild Tibetan cultural and ethnic identity are one clear example. In Taiwan, where the people’s voices are expressed through an elected government, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government and some members of the Nationalist opposition Kuomintang (KMT) refuse Taiwan’s reunification with the People’s Republic of China, which recognizes the island state as a renegade province that should be incorporated formally within the Chinese nation.