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There is much talk from Beijing about how the island has been part of China since time immemorial. The reality is more complicated
The American sinologist Lucian Pye that China is a “civilisation pretending to be a nation-state”. But it is precisely the opposite: China is a modern nation-state that pretends to be an ancient civilisation – when it suits its expansionist ambitions.
Nowhere is this clearer than it the way it talks about Taiwan, which it claims has been part of China since time immemorial. The government recently published a – released in the context of unprecedented live-fire drills aimed at intimidating Taiwan after Nancy Pelosi’s visit – which begins by referencing the dispatching of troops to Taiwan by the Sui Dynasty (581–618). Chinese territorial claims over Taiwan often cite the history of the Ming dynasty warlord Koxinga, who made Taiwan his base of operations during his short-lived Kingdom of Tungning (1661-1683), or Taiwan’s formal incorporation into the Qing dynasty as a province in 1887.
Brian Hioe is one of the founding editors of New Bloom Magazine, an online magazine covering activism and youth politics in Taiwan and Asia Pacific
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