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Divergent Popular Support for theDPP and the Taiwan IndependenceMovement, 2000–2012Dongtao QiPublished online: 20 Jul 2012.

To cite this article: Dongtao Qi (2012) Divergent Popular Support for the DPP and the TaiwanIndependence Movement, 2000–2012, Journal of Contemporary China, 21:78, 973-991, DOI:10.1080/10670564.2012.701035

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Divergent Popular Support for the DPPand the Taiwan IndependenceMovement, 2000–2012DONGTAO QI*

Mainstream views in China tend to believe that lower popular support for the DPP shown in

the 2008 presidential election indicates parallel declining support for the Taiwan

Independence Movement (TIM). However, this study shows that during the DPP

administration of 2000–2008, popular support for the DPP and the TIM has become

divergent: at the aggregate level, popular support for the DPP has generally declined since

2000, but that for the TIM has actually increased and then remained stable; at the individual

level, Taiwanese people’s dissatisfaction with the DPP administration significantly reduced

their support for the DPP in 2008, but had no independent effect on their nationalist

sentiment. Further analysis of the TIM’s support base shows that the supposedly pro-status-

quo pan-blue camp actually provided an increasing number of Taiwanese nationalists, which

stabilized popular Taiwanese nationalism and weakened the DPP’s monopoly of it.

Introduction

On 22 March 2008, Taiwan, an island about 100 miles off the coast of China,received global attention—not only for its extremely competitive and contentiouspresidential election that day, but also for the repeated warnings from the Chinesegovernment provoked by the pro-Taiwan’s UN membership referendum the sameday.1 Since the largest pro-independence political party in Taiwan, the Democratic

*Dongtao Qi is a Research Fellow at the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore. He received hisPh.D. in Sociology from Stanford University. His research interests cover mainland China and Taiwan with a focus onsocial movements, nationalism, and state–society relations. His publications have appeared in International Journalof China Studies, East Asian Policy, and Rural China Review (Chinese version). He has also co-edited a Chinese bookState of Rural China: Peasants, Agriculture and Rural Society in the Reform Era (Hong Kong: Tide TimePublishing). He is now working with colleagues on a Chinese higher education reform project and revising hisdissertation chapters for journal publication. He would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for theirvaluable comments on the drafts of this paper. The author can be reached by email at eaiqd@nus.edu.sg

1. ‘Yang Jiechi: Taiwan Ruliangongtou Yanzhong Weihai Taihai Heping’ [‘Yang Jiechi: Taiwan’s referendumfor UN membership jeopardizes cross-Strait peace greatly’], Renmin Net, Haixia Liangan, Shetai Xinwen [PeopleNet, Cross-Strait, Taiwan News ], (1 August 2007), available at: http://tw.people.com.cn/GB/14810/6054313.html(accessed 11 November 2009); ‘Beijing: Taiwan Ruliangongtou Shi Tingerzouxian’ [‘Beijing: Taiwan’s referendumfor UN membership is highly risky’], BBC Chinese.Com, (2 February 2008), available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/trad/hi/newsid_7220000/newsid_7224300/7224319.stm (accessed 11 November 2009).

Journal of Contemporary China (2012), 21(78), November, 973–991

ISSN 1067-0564 print/ 1469-9400 online/12/780973–19 q 2012 Taylor & Francishttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2012.701035

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Progressive Party (hereafter, the DPP), won the presidential elections in 2000 and2004, its support base had expanded greatly, emboldening the DPP to radicalize itspro-independence stance and to overtly confront pressures from both the Chinesegovernment and the international community. However, the DPP failed dismally inboth the presidential election and the referendum, which removed the possibility ofan immediate military conflict between mainland China and Taiwan withthe possible involvement of other world powers such as the US and Japan.2 Becausethe DPP had also been defeated badly by the former ruling party, the KMT (ChineseNationalist Party, i.e. Kuomintang), in the legislative election two months prior tothe presidential election, the KMT has returned to power with stronger popular andparliamentary support since 2008.The DPP, that sprung from the democracy and nationalism movements and

developed into a strong opposition party in 1986, finally terminated the KMT’s 55-year one-party regime in Taiwan through the popular presidential election in 2000.For many Taiwanese, the DPP shouldered their long-term expectation for a new,clean, and efficient government as opposed to the old, corrupt, and highlybureaucratic KMT government. For democracy scholars, Taiwan’s peaceful regimechange in 2000 represented one of the role models among the third-wavedemocracies that may be followed by other authoritarian states, especially bythe country on the other side of the Taiwan Strait—mainland China. Moreover, in the2004 presidential election, the DPP successfully maintained its power with 50.1% ofthe votes, a 10.8% increase from 39.3% in the 2000 presidential election, which madethe DPP even more promising as a pro-democracy and pro-independenceadministration. However, four years later, in 2008, the DPP received only 41.6%of the votes, an 8.5% drop from the 2004 election.The dramatically declining popular support for the DPP not only troubled the

DPP’s disappointed supporters in Taiwan and abroad, but also became a hot topicamong a number of scholars and officials in China and the US. During 2000–2008,the DPP administration’s dual pro-democracy and pro-independence images and itschanging nationalism strategies exerted a significant impact on the stability of thetriangular relations among Taiwan, China and the US. For example, the DPPadministration’s pro-democracy image was downplayed and often repressed by theChinese government in mainland China. On the other hand, its pro-independenceimage and strategy were relentlessly attacked by the Chinese government, which hasactually provided the Chinese government with good opportunities to mobilizenationalist sentiment in both China and overseas Chinese communities. In contrast,the US government praised the DPP administration’s pro-democracy image and evenurged China to follow it.3 On the other hand, the radical pro-independence image ofthe later DPP administration also troubled the US government because the USgovernment has long believed that maintaining the status quo between Taiwan andmainland China best serves its national interests. Not surprisingly, the US foreign

2. See Taiwan Relations Act (US Congress, 1979) and The New US–Japan Defense Guidelines in 2005 fordetails, and also see ‘US carriers sent toward Taiwan before election’, Reuters, (19 March 2008), available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN1934158120080319 (accessed 11 November 2009).

3. For example, see Eric Johnston, ‘Be more like Taiwan, Bush urges Beijing’, The Guardian, (17 November2005), available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/nov/17/usa.china (accessed 11 November 2009).

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policies toward the DPP administration became one of the most controversial issuesbetween the Chinese and US governments during 2000–2008. Therefore, thedeclining popular support for the DPP, indicated by its unprecedented electoraldefeats in 2008, was surely welcomed by the Chinese government, but might haveconcerned the US government. It is important for both governments and the KMTadministration to comprehensively understand the implications of this lower supportfor the DPP in Taiwan.Some mainstream views in China tend to believe that lower support for the DPP

indicated parallel declining support for the Taiwan Independence Movement(hereafter, the TIM).4 This seems to be a logical interpretation, because the DPP hasbeen the leading force for the TIM since its foundation in 1986. For the Chinesegovernment and the general public in mainland China, the DPP and the TIM seem tobe two heavily overlapping or even identical political forces. Therefore, lowersupport for the DPP should indicate parallel decreasing support for the TIM, and viceversa. However, with examinations at both the aggregate and the individual levels,this paper proposes that since 2000 the DPP and the TIM have experienced divergenttrends in terms of popular support, and particularly, it is misleading to use the lowersupport for the DPP to conclude parallel declining support for the TIM.Abetter understandingofdivergent popular support for theDPPand theTIMcanhelp

clarify the relations between the DPP administration as a state power and the TIM as asocial and politicalmovement. It will also help theChinese,KMT, andUSgovernmentsto better understand the Taiwanese people’s rising nationalist sentiment and theirchanging party support. As a result of this better understanding, appropriate policiesmay be developed to avoid future conflict among the three major powers—Taiwan,mainland China, and the US—involved in the so-called cross-Strait issues.In the following sections, first I briefly review the history of the TIM, the DPP, and

current party politics in Taiwan, then use survey data to examine, at both theaggregate and the individual levels, whether the findings support the statement aboutthe parallel declining popular support for the DPP and the TIM, and finally, discussthe implications of the divergent popular support for these two political forces inTaiwan.

Brief history of the Taiwan Independence Movement, the DPP and Taiwan’sparty politics

The political history of Taiwan since it reverted to the KMT government in 1945 wasa process of struggle between Taiwan’s opposition forces and the KMT authoritarian

4. For example, see Li Jiaquan, ‘Li Jiaquan Fenxi Minjindang Xuanju Baiyin: “Taidu” Bu De Renxin’ [‘LiJiaquan analyzes the reasons for the DPP’s defeat in legislative election: “Taiwan independence” loses publicsupport’], Chinese News Net, (16 January 2008), available at: http://www.chinanews.com.cn/tw/kong/news/2008/01-16/1135213.shtml (accessed 11 November 2009); Xie Yu et al., ‘Minjindang Zhizheng Shiqi Daonei “Taidu”Huodong Jianlun’ [‘A brief review of the Taiwan Independence Movement under the DPP regime’], official websiteof Institute of Taiwan Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Science, (30 December 2008), available at: http://www.cassits.cn/ztk/news_0003.html (accessed 11 November 2009); ‘Guotaiban Fayanren: Gao “Taidu” Bu De Renxin,Qipan Wei Liangan Heping Fazhan Gongtong Nuli’ [‘Taiwan Affairs Office of State Council spokesman: pursuing“Taiwan independence” loses public support, expecting to work together for the peaceful development across TaiwanStrait’], Renmin Net, Haixia Liangan [People Net, Cross-Strait ], (23 March 2008), available at: http://tw.people.com.cn/GB/7033208.html (accessed 11 November 2009).

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regime. As a result of this process, Taiwan gradually transformed from anauthoritarian to a democratic regime. Generally, the history of this politicaltransformation may be divided into five stages with a different president at eachstage: (1) the ‘hard authoritarian regime’ or the period of ‘white terror’ dictated byChiang Kai-shek, the long-term leader of the KMT, in 1945–1975; (2) the ‘softauthoritarian regime’ or the period of localization governed by Chiang’s son, ChiangChing-kuo, in 1976–1988; (3) the period of further localization and democratizationunder President Lee Teng-hui, the first Taiwanese leader of the KMT and also the firstTaiwanese president elected through popular election, in 1989–2000; (4) thedemocratic and pro-independence regime under President Chen Shui-bian, the leaderof the main opposition party the DPP, in 2000–2008; and finally, (5) the democraticbut pro-status-quo regime under President Ma Ying-jeou, the new star leader of theKMT, since May 2008.

The TIM and the DPP from opposition to government, 1945–2000

A popular justification for pursuing Taiwan’s independence from mainland China isTaiwan’s unique colonial history, and as a result, its long separation from mainlandChina.5 After being Japan’s colony for 50 years from 1895 to 1945, Taiwan wasreturned to the Chinese KMT government immediately following World War II. Inearly 1947, the KMT government violently crushed down a series of island-widemass rebellions by local Taiwanese against its misgovernment,6 which forced a groupof Taiwanese elites to flee to Hong Kong and then to Japan, starting a movement forTaiwan’s independence. In 1949, the KMT was defeated by the Chinese CommunistParty (hereafter, the CCP) in the Chinese civil war and fled to Taiwan. The KMTestablished an authoritarian regime in Taiwan that relentlessly repressed any pro-independence activities. Therefore, the TIM developed in regions outside Taiwanbefore the 1980s.The movement first thrived in Japan, and then in the US, aiming at overthrowing

the KMT regime through revolutionary means until the early 1990s, when themovement abandoned its revolutionary strategies and finally returned to Taiwan tojoin the democracy/opposition movement on the island.7 Because the KMTgovernment opened its local elections in 1950,8 the opposition movement has beenable to develop through various electoral and social movement activities. In the late1970s, all kinds of opposition forces, including those pro-democracy, pro-independence, pro-socialism (i.e. leftists), pro-unification, and various socialmovement activists, started coalescing to fight against their common enemy, the

5. Ming Shi, Taiwan Minzu Zhuyi Yu Taiwan Duli Geming [Taiwanese Nationalism and the Revolution ofTaiwan Independence ] (Taipei: Qianwei Press, 2001); Yude Wang (O, Ikutoku), Taiwan: Kumen De Lishi [Taiwan:A Depressed History ] (Taipei: Zili Wanbao Press, Wenhua Chubanbu, 1993).

6. This is called the 2.28 Incident because the rebellion started on 28 February 1947.7. Jiahong Chen, Haiwai Taidu Yundong Shi [A History of the Overseas Taiwan Independence Movement ]

(Taipei: Qianwei Press, 1998); Zhang Yanxian et al., Taiwan Duli Yundong De Xiansheng: Taiwan Gongheguo[A Pioneer in the Taiwan Independence Movement: The Republic of Taiwan ] (Taipei: Caituanfaren Wu SanlianTaiwan Shiliao Jijinhui, 2000).

8. Yun-han Chu and Jih-wen Lin, ‘Political development in the 20th-century Taiwan: state-building, regimetransformation and the construction of national identity’, The China Quarterly 165, (2001), pp. 102–129.

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authoritarian KMT government. Nevertheless, the then unpopular pro-independencesentiment had been disguised under the democratic appeal for self-determination andhuman rights protection within the opposition movement until 1979, when theKaohsiung Incident occurred.In December 1979, the KMT government repressed a large protest organized by

the opposition movement in Kaohsiung. Almost all of the important oppositionactivists in Taiwan were arrested after the Kaohsiung Incident. However, thesubsequent trials became a unique opportunity for these activist defendants tointensively spread their pro-democracy and pro-independence ideas all over theisland, because somehow the KMT government allowed international and Taiwan’smedia to freely report the trials.9 After the trials, although most old oppositionactivists were sentenced to jail, the new activists who were the spouses and thelawyers of those arrested activists carried on the opposition movement. Since then,the pro-independence ideology and agenda has gradually become explicit, andtherefore, the domestic TIM which was different from the overseas one startedemerging within the opposition movement. When the opposition coalition finallyestablished its own political party, the DPP, in 1986, the majority of the party leadersand key members were also pro-independence activists.10

It should be noted that martial law was not lifted until 1987 and that the legalpersecution of non-violent pro-independence activities did not stop until 1992 whenthe relevant law11 was amended. Nevertheless, the pro-independence ideology andagenda gradually became the same important pillar as pro-democracy for thisillegally founded political party. In 1991, the DPP added explicit pro-independencegoals to its party platform, claiming its identity as a pro-independence party to thepublic. Around this time, the overseas TIM started returning to Taiwan to join theDPP’s pro-democracy and pro-independence movement. After 1992, the largestoverseas TIM organization, theWorld United Formosans for Independence, officiallyreturned to Taiwan.12 The two TIMs finally converged in Taiwan under theleadership of the DPP, starting a new era for the TIM.The DPP had a very practical reason for promoting the TIM—the TIM was a most

effective mobilizing instrument for expanding its support base. This is because theKMT government’s policies of ‘internal colonialism’13 justified the TIM and made itappealing to many local Taiwanese. When the KMT was defeated by the CCP in1949, it brought between one and two million mainland Chinese soldiers and ordinaryChinese to Taiwan.14 To secure its authoritarian regime, the KMT government mademost of the important and rewarding positions in the state system, such as those in the

9. Jiahong Chen, Taiwan Duli Yundong Shi [History of the Taiwan Independence Movement ] (Taipei: YushanPress, 2006).

10. Ibid.11. Article 100 in the Criminal Law on the Crime of Insurrection.12. Lin Mingxian, ‘A chronicle of WUFI’, WUFI Website, (11 June 2003), available at: http://www.wufi.org.tw/

wufi/wufievnt.htm (accessed 11 November 2009).13. Michael Hechter, Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development (New Brunswick,

NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1999); Susan Olzak, ‘Ethnic and nationalist social movements’, in Sarah A. Soule, DavidA. Snow and Hanspeter Kriesi, eds, The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers,2004), pp. 666–693.

14. Melissa J. Brown, Is Taiwan Chinese? The Impact of Culture, Power, and Migration on Changing Identities(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004), p. 9.

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systems of the military, government, education and state-owned enterprises,available only to mainlanders. Consequently, a ‘cultural division of labor’15 emergedin Taiwan soon after 1949, discriminating and disadvantaging local Taiwanese. In herbook Is Taiwan Chinese?, Brown summarizes other scholars’ findings on this issue:

‘Taiwanese’, for example, were largely (but not entirely) excluded from political powerand national corporations in Taiwan during the period of martial law, and ‘Mainlanders’,in turn, were largely (but not entirely) excluded from small and medium-sized businessesowned and operated by Taiwanese.16

From the point of view of many local Taiwanese, the KMT governed Taiwan in thesame way as the former Japanese colonizer, or even in a worse way. Therefore, manybelieved that the independence movement was justified in overthrowing this new‘colonizer’ and liberating the local Taiwanese from the authoritarian regime ofinternal colonialism.17

Chiang Ching-kuo’s ‘soft’ authoritarian regime was handed over to Lee Teng-huiafter he died in 1988, which began a new era for Taiwan’s localization,democratization, and the independence movement. Lee, the first Taiwanesepresident, was a skillful and sophisticated politician with conflicting faces, andinfluenced Taiwan’s political transformation profoundly. He was called‘Mr Democracy’ by many of his supporters for his gradual reforms of localizationand democratization in Taiwan.18 Meanwhile, he was hated by many mainlanders inTaiwan and called ‘a KMT traitor’ for his implicit support for the DPP and the TIMwhen he served as president and the KMT’s top leader. On the other hand, he was alsoblamed by the DPP for his government officials’ involvement in ‘black-gold’corruptions (i.e. corruptions involving mafia, money, and politicians) during hispresidency. Not surprisingly, the Chinese government labeled him ‘the nation’straitor’ and ‘troublemaker’ and believed he had used state power to promoteTaiwan’s independence when he defined Taiwan and China as having a ‘special state-to-state’ relation in 1999.19

For the DPP and the TIM, Lee was both a friend and an enemy before 2000. Ingeneral, many of Lee’s reforms met or sometimes were even beyond the DPP’sdemands on democratization and pro-independence issues. On the other hand, theDPP’s political resources associated with these two appeals had also been skimmedaway by the KMT government’s reforming progress under Lee’s leadership.In other words, since Lee’s government had become more and more democratic and

15. Hechter, Internal Colonialism; Olzak, ‘Ethnic and nationalist social movements’.16. Brown, Is Taiwan Chinese?, p. 10.17. Xinhuang Xiao, Xin Taiwanren De Xin: Guojia Rentong De Xintuxiang [Minds of New Taiwanese: The New

Images of National Identities ] (Taipei: Yuedan Press, 1999); Qiao Li, ‘Preface: Taiwan culture’s engineer’, inWanshou Zhuang, Taiwan Wenhua Lun: Zhutixing Zhi Jiangou [Theories of Taiwan Culture: Construction of TaiwanSubjectivity ] (Taipei: Yushan Press, 2003).

18. ‘Chen Shui-bian Baihui Lee Teng-hui’ [‘Chen Shui-bian met with Lee Teng-hui’], BBC Chinese.Com,(30 March 2000), available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/chinese/news/newsid_695000/6957441.stm (accessed 11November 2009).

19. ‘Lee Teng-hui Buyao Wanhuo’ [‘Lee Teng-hui, don’t play with fire’], Taiwan Affairs Office of State Council,Strait Forum, (15 July 1999), available at: http://www.gwytb.gov.cn/hxlt/hxlt0.asp?offset ¼ 400&hxlt_m_id ¼ 218(accessed 11 November 2009); for a more detailed summary of Lee’s pro-independence activities, see Chien-KaiChen, ‘Comparing Jiang Zemin’s impatience with Hu Jintao’s patience regarding the Taiwan issue, 1989–2012’,Journal of Contemporary China 21(78), (November 2012), DOI 10.1080/10670564.2012.701034.

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pro-independence, there seemed to be less and less space for the DPP to exploit inTaiwan’s politics. However, in the 2000 presidential election, the severe split withinthe KMT between the two groups of presidential candidates led to an unexpectedvictory for the DPP with only 39.3% of the votes. After 55 years of one-party regime,Taiwan finally achieved peaceful regime change with a new president from the DPP,Chen Shui-bian.

An unpopular nationalist administration but rising nationalist sentiment in Taiwan,2000–2008

The new DPP administration was a typical minority government—its president wasa ‘minority president’ with less than 40% popular support and the DPP was theminority party in the Legislative Yuan. The international community, especiallyChina and the US, together with the new opposition party KMT, worried about theDPP administration’s quick move toward Taiwan’s complete (de jure) independenceand imposed huge pressure on the new administration. Therefore, it was notsurprising to see that the new President Chen Shui-bian adopted a series ofcompromising strategies trying to pacify and co-opt various oppositions at thebeginning of his presidency.20 For example, he promised ‘four noes and onewithout’21 in his inauguration speech and appointed the KMT’s former defenseminister as his Premier.However, all these efforts did not stop constant conflicts between the government

and the opposition party—now it was the KMT’s turn to be the opposition. The DPPadministration and the KMT fought each other in almost every policy arena. Inaddition, as an inexperienced administration, the DPP’s incompetence in mendingTaiwan’s economy received severe public criticism. Social movement activists alsostarted criticizing the DPP administration for its quickly reversed position favoringricher and privileged groups. Even worse, the media exposed more and morecorruption scandals involving some of Chen’s high-level officials. In the eyes of thepublic, this young and highly anticipated administration seemed quicklyKMTized—itbecame more and more like its enemy, the former ruling KMT, in many respects.On the other hand, the TIM, which became a state sponsored nationalism movement

from 2000, has developed substantially. The most obvious indication of thisdevelopment was that a large group of pro-independence activists were assigned tokey positions in the state system, such as military, governmental, educational, and stateenterprise systems previously dominated by pro-unificationmainlanders. Consequently,the TIMwas able to control a large amount ofmilitary, political, economic, educational,and cultural resources which might be utilized for their pro-independence purposes.

20. Zhuoshui Lin, Gong Tong Ti: Shijie Tuxiang Xia De Taiwan [Community: Taiwan in the Global Context ](Xin Dian: Zuoan Wenhua, 2006).

21. Chen declared that ‘as long as the CCP regime has no intention to use military force against Taiwan, I pledgethat during my term in office, I will not declare independence, I will not change the national title, I will not push forththe inclusion of the so-called “state-to-state” description in the Constitution, and I will not promote a referendum tochange the status quo in regards to the question of independence or unification. Furthermore, the abolition of theNational Reunification Council or the National Reunification Guidelines will not be an issue’. See ‘President Chen’s520 inaugural speech: Taiwan stands up: advancing to an uplifting era (excerpt)’,Mainland Affairs Council Website,available at: http://www.mac.gov.tw/english/english/macpolicy/cb0520e.htm (accessed 11 November 2009).

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Furthermore, theDPP’smembership increased significantly from a little over 200,000 in1999 to over 370,000 in 2000, an increase of over 170,000 people in one year,22 whichwas a strong signal of the TIM’s significant development. Additionally, increasingnumbers of pro-independence organizations were established and received varioussupport from the DPP administration. Most importantly, the public has shown strongerpro-independence sentiment since 2000. Gradually, ‘pro-China’ activities have becomepolitically incorrect and none of the politicians like to receive such condemnation fromtheir political rivals. According to the social movement scholar Tarrow,23 all thesechanges signal the significant growth of a movement. In 2002, seeing the failure of hisconcession strategy and the rising popular pro-independence sentiment in Taiwan,President Chen Shui-bian and the DPP changed their mild stance on pro-independenceissues to become much more confrontational. In 2004, Chen Shui-bian won thepresidential election again with much higher popular support than four years earlier.The DPP administration at the beginning of its second term was much stronger,

with improved popular support and an increased number of seats in the LegislativeYuan. However, its performance in managing the economy and anti-corruption wasnot improved as expected. The fatal hit to the administration came from the family ofits own President Chen—his wife, son-in-law and even the president himself wereaccused of corruption in 2006, which triggered large-scale anti-president protests allover the island. For this troubled administration, it seemed that the TIM was its lastresort to prevent the support base from drifting away. Relying on its dominantposition in the TIM, the DPP administration pushed the confrontational nationalismstrategy to be more radical in its fight against the KMT and to consolidate its coresupport base. However, the radical strategy failed to secure the DPP’s popularsupport. In the legislative and presidential elections in January and March 2008, theDPP encountered the worst electoral defeats in its history.24 As a result, the eight-year pro-independence regime ended in May 2008, and the KMT returned to officeand promised a regime of ‘no unification, no independence, and no use of force’.25

In January 2012, the incumbent president Ma Ying-jeou won re-election. Because ingeneral the KMT has been viewed as a party of anti-independence and pro-ultimate-unification, Ma’s re-election might reinforce the general impression of a continuouslydeclining Taiwanese nationalism since 2008.

Aggregate level examination: declining support for the DPP, but not for the TIM

To examine whether lower popular support for the DPP indicates parallel decliningsupport for the TIM, first we need to define the indicators of popular support for thetwo political forces. Fortunately, some surveys conducted in Taiwan provide three

22. Data collected from the DPP’s official website, available at: http://www.dpp.org.tw/history.php?sub_menu ¼ 91 (accessed 11 November 2009).

23. Sidney G. Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics (Cambridge and NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

24. For a more detailed review of the DPP administration’s unpopularity, see John F. Copper, ‘The devolution ofTaiwan’s democracy during the Chen Shui-bian era’, Journal of Contemporary China 18(60), (2009), pp. 463–478.

25. ‘Transcript of May 21, 2008 presidential press conference’, News Release, Office of the President, ROC(Taiwan), (21 May 2008), available at: http://english.president.gov.tw/Default.aspx?tabid ¼ 491&itemid ¼ 19205&rmid ¼ 2355 (accessed 3 August 2010).

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such indicators: individuals’ identification with the DPP (i.e. party identification orparty ID), their Taiwanese self-identity and their pro-independence attitude. The dataon these indicators have been collected through the following three questions in avariety of surveys in Taiwan since the early 1990s:

(1) The question about party ID: which political party do you feel identifiedwith—the DPP, the KMT . . . ? Please note this is not asking about partymembership—the number of people identified with a party is usually much morethan the party’s membership.

(2) The question about national identity: do you consider yourself to be Taiwaneseonly, Chinese only, or both Taiwanese and Chinese?

(3) The question about attitude toward Taiwan’s independence: what is your opinionabout Taiwan’s future relation with mainland China, that is, are you pro-independence or pro-unification or pro-status-quo?

It is not difficult to see that the percentage of people holding DPP party ID indicates thelevel of popular support for the DPP. Regarding the other two indicators of Taiwaneseidentity and pro-independence attitudes, it is reasonable to relate them to popular supportfor the TIM. The pro-independence attitude seems to most apparently indicate popularsupport for the TIM, although this indicator is also believed to be an ‘repressed opinion’,which means many Taiwanese do not express their pro-independence attitude in thesesurveys because they realize the huge costs or impossibility of Taiwan’s completeindependence from China—China will definitely attack and defeat Taiwan if Taiwanclaims de jure independence. When asking the Taiwanese people a hypotheticalquestion, trying to remove the effect of the threat of war on people’s opinion, such as ‘doyou agree that if after Taiwan announced its independence, it could maintain peacefulrelations with the Chinese government, then Taiwan should become an independentcountry?’, 51.5% of survey respondents answered ‘yes’ in 2003.26 The percentage ofpeople supporting Taiwan’s peaceful independence discovered by this hypotheticalquestion has always been much higher than that detected by the traditional question:‘what is your attitude about Taiwan’s future relation with mainland China: pro-independence, pro-unification or pro-status-quo?’. Therefore, the latter percentageregarding the pro-independence attitude may be viewed as a more conservativeestimation of popular support for the TIM.On the other hand, the rising Taiwanese identity has long been chosen as one of the

TIM’s most important goals by prominent TIM leaders. For example, in December2007, the previous president, Lee Teng-hui, now the ‘spiritual leader’ of the mostradical TIM party, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, expressed his deep disappointmentthat the goal of over 75% of people accepting Taiwanese identity would not beachieved in 2008.27 Therefore, the percentage of people accepting Taiwanese identitymay indicate the level of popular support for the TIM as well, at least from the pointof view of the key TIM leaders.

26. Data from Taiwan’s Election and Democratization Survey, 2003, i.e. TEDS2003.27. ‘Lee Teng-hui: Mingnian Guojia Rentong Da 75% Yijing Bukeneng’ [‘Lee Teng-hui: impossible to achieve

75% Taiwanese national identity next year’], Taiwan Solidarity Union Blog, (31 December 2007), available at: http://tsu-blog.blogspot.com/2008/01/20080109-2_11.html (accessed 11 November 2009).

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With the above three indicators, we can examine the relations between the trendsof popular support for the DPP and the TIM. Figure 1 shows the general developmenttrend of each indicator from the early 1990s to 2011.28

As Figure 1 shows, in general, a common rising trend shared by every indicatorended in 1999 and then became divergent from 2000 when the DPP took state power.Specifically, from the early 1990s through to 1999, the percentage of people withDPP party ID, Taiwanese identity, and a pro-independence attitude increased by18.1%, 21.3%, and 7.7%, respectively. In contrast, during the DPP administration of2000–2008, the DPP’s popular support, indicated by DPP party ID, lost its risingtrend after stagnation and then declined from 26% in 2000 to 20.1% in 2007. On theother hand, the rising trends have been maintained by the two pro-independenceindicators, Taiwanese identity (i.e. from 37.1% to 43.7% during 2000–2007) andpro-independence attitude (i.e. from 12.9% to 20.8% during 2000–2007). Therefore,we do not see parallel declines but divergent development in popular support for theDPP and the TIM during 2000–2008.The correlations among the percentages of people with DPP party ID, a Taiwanese

identity, and a pro-independence attitude in each half-year during the KMTadministration before 2000 and the DPP administration of 2000–2008 further confirmthis finding about divergent popular support for the DPP and the TIM since 2000.

Figure 1. Development of Taiwanese identity, DPP ID and pro-independence attitude in Taiwan:1992–2011.

Source: Election Study Center, NCCU, important political attitude trend distribution.

28. Original data for 1992–2007 in Figure 1 are collected semi-annually by different national surveys through theElection Study Center at the National Cheng-chi University (Taiwan). To make the trends more apparent, averagedannual data are used for Figure 1.

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Table 1 indicates that the correlations among the three indicators are significant,positive, and extremely large before 2000; however, as shown by Table 2, during theDPP administration of 2000–2008 the correlations between the development of DPPparty ID and that of Taiwanese identity and a pro-independence attitude become eithernegative or insignificant, whereas the correlation between development of Taiwaneseidentity and that of a pro-independence attitude is still significant, positive, and large. Inother words, the correlation change suggests that before 2000, when we saw more andmore people supporting the DPP, we also saw more and more people supporting theTIM; however, during the 2000–2007 period, when we saw less and less peoplesupporting the DPP, we did not see less and less people supporting the TIM. Instead,the support for the TIM was either stable or rising. In conclusion, at the aggregate leveland in terms of the development trend, these findings do not support the assertion thatlower popular support for the DPP indicates parallel declining support for the TIM.Figure 1 also indicates that even under the returned KMT administration since 2008,

Taiwanese nationalism has maintained its rising trend: the percentage holdingaTaiwanese identity goes up from48.4% in 2008 to 52.2% in 2011 and that of thosewitha pro-independence stance stabilizes within 20.2–23.1%. Furthermore, Table 3 showsthat during 2008–2011 the correlations between the development of DPP ID and that ofboth pro-independence indicators become insignificant. This may imply that Taiwanesenationalism, or popular support for the TIM, has remained independent of the DPP’sdevelopment since 2008.

Individual level examination: individuals’ dissatisfaction with the DPPadministration reduced their support for the DPP, but not for the TIM

The major reasoning underlying the argument of parallel decline in support for theDPP and the TIM is that individuals’ dissatisfaction with the DPP administration will

Table 1. Pearson correlations between the three popular support indicators: 1992–1999, KMTadministration

Taiwanese identity (%) Pro-independence attitude (%)

DPP ID (%) 0.95** (n ¼ 12) 0.90** (n ¼ 10)Taiwanese identity (%) 1 0.92** (n ¼ 10)

Table 2. Pearson correlations between the three popular support indicators: 2000–2007, DPPadministration

Taiwanese identity (%) Pro-independence attitude (%)

DPP ID (%) 20.66** (n ¼ 16) 20.49 (n ¼ 16)Taiwanese identity (%) 1 0.70** (n ¼ 16)

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reduce their support for not only the DPP itself, but also for the TIM led by the DPP. Ifthis argument is valid, the following hypothesis should be supported by evidence:

H1, People who are dissatisfied with the DPP administration are less likely than those

who are satisfied to hold the DPP party ID, a Taiwanese identity, and a pro-independence

attitude. In other words, people’s dissatisfaction with the DPP administration will reduce

their support for both the DPP and the TIM.

However, if the following competing hypothesis is supported by evidence, we mayreject the assertion about the parallel declines in the support for theDPP and the TIMatthe individual level:

H2, While people who are dissatisfied with the DPP administration are less likely than

those who are satisfied to hold the DPP party ID, they are NOT less likely than those who

are satisfied to hold a Taiwanese identity and a pro-independence attitude. In other words,

while people’s dissatisfaction with the DPP administration will reduce their support for

the DPP, it will not reduce their support for the TIM.

The dataset used to examine the above two hypotheses was collected throughTEDS2008L-T which was conducted about two or three months before the 2008presidential election.29 The survey collected data on each respondent’s basic socialdemographic background, political participation, knowledge about the 2008legislative election, positions on various issues, and party ID.In the following regressions, the dependent variables are the three indicators of

popular support—party ID, national identity, and attitude about Taiwan’sindependence, all of which are recoded as polytomous variables with threecategories in each variable.The three categories in the party ID variable are: the pan-green party ID including

the DPP party ID and the TSU party ID (i.e. the Taiwan Solidarity Union which is the

Table 3. Pearson correlations between the three popular support indicators: 2008–2011, KMTadministration

Taiwanese identity (%) Pro-independence attitude (%)

DPP ID (%) 0.52 (n ¼ 4) 20.12 (n ¼ 4)Taiwanese identity (%) 1 20.60 (n ¼ 4)

Notes: ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed); original semi-annual percentages are usedto calculate the correlations in Tables 1 and 2; annual percentages are used to calculate the correlationsin Table 3.Source: Election Study Center, NCCU, Important Political Attitude Trend Distribution.

29. Data analyzed in this section were from ‘Taiwan’s Election and Democratization Studies, 2008: TelephoneInterview of the 2008 Legislative Elections’ (TEDS2008L-T) (NSC 96-2420-H-002-025). The coordinator of themulti-year project TEDS is Professor Chi Huang (National Chengchi University). TEDS2008L-T is a project on thelegislative election in 2008. The principal investigator is Professor Yun-han Chu. More information is available onthe TEDS website (http://www.tedsnet.org). The author appreciates the assistance with the provision of data from theinstitute and individuals aforementioned. The author alone is responsible for views expressed herein.

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most radical pro-independence party and the DPP’s ally),30 the neutral (i.e. no partypreference), and the pan-blue party ID including people identified with the KMT, thePeople First Party, and the New Party. In the followingmodels, the interested categoryof party ID is the pan-green party ID. The other two categories, the neutral and thepan-blue party ID, are chosen to be the reference categories in two different models.The national identity variable includes three categories of self-identity: Taiwanese

identity, dual identity (i.e. self-identified as both Chinese and Taiwanese), andChinese identity. The Taiwanese identity is the category of interest. The recodedvariable of attitude concerning Taiwan’s independence includes three categories:pro-independence, pro-status-quo, and pro-unification. The pro-independenceattitude is the category of interest.The independent variable of interest is recoded as a dichotomous opinion about the

DPP administration’s performance—satisfied or dissatisfied. We want to examinewhether individuals’ opinion about the DPP administration’s performance issignificantly correlated with their party ID, national identity, and attitude aboutTaiwan’s independence. ‘Satisfied’ is chosen to be the reference category.The control variables in the models include social demographic variables such as

ethnicity, gender, cohort, and education. Additionally, when one of the above threeindicators of popular support is selected to be the dependent variable, the other twoare also included in the same model as control variables to make the model morerigorous. Table 4 provides the sample means of all the above discussed variables.Because the dependent variables are polytomous outcome variables, a group of

multinomial logistic models is used in the analysis. These models can show us, aftercontrolling for all the above control variables, whether individuals’ dissatisfactionhas a significant and independent effect on their party ID, national identity, andattitude about Taiwan’s independence. For example, the multinomial logistic modelof party ID can show us, after controlling for ethnicity, gender, cohort, education,individuals’ national identity, and their attitude about Taiwan’s independence,whether those dissatisfied with the DPP administration are less likely than those whowere satisfied to have the DPP party ID.To clarify the potential confounding effect between the ‘dissatisfaction’ variable

and the other two variables of popular support, I use two-level nested multinomiallogistic models in the analysis. The starting model (i.e. the constrained model)includes the ‘dissatisfaction’ variable and all of the social demographic controlvariables—ethnicity, gender, cohort, and education. The full model adds the othertwo variables of popular support, both of which are attitudinal variables and differentin nature from the social demographic variables.As the constrained models A1 and B1 in Table 5 show, people who are dissatisfied

with the DPP administration are indeed less likely to have the DPP party ID, that is,less likely to support the DPP. The full models A2 and B2 in Table 5 show that addingthe other two attitudinal variables—national identity and attitude about Taiwan’s

30. The analysis does not treat the TSU ID as a separate party ID from the DPP party ID, because (1) thepercentage of the TSU ID is only 1.8% and that of the DPP party ID is 19%, therefore, the combination of the twoparty IDs will not change the attributes of the DPP party ID holders substantially; (2) the nature of the two IDs arevery close, because TSU ID holders usually vote for the DPP’s candidate in the presidential elections when the TSU,without its own candidates, supports the DPP completely.

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independence—into the models does not reduce the significance level of the

correlation between individuals’ dissatisfaction and their support for the DPP. In

other words, individuals’ dissatisfaction with the DPP administration indeed reduces

their support for the DPP.Does individuals’ dissatisfaction with the DPP administration also reduce their

support for the TIM? Tables 6 and 7 both give a negative answer. As shown by the

Table 4. Sample means of the variables used in the analysis

Variables Mean

Dependent Variables

Party ID: ‘Which political party do you feelidentified with?’

1. Pan-green parties: DPP and TSU 0.212. Neutral 0.333. Pan-blue parties: KMT, PFP, and NP 0.43

National identity: ‘Do you consider yourself to be Taiwanese, Chinese, or both?’1. Taiwanese 0.412. Chinese 0.063. Both 0.46

Attitude about Taiwan’s independence: ‘What’s your opinion about Taiwan’sfuture relation with mainland China?’

1. Pro-independence 0.182. Pro-status quo 0.57

3. Pro-unification 0.13

Independent Variables

Opinion about DPP administration’s performance1. Dissatisfied 0.712. Satisfied (ref.) 0.14

Ethnicity1. Mainlander 0.132. Hakka 0.133. Hoklo (ref.) 0.70

Gender1. Male 0.482. Female(ref.) 0.52

Cohort1. Older (born in or before 1942) 0.082. Middle (born during 1943–1960) 0.273. Younger (born in or after 1961) (ref.) 0.65

Education1. Higher (college or above) 0.472. Middle (senior high or vocational) 0.303. Lower (junior high or below) (ref.) 0.21

Source: TEDS2008L-T, N ¼ 1,514.

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two tables, although the effect of individuals’ dissatisfaction is significant in theconstrained models, it is not significant in the full models. This means individuals’dissatisfaction with the DPP administration has no independent effect on theirnational identity or their attitude about Taiwan’s independence (i.e. their support forthe TIM). In summary, individuals’ support for the TIM is not negatively influencedby their dissatisfaction with the DPP administration, while their support for the DPPis. The results of the regressions support the second hypothesis. In conclusion, theassertion that the lower support for the DPP administration indicates paralleldecreasing support for the TIM is not supported at the individual level either.

Table 5. Nested multinomial logistic regressions of party ID, 2008

(A) (B)DPP ID vs.Neutral ID

DPP ID vs. Pan-blueparty ID

Model A1 Model A2 Model B1 Model B2Independent variables Coef. Coef. Coef. Coef.

EthnicityMainlander 21.039* 20.828† 22.045*** 21.700***Hakka 20.533† 20.563 21.260*** 21.176***Hoklo (ref.)

GenderMale 0.270 0.325 0.269 0.317Female(ref.)

CohortOlder (born in or before 1942) 0.233 0.427 20.370 20.375Middle (born during 1943–1960) 0.550* 0.447† 0.045 20.017Younger (born in or after 1961) (ref.)

EducationHigher (college or above) 0.491† 0.269 0.087 0.400Middle (senior high or vocational) 0.262 20.006 0.076 0.278Lower (junior high or below) (ref.)

Opinion about DPP administration’sperformance

Dissatisfied 2 1.838*** 2 1.710*** 2 3.164*** 2 2.706***Satisfied (ref.)

Attitude about Taiwan’s independencePro-unification 20.738† 22.301***Pro-status quo 21.035*** 21.899***Pro-independence (ref.)

National identityChinese 21.469* 22.252***Both Taiwanese & Chinese 20.809*** 21.906***Taiwanese (ref.)

Intercept 21.219*** 0.099 21.198*** 1.170**22LL 378.335*** 702.671*** 378.335*** 702.671***N 1,190 1,066 1,190 1,066

Notes: TEDS2008L-T. † p# 0.1, * p# 0.05, ** p# 0.01, *** p# 0.001.

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The changing party composition of the TIM’s support base and the DPP’sweakened monopoly on Taiwanese nationalism

How to interpret the divergent popular support for the DPP and the TIM during theDPP’s two administrative terms of 2000–2008? The direct but superficialinterpretation is that popular support for the TIM did not transform to popularsupport for the DPP. In other words, more and more Taiwanese people started to viewthe TIM and the DPP as two different political forces, and therefore, showed differentlevels of support for them. A further speculation is that the DPP’s monopoly of theTIM has been weakened as the KMT started to show its stronger identification with

Table 6. Nested multinomial logistic regressions of national identity, 2008

(A) (B)Taiwanese vs. Dual Identity Taiwanese vs. Chinese

Model A1 Model A2 Model B1 Model B2Independent variables Coef. Coef. Coef. Coef.

EthnicityMainlander 20.677*** 20.074 21.536*** 20.893**Hakka 20.508** 20.096 20.321 0.375Hoklo (ref.)

GenderMale 20.007 20.246 20.332 20.421Female (ref.)

CohortOlder (born in or before 1942) 20.090 20.262 21.228** 21.511**Middle (born during 1943 2 1960) 0.223 0.218 20.630* 20.695*Younger (born in or after 1961) (ref.)

EducationHigher (college or above) 20.674*** 20.637* 20.113 20.016Middle (senior high or vocational) 20.638** 20.672** 20.139 20.215Lower (junior high or below) (ref.)

Opinion about DPP admin.’sperformance

Dissatisfied 2 1.373*** 2 0.425† 2 2.616*** 2 1.273Satisfied (ref.)

Attitude about Taiwan’s independencePro-unification 21.850*** 22.478***Pro-status quo 21.602*** 21.282*Pro-independence (ref.)

Party IDDPP ID 21.901*** 22.329***Neutral ID 20.796*** 21.576*Pan-blue party ID (ref.)

Intercept 0.262 2.804*** 2.480*** 5.396***22LL 392.809*** 694.361*** 392.809*** 694.361***N 1,160 1,066 1,160 1,066

Notes: TEDS2008L-T. † p# 0.1, * p# 0.05, ** p# 0.01, *** p# 0.001.

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Taiwanese nationalism since 2000. Analysis of the party ID composition in the TIM’ssupport base since 2000 provides evidence for this speculation.Following the previous discussion, we define the TIM’s support base as the

people who either have a pro-independence attitude or have a Taiwanese identity.Table 8 shows the party ID composition in the TIM’s support base in 2000, 2004,and 2008.31

Table 7. Nested multinomial logistic regressions of attitude about Taiwan’s independence, 2008

(A) (B)Pro-independence vs.

Pro-status quoPro-independence vs.

Pro-unification

Model A1 Model A2 Model B1 Model B2Independent variables Coef. Coef. Coef. Coef.

EthnicityMainlander 20.863** 20.277 21.590*** 20.736†Hakka 20.418 0.080 20.948** 20.423Hoklo (ref.)

GenderMale 0.060 0.126 0.099 0.228Female (ref.)

CohortOlder (born in or before 1942) 0.297 0.406 0.752 1.063†Middle (born during 1943–1960) 0.130 0.049 0.300 0.284Younger (born in or after 1961) (ref.)

EducationHigher (college or above) 20.382 20.330 20.392 20.425Middle (senior high or vocational) 20.303 20.211 20.314 20.308Lower (junior high or below) (ref.)

Opinion about DPP administration’sperformance

Dissatisfied 2 1.480*** 2 0.303 2 0.319*** 2 0.192Satisfied (ref.)

National identityChinese 21.349* 22.499***Both Taiwanese & Chinese 21.595*** 21.846***Taiwanese (ref.)

Party IDDPP ID 21.947*** 22.352***Neutral ID 21.038*** 20.745Pan-blue party ID (ref.)

Intercept 21.122 0.584 0.459 2.620***22LL 385.614*** 720.036*** 385.614*** 720.036***N 1,128 1,066 1,128 1,066

Notes: TEDS2008L-T. † p# 0.1, * p# 0.05, ** p# 0.01, *** p# 0.001.

31. Data analyzed in this section were taken from: (1) An Interdisciplinary Study of Voting Behavior in thePresidential Election in 2000 (NSC 89-2414-H-004-021-SSS). Principal Investigator: Professor Yih-yan Chen,Executive Institution: the Election Study Center, National Cheng-Chi University; (2) Taiwan’s Election and

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First of all, Table 8 shows that the TIM’s overall support base increased from 45%of the population in 2000 to 52% in 2004 and then remained stable at 51% in 2008.In general, this is consistent with the two development trends in pro-independenceattitude and Taiwanese identity during the same time period shown in Figure 1.Secondly, we can see that from 2000 to 2004, the proportion of DPP supporters in theTIM’s support base increased from 45% to 51%, that is, more than half of the TIM’ssupport base supported the DPP as well in 2004. However, from 2004 to 2008, theproportion of DPP supporters decreased to 40%, which is even lower than that in2000. In other words, a large proportion of the TIM’s support base (i.e. about 11%)withdrew their support for the DPP in 2008. In contrast, those neutral people orsupporters of the KMT/pan-blue parties in the TIM’s support base showed a differentdevelopment pattern. From 2000 to 2004, the proportion of the neutral people in theTIM’s support base decreased from 40% to 34%, and that of supporters of the KMT/pan-blue parties did not change. However, from 2004 to 2008, the proportions ofthese two groups of people increased significantly in the TIM’s support base. Inparticular, the share of the KMT/ pan-blue parties’ supporters, who were supposedlyanti-independence or pro-status-quo, increased by 7% in the TIM’s support base from

Table 8. Party ID composition in TIM’s support base, 2000–2008

TIM support base

2000DPP/pan-green Party ID 45% (20%)Neutral 40% (18%)KMT/pan-blue Party ID 15% (7%)Total 100% (45%)

2004DPP/pan-green Party ID 51% (27%)Neutral 34% (18%)KMT/pan-blue Party ID 15% (8%)Total 100% (52%)

2008DPP/pan-green Party ID 40% (20%)Neutral 38% (19%)KMT/pan-blue Party ID 22% (11%)Total 100% (51%)

Note: Percentages in parentheses are cell percentages.Source: An Interdisciplinary Study of Voting Behavior in the Presidential Election in 2000,TEDS2004P, TEDS2008L.

Footnote 31 continued

Democratization Studies, 2004: The Presidential Election (TEDS2004P) (NSC92-2420-H-031-004). PrincipalInvestigator: Professor Shiow-duan Hawang, Executive Institution: Department of Political Science, SoochowUniversity; Survey Research Center, National Chung-Cheng University; Department of Political Science, NationalTaiwan University; (3) Taiwan’s Election and Democratization Studies, 2005–2008 (III): Legislative Elections, 2008(TEDS 2008L) (NSC 96-2420-H-002-025). The coordinator of multi-year project TEDS is Professor Chi Huang(National Chengchi University). TEDS2008L is a project on the legislative election in 2005. The principalinvestigator is Professor Yun-han Chu. More information can be found on the TEDS website (http://www.tedsnet.org). The author appreciates the assistance with the provision of data from the institutes and individualsaforementioned. The author alone is responsible for views expressed herein.

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2004 to 2008. Therefore, the pan-blue camp actually provided an increasing numberof Taiwanese nationalists in 2008, stabilizing the popular support for the TIM. Thisalso implies that the KMT has weakened the DPP’s monopoly on Taiwanesenationalism. As a result, right before the 2008 presidential election, the majority ofthe TIM’s support base (i.e. about 60%) did not support the DPP.

Conclusion and discussion

The pro-independence DPP administration failed to maintain popular support at theend of its second term and lost the presidential election in 2008. The mainstreamopinion in mainland China was that lower popular support for the DPP indicatesparallel declining support for the Taiwan Independence Movement. However, basedon examinations at both the aggregate and the individual levels, this study shows thatthis assertion is misleading, because popular support for the DPP and the TIMbecame divergent during the DPP administration of 2000–2008. At the aggregatelevel, although popular support for the DPP declined generally from 2000 to 2008,the support for the TIM actually increased and then remained stable. At the individuallevel, although Taiwanese people’s dissatisfaction with the DPP administrationsignificantly reduced their support for the DPP in 2008, it had no independent effecton their support for the TIM. Further analysis of the party ID composition in theTIM’s support base shows that since 2004, while more people started to support boththe KMT and the TIM, those supporting both the DPP and the TIM decreased. Thisimplies that Taiwanese people started to differentiate the TIM from the DPP, toaccept the KMT’s identification with Taiwanese nationalism, and as a result, theDPP’s monopoly on Taiwanese nationalism has been weakened.These findings pave the way for a deeper understanding of the complex and

changing relations between the DPP, the KMT, the TIM, and Taiwanese nationalism.First of all, divergent popular support for the DPP and the TIM since 2000 indicatesthe DPP’s failure in reconciling its two roles as both the leader of the TIM and thenation’s leader during its two administrative terms. As a government and in order tomaintain power, it should not have focused only on the single issue of Taiwanesenationalism nor relied only on its traditionally leading position on nationalist issues,especially as its monopoly on Taiwanese nationalism had already been lessened bythe KMT. Secondly, because more Taiwanese nationalists started to accept theKMT’s identification with Taiwanese nationalism from 2008, the TIM has alsostarted to become more and more moderate and pragmatic in pursuing Taiwan’sde jure independence. Thirdly, with the KMT expanding its ‘share’ in the Taiwanesenationalism ‘market’, the DPP’s traditional advantages on some importantnationalist issues have become less obvious, or have even turned into disadvantages.Ma Ying-jeou’s re-election in early 2012 has demonstrated this point. Finally, a morediversified nationalism ‘market’ without an obvious monopoly would help tostabilize cross-Strait relations, as has been witnessed since 2008.32

32. For a more detailed summary of significantly improved cross-Strait relations since 2008, see Weixing Hu,‘Explaining change and stability in cross-Strait relations: a punctuated equilibrium model’, Journal of ContemporaryChina 21(78), (November 2012), DOI 10.1080/10670564.2012.701033.

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