Taiwanese People - Self Identification

Self Identification

In a 2002 poll by the Democratic Progressive Party, over 50% of the respondents considered themselves "Taiwanese" only, up from less than 20% in 1991 (Dreyer 2003). In a poll released in December 2006 by the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), 57% of people on Taiwan consider themselves to be Taiwanese. 23% Chinese and 20% both Chinese and Taiwanese (China Post, 2006). In June 2008, according to a poll from a Taiwanese television network TVBS, when the respondents are not told that a Taiwanese can also be a Chinese, 68% of the respondents identify themselves as "Taiwanese" while 18% would call themselves "Chinese". According to an annual household interview polls conducted by the National Chengchi University, in 1991, only 13.6 percent of people identified themselves as Taiwanese, while in mid 2012, the number had risen to 53.7 percent and those who identified themselves as Chinese declined to only 3.1 percent. The poll also found "in 2012, around 39.6 percent of interviewees think of themselves as both Taiwanese and Chinese." In 2006, according to Wu Nai-teh of Academia Sinica: "many Tai-wanese are still confused about identity, and are easily affected by political, social and economic circumstances."

The sense of a collective Taiwanese identity has continued to increase despite fluctuations in support for pro-independence political parties. This has been cited as evidence that the concept of Taiwanese identity is not the product of local political manipulation, but an actual phenomenon of ethnic and sociopolitical identities (Corcuff 2002:137–149, 207; Hsiao 2003:157–170).