Waishengren

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With Waishengren (literally "people from other provinces," Chinese  外省人 , Pinyin Wàishěngrén , translated in English mostly as "mainlanders") is known in Taiwan , the population of people who after the end of World War II , especially between 1945 and 1949, moved from mainland China to Taiwan, as well as their descendants, especially the first generation.

Origin of the term

In Chinese, the term refers to people who came from a different province than the one in which they are currently staying. After the end of 50 years of Japanese rule over Taiwan and the incorporation of the province of Taiwan into the Republic of China, the Chinese from the other provinces of the republic were referred to as Waishengren , "people from other provinces" in Taiwan .

Sociopolitical significance in Taiwan after 1945

Contrast between Waishengren and Benshengren

The actually neutral term Waishengren was given a political dimension by the tensions that arose soon after 1945 between the authorities coming from mainland China and the Taiwanese population. Tensions and conflicts arose between the Taiwanese, or Benshengren (Chinese: 本省人, "people from the local province"), who initially enthusiastically welcomed the mainland Chinese as compatriots, and the Waishengren, which culminated in the February 28, 1947 incident . The ensuing island-wide uprising was forcibly suppressed by the Kuomintang government, killing tens of thousands of Taiwanese. The events of 1947 solidified the antagonism between Waishengren and Benshengren and created a rift between the ethnic groups that has influenced Taiwan society in part to this day.

During the Kuomintang dictatorship

After the Kuomintang's defeat in the Chinese Civil War , the government of the Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek withdrew to Taiwan in 1949. In their wake, 1.5 to 2 million mainland Chinese settled in Taiwan, most of them army personnel. They made up about 10% (2004) of the population of Taiwan. With the imposition of martial law in the same year, a decades-long dictatorial government of the Kuomintang began, in which Waishengren occupied almost all important social positions, for example in the areas of politics, science, education, economy and the army. The local languages ​​( Taiwanese , Hakka , indigenous languages ) were banned from the media and education, and Mandarin Chinese, brought to Taiwan by the Waishengren, was set as the sole standard. The (mainland) Chinese culture was elevated, the local culture devalued and suppressed. All of these factors meant that the social elite during the dictatorship consisted for the most part of Waishengren.

The differentiation of the population groups was made easier by the fact that the identity cards and household registers of that time indicated not only the actual place of birth of a person but also the ancestral home of his extended family, so that even citizens who were raised and born in Taiwan could still be identified as Waishengren.

A side effect of the antagonism between the Waishengren and Benshengren was that the former, who originally came from different parts of China and by no means formed a cultural unit, developed a feeling of common destiny over time.

After democratization

With the progressive extinction of the first generation, the increasing identification of the second and third generation with Taiwan, as well as the abolition of martial law and the subsequent democratization, the social meaning of the term Waishengren declined. In order to counteract further discrimination against population groups, since 1990 the registered office of a person is no longer noted on newly issued personal documents.

Even if the conflicts between the population groups have eased, resentments, such as feelings of revenge among older Taiwanese towards the Waishengren, can still be felt. With respect to Taiwan today, the term Waishengren is still sometimes used as a category in demographic analyzes.

literature

  • Stéphane Corcuff: Taiwan's “Mainlanders”: New Taiwanese? In: Stéphane Corcuff (Ed.): Memories of the Future: National Identity Issues and the Search for a New Taiwan. ME Sharpe, New York 2002, ISBN 0-7656-0792-1 , pp. 163-195.
  • Simon Scott: Taiwan's Mainlanders: A Diasporic Identity in Construction . Révue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, Volume 22, 2006, pp. 87-106.
  • Oskar Weggel : The History of Taiwan. From the 17th century until today. Böhlau, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 1991, ISBN 978-3-412-02891-6 .
  • Thomas Weyrauch: China's neglected republic. 100 years in the shadow of world history. Volume 1: 1911-1949. Longtai, Giessen (ie) Heuchelheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-938946-14-5 .
  • Thomas Weyrauch: China's neglected republic. 100 years in the shadow of world history. Volume 2 1950-2011. Longtai, Giessen 2011, ISBN 978-3-938946-15-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Population Association of Taiwan (2004)
  2. ↑ For example, the writer Zhang Xiguo describes himself and the other Waishengren in the foreword to his collection of essays "The future can wait" (original title: 讓 未來 等一等 吧) in 1975 with the sentence "We Chinese who took root in Taiwan" .