Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

A few days ago, several students at Taoyuan County’s Kainan University, host of this year’s Asian University Basketball Championship, flew Republic of China (ROC) flags around the university sports arena in protest at the confiscation of ROC flags during a basketball game with a Chinese team the previous day. Behind this action is a burgeoning identification with Taiwan, a shared sense of patriotism and a feeling of unity among the younger generation. It represents a rejection of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) untenable concept of “one China.”

When they talk of their identification with the ROC, they are actually talking about their identification with Taiwan, distinct from the China on the other side of the Taiwan Strait. One country on either side, each with its own separate identity.

During the controversy surrounding Japan’s detention of the captain of a Chinese fishing boat in the waters off the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), China displayed the strength of a major power, forcing Japan to call on the US-Japan security treaty and Washington’s assistance in reining in Beijing.

The question of how to counterbalance the power of a rising China has become a matter of grave concern to the international community.