Taiwan's National Identity in the Context of the Relations with the Mainland China (Second Part of XX - beg. of XXI Century)

The modern era is characterized by intensive contacts of various groups of people and their inclusion in the processes of globalization. This inevitable and generally process generates a huge number of problems and conflicts, which are perceived by many national communities as a threat to their political sovereignty, economic security, and cultural identity. In this context, questions concerning national identity arise. National identity can be seen as a mechanism for identifying an individual with a social community less global and abstract than civilization or humanity as a whole, but existing at a higher level of integration than a class, clan, or family. Positive national identity can be considered as a mediator, a condition for the flexible combination of global identity and “innate” identities without harm to the individual. A crisis or unformed national identity makes integration in the global community very difficult, and the very process discourages people from responding to the challenges of our time inefficiently. In this study, there will be observed a “history experiment”, when on the basis of the same ethnic community two states are formed in the situation of more than half a century are in political, economic and cultural isolation from each other. The present situation makes it possible to trace how under the given conditions national self-consciousness is formed in a significant social community. The paper the coverage of the little-studied problem of the national identity of the Taiwanese people, but also has a general theoretical significance for the whole cultural issue of identity.