Written by Chien, Hung-yi.
Image credit: Public domain.
In early October 2025, I was invited to attend a National Day reception hosted by Taiwan’s representative office in a certain country, which constitutes NATO’s eastern flank. The guests included members of the host nation’s parliament, partners from academia and business, and diplomats from other countries — all gathered to show their support for Taiwan. Guests queued to enter the venue, greeting the Taiwanese ambassador one by one with polite handshakes. I introduced myself as an assistant professor in the Department of History, specialising in Taiwan history, and explained that I was in town for an international conference and was honoured to be invited to this celebration. I would repeat this self-introduction in English several times throughout the evening, though at that moment I had not yet realised how popular a topic “history” would turn out to be there.
After all guests entered the assembly hall, the ceremony began with a local accordionist performing the national anthems of both countries. The first was the National Anthem of the Republic of China. As a child, I had sung it countless times during morning assemblies at school — even before films at the cinema. Nowadays, my political stance makes me feel particularly reserved toward both its lyrics and melody, so I did not sing along. Actually, I could only hear a faint voice singing the lyrics, seemingly the voice of just one person, as lonely as Su Wu herding sheep near Lake Baikal, a Chinese patriotic story that happened in the first century BCE. Then came the host country’s anthem. As soon as the music began, the entire hall broke into a powerful chorus. In a region where national identity is bound with song and dance, such passionate singing was no surprise. However, when contrasted with the subdued rendition of the Republic of China’s anthem, the difference was striking.
Next, our ambassador, along with members of parliament and the mayor of the host nation’s capital, took turns delivering speeches. In her address, the Taiwanese ambassador referred to his country as “the Republic of China Taiwan” or simply “Taiwan.” Behind the podium, the projected backdrop read “中華民國生日快樂 / National Day Celebration / Taiwan.” The phrase “Zhonghua Minguo” appeared only in Chinese; in English, there was “Taiwan.” This reflects the bilingual strategy the Taiwanese government currently uses for its name. On the latest version of the Taiwanese passport cover, the same strategy was applied to hide “Republic of China” around the national emblem. After the ambassador’s remarks, several pro-Taiwan parliamentarians took the stage in succession, urging the audience to remember history: in the past, they reminded, Taiwan had lent its nation a helping hand in difficult times; now, it was their turn to support Taiwan in resisting Communist China.
Indeed, we should remember history, but nation-building engineering usually hides many awkward, contradictory, and dissonant details to maintain a coherent narrative. The very occasion we were gathering for —give the textbook answer, “the Xinhai Revolution” or “the Wuchang Uprising,” which the Republic of China’s National Day is among the most incongruous events in Taiwan’s national narrative. Taiwanese people have long grown accustomed to living with such inconsistencies, but for our international friends who support Taiwan, these incongruities always stimulate their curiosity.
Once the locals learned that I was a historian, nearly everyone asked me the same question: “What is 114? What happened in Taiwan 114 years ago? Why is 10 October your National Day?” They seemed to expect an answer resembling the founding story of a nation born from rebellion against tyranny — perhaps even a commemoration of resistance against China (which one, though? Communist, Republican, or Imperial?). In this region, when they speak of “1905,” everyone instantly recognises it as the year of the revolution against the rule of the Russian Empire. In Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, a memorial statue bears no inscription other than the simple number “1905” — and that alone is enough.
As a professional historian, I would never casually answer with the textbook answer “the Xinhai Revolution” or “the Wuchang Uprising” occurred on 10 October 1911. Yet I could not tell what happened in Taiwan on that day without checking the Taiwan Nichinichi Shimpō, a newspaper primarily published in Japanese. Thus, my answer was simply: “Nothing happened in Taiwan 114 years ago.” Such an unexpected reply naturally invited further questions. This, in turn, offered me the opportunity to narrate Taiwan’s four centuries of history. My version emphasises a continuous-colonial framework: the Dutch, the Spanish, the Cheng regime, the Qing Empire, the Japanese, and the Kuomintang.
Before they could ask about the role of the Taiwanese people under each regime, I continued by explaining how Taiwan accommodated fleeing Chiang Kai-shek, the Kuomintang, and the Republic of China after 1949, and that only after the first direct presidential election in 1996 did the Taiwanese people have a government of their own. The government must still be called the Republic of China, or Communist China would invade Taiwan. “114” marks the 114th year of the ROC. On 10 October, people in Taiwan celebrate a national day that does not belong to Taiwan, but since it is a public holiday, few complain. In fact, the opposition-led Legislative Yuan revived Confucius’ Birthday (28 September), the Retrocession Day (25 October), and the Constitution Day (25 December) as public holidays. All are highly associated with the ROC’s legitimacy in Taiwan.
These international friends generally possessed fragmentary knowledge of Taiwan’s past: they knew about the Dutch and Cheng Chenggong, and that Taiwan had been a Japanese colony before 1945. But how the island’s various peoples arrived, what languages they spoke, how Indigenous groups were marginalised into minorities, how Japan acquired Taiwan as a colony, or how the Republic of China came to Taiwan; these were matters they knew little about. That was hardly surprising. Most Taiwanese know little about the Northern Crusades, the Great Northern War, the Partitions of Poland, the Russian Revolution, or the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, but all are essential to this region.
However, each country of the NATO eastern flank possesses its own coherent national-historical narrative. This is what schools teach, and what museums present to the public. Although awkward, contradictory, or self-justifying narratives exist, each country has one, and that one includes the sorrow and suppression under Soviet rule. Taiwan, by contrast, has at least two narratives: the Republic of China (ROC) narrative and the Taiwan-centred narrative, which conflict with each other.
In the ROC framework, Chinese nationalism serves as the standard for historical judgment. The Dutch and Spanish colonisation of Taiwan is depicted as imperialist aggression against China; Cheng Cheng-kung’s expulsion of the Dutch makes him a national hero who “recovered” Taiwan; modernisation begins with Qing Mandarins Shen Baozhen and Liu Mingchuan; Japanese rule is portrayed as an era of enslavement; and the Kuomintang’s post-war “victory” is celebrated as Taiwan’s “retrocession,” which was again celebrated as a public holiday in 2025.
In the Taiwan-centred view, by contrast, the Dutch and Spanish integrated Taiwan into the maritime trade network; Cheng Cheng-kung was a warlord who oppressed Indigenous peoples; the Qing empire conquered Cheng’s Taiwan and incorporated Taiwan into China’s internal trade system; the Chinese colony expanded under Qing rule, and interaction with Indigenous groups became central to Taiwan’s eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history. A sense of island-wide identity emerged only under Japanese rule, along with cultural self-awareness. Yet the development of Taiwanese identity was repeatedly disrupted by war, the 228 Incident, martial law, and Chiang’s authoritarian rule, until democratisation finally began in the 1980s.
Neither perspective is perfect, but I believe the Taiwan-centred one aligns more closely with lived reality. It also explains the complicated history of Taiwan to international friends and provides historical legitimacy for their sympathy and support for democratic Taiwan.
Before the reception ended, I had already explained to several groups of international friends the inconsistency between Taiwan’s history and the ROC National Day. As I was about to leave, I mentioned to a staff member that many guests did not understand the meaning of “114” and required a historian’s explanation — and, emboldened by a touch of wine, I complained, “Isn’t that your job?” One of them replied, “It’s everyone’s business.” I fully agreed. Yet in the absence of a shared national-historical consensus, how many versions of Taiwan’s story might our foreign friends hear?
I do not know. Perhaps silence and emptiness remain the most prudent response. As an academic, I retain the freedom and the responsibility to continue telling my version of this island’s past, for it seems to me the one that best explains the reality in which we live. I hope that others, too, will express a similar view in their own ways. We shall voice our own history and defend our right to interpret our memories in our own way. We shall preserve the meanings that connect us to this island country. We shall not waver. We shall not yield to confusion, nor be subdued by national myths imposed by the ROC, or by the still authoritarian PRC. And even if, which I do not believe, the Taiwan-centred view should one day recede into obscurity due to the PRC’s propaganda and intimidation, somewhere—in a quiet corner of a library, beneath a film of dust—it will wait, until another generation rediscovers it and understands what we once sought to tell.
Dr Hung-yi Chien is an assistant professor in the Department of History at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU). Her research topics include the history of Taiwan studies in early modern Europe, early Taiwan history from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, Hokkien colonialism, and education in modern Taiwan. She teaches various topics in Taiwan history at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
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