Do Social Contacts Alter the National Identity? Evidence from a Panel Study among Taiwanese Students that Visited Mainla
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Do Social Contacts Alter the National Identity? Evidence from a Panel Study among Taiwanese Students that Visited Mainland China Chia-chou Wang 1
# Journal of Chinese Political Science/Association of Chinese Political Studies 2020
Abstract With the rise of the China Model, China’s sharp power has infringed upon the exercise of liberal democracy in other nations. A concern for governments of the Taiwan Strait and other democratic countries is whether visits to Mainland China alter the national identity of Taiwanese youth. This research conducted a panel study of 331 Taiwanese youths who had visited Mainland China. Social contact, rational choice, and political socialization theories were introduced to establish hypotheses; a questionnaire was employed to collect panel data, and statistical regression models were utilized to test the hypotheses. Following visits to Mainland China, the number of participants perceiving themselves as only Taiwanese decreased by 4.59%; those perceiving themselves as both Taiwanese and Chinese increased by 3.98%, and those perceiving themselves as Chinese increased by 0.61%. According to the mean survey results, the average change to national identity was 0.05, indicating that visiting Mainland China slightly negatively influenced participants’ Taiwanese identity. Following visits to Mainland China, participants’ impression of China improved, their preference for an independent Taiwan reduced, they seemed less satisfied with Taiwan’s democratic government, and their personal sense of being Taiwanese was reduced. Keywords Attitudes toward unification and Independence . Cross-Strait relations .
Satisfaction with democracy . Self-interest . Social contact
Introduction Changes in identity have become a focus of attention in an era of interdependent relations within the global economy. Identity is the source of an individual’s self* Chia-chou Wang [email protected]
1
Department of Public Policy and Management, I-Shou University, No.1, Sec. 1, Syuecheng Rd., Dashu District, Kaohsiung City 84001 Taiwan, Republic of China
C.-c. Wang
consciousness and experiences [8]. The components of collective identity include constitutive norms, social purposes, relational comparisons with other social categories, and cognitive models. However, members’ consensus and disagreement on the aforementioned content may not be the same. Therefore, collective identity is a social classification that changes alongside content and members’ agreement with the content [1]. Based on varying pressures, incentives, and freedoms, individuals tend to create their own personal identity [25]. When an individual accepts the influence of a given group to establish and maintain a satisfying self-defining relationship, accordingly, his/ her identity is generated [28]. In general, individuals can live happily with multiple identities and alternate between them according to the immediate needs of the environment [55]. However, with the frequent cross-border migration of the population, home countries have become particularly co
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