Chinese Pressure Fuels an Unlikely Language Revival in Taiwan | TomBen’s Web Excursions

Chinese Pressure Fuels an Unlikely Language Revival in Taiwan

Aversion to China’s Communist government has pushed many in Taiwan to stop seeing themselves as Chinese. Now, increased pressure from Beijing is helping fuel a movement on the self-ruled island to speak differently, too.

“Speaking our mother language is the most effective vaccine” against a more assertive China, said Ms. Sin, one of a growing group of Taiwanese parents who are trying to steep their children in the island’s local languages—while also brushing up themselves—in what they see as a form of resistance against China’s authoritarian influence.

Amid the tensions, more Taiwanese people are disavowing their connection with China. Roughly 63% of people polled on the island identify themselves exclusively as Taiwanese, according to a survey conducted by Taiwan’s National Chengchi University in June, up from 54% in 2018, when Beijing stepped up efforts to lure away the island’s allies and increased military drills nearby.

Mandarin was strictly imposed on Taiwan by Chiang Kai-shek, whose Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, fled to the island after losing China’s civil war to Mao Zedong’s Communist forces in 1949. An expanding trade relationship with China in recent decades has helped secure its dominance. More than 95% of the island’s 23 million people speak Mandarin, according to Taiwan census data.

In recent years, however, the local languages have staged the beginnings of an unlikely comeback.

“Speaking our mother tongue is a basic human right,” filmmaker A-yo Chiu said in Taigi at the rally. “Taiwan is a treasure island with multiple languages and cultures, which is where our value lies.”