Are Taiwanese people considered as Chinese?

Question

Taiwan is an island on their own away from mainland China; yet they're referred to as Chinese people. Are they? Lend your thoughts!

Answer 1

yes they are chinese.

Answer 2

no they are not. Taiwan for a long time was regarded as China becuase the United States didn't reagrd China as a country. Taiwan was china. History has it, the ex-chinese leader this is int eh 1950s before Mao took over in China, he forced himn out. So the people that were leading big CHINA left to the island. So the land wanted to capture the island. The United States backed the Island, so therefore the land couldn't capture the Island. So today its considered a insult if u call a Taiwanese person Chinese. Ask them first. Same with Hong Kong. Hong Kong people are not called CHinese they get mad too. Ask me if you need to know more

Answer 3

They are Chinese all the same. "Chinese" is a race. "Taiwanese" is a nationality. A Chinese who's a citizen in America, Europe, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, etc is still Chinese.
In China they can be referred as Mainland Chinese.
In Taiwan they can be referred as Taiwanese Chinese.
In America - American Chinese.
In Europe - European Chinese.
If you are a white and a citizen in Taiwan, then you are a Taiwanese, but since you are white then you are not Chinese.
We all know every Chinese is a Chinese regardless of what their nationality is or where they are.

Answer 4

Although they're members of a different political state, Taiwanese people come from Chinese stock, especially since the flight of the nationalist Kuomingtang. However, that may not be itself reason enough to call the inhabitants of Taiwan Chinese. Call any Austrian a German, or call a Canadian an American, or vice versa, and he'll disagree strongly!

I would see what the Taiwanese people call themselves. If they consider themselves Chinese, call them Chinese. If they consider themselves Taiwanese instead of Chinese, call them Taiwanese. My opinion is irrelevant.

Answer 5

Definitely not. In my perspective not only is Taiwan not a part of China (land-wise), the people of Taiwan do not want to be regarded as Mainland Chinese. The government in Taiwan is completely than the one in China too. But I'm sure I'm being biased since my family is from Taiwan.

Answer 6

Dear mkysworld,

This is actually a complicated question! The Chinese first settled the island of Taiwan around 1000 years ago. All Chinese share a sense of cultural and ethnic kinship, so in this sense the Taiwanese are considered Chinese ("hua ren"). They are part of the same "nation" as all other Chinese and as such have no problem with being called "hua ren", which is a generic term to refer to all ethnic Chinese.

On the other hand, the Taiwanese, for all intents and purposes, do NOT belong to the sovereign state that we call China. There was a civil war in China between government forces and Communist insurgents. The Communists ended up winning that war in 1949, and the leader of the government forces (Chiang Kaishek) fled to Taiwan where he continued enforcing the old regime. So Taiwan was not governed by the authorities in mainland China, but by a different government.

The government of mainland China enforced Communist policies and was officially an ally of the Soviet Union, whereas the Taiwanese government upheld capitalism and was an ally of the United States. Neither government was democratic, and Taiwan remained a virtual dictatorship until 1988 or so. The two territories are very different in politics and economics, as well as foreign policy.

What makes things more complicated, however, is that both governments claim to be the "real" China and refuse to recognise each other. The official name of Taiwan is the "Republic of China" whereas the official name of mainland China is the "People's Republic of China" (PRC). Mainland China considers Taiwan a "renegade province", and neither recognises the Taiwanese government nor regards Taiwan as a separate country.

In Taiwan, up until 1991 it was official government policy to "retake the mainland from the Communist bandits". This has been dropped since, but Taiwan still considers itself the real China and there are still no diplomatic relations between the two territories. Contacts between the two are in fact never officially referred to as "diplomatic relations" (since this would imply that they are two different countries) but as "cross-straits relations".

Taiwan used to be considered the real China by most of the international community. However, in 1972 the US started resuming communications with the PRC and in preparation for that, Taiwan lost the "China" seat in the United Nations to the PRC. In 1979, the US recognised the PRC as the real China and severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

The official position of the Taiwanese government is that there is only one China and Taiwan is a part of it, but as I said it does not recognise the Communist government in mainland China - it would be extremely difficult to change this position, because mainland China has promised to go to war against Taiwan if it ever chose to declare independence.

The Taiwanese themselves are divided on the issue - part of them support the official government position and see themselves as Chinese citizens ("zhong guo ren"), whereas another part consider Taiwan as an independent state, and might be offended if you called them that. These opposing positions tend to correspond more or less to two distinct groups of people in Taiwan - the "local" Taiwanese who had lived there for generations before the 1949 Communist takeover on the mainland, and the "mainlanders" who fled to Taiwan with Chiang Kaishek in 1949. Locals are generally pro-independence and mainlanders are against it. However, as time goes by these two populations are becoming increasingly blurred.

The term "Taiwanese" ("tai wan ren") is neutral and safe to use, since it could both apply to the citizenship of a full-fledged sovereign state and to a group of people belonging to a province of China.

Hope this helped,

Answer 7

Yes, they are Chinese.
a) They fled China as "Nationalists" mid 20th century.
b) China claims them as "misguided" colonists.
c) The Chinese have a liberal understanding of "Chinese" with extensive populations throughout SE Asia and the like. A few miles of water would matter not.

Answer 8

Chinese does mean people from china. American born Chinese or
English born Chinese even African born Chinese.How you catalyse them?

Answer 9

yes they are... but share political difference from their mainland chinese counterpart.

Answer 10

Yes they are chinese....