ABSTRACT
Democratisation in Taiwan entered a new and exciting stage just as China was put under martial law and the Communist Party began to look anew to Chinese nationalism to rebuild its legitimacy. Central to Peng Ming-min’s argument was the very modernist proposition that Taiwan should be understood as a ‘community of shared destiny’. The consolidation of Taiwan’s subjectivity might have been constrained by the attraction of the Chinese economy and enduring family and cultural links, but the result has been a metamorphosis of identity politics rather than the kind of collapse into communal violence seen in other parts of the world since the Cold War. Most humbling is the amazing work conducted by Taiwanese social scientists themselves. Taiwan is also an important case study in itself for understanding the political dynamics of militarism, having been the subject of intense militarisation under both the Japanese occupation and Kuomintang administration.
