ABSTRACT
BENTU HUA (INDENIZATION) AND QUANQIU HUA (GLOBALIZATION) ARE PROB-ably the two most compelling and ubiquitous themes in the lex-icon of Taiwaneseness today. Since the mid-1990s, when president Lee Teng-hui gradually consolidated his power, Taiwan has experienced a new form of nation-building process that simultaneously situated itself as separated from the cultural China and juxtaposed to other national sovereignties within the international community. Meanwhile, the dialectical relationship between globalization and localization received increasing attention in Taiwan's scholarly circles. The role of the nation-state in the global terrain also became highly contested issue. For those sympathetic with the nationbuilding project, localization operated within the Taiwanese framework, underscoring the state's support of cultural pluralism and liberal democracy. Those who felt apprehensive with Taiwan's nationalistic project, however, contended that the nation-state has metamorphosed into a neocolonial power in the face of global competition, suppressing its marginal groups in its inner colony.1 In addition, a third group, mainly "cosmopolitans," contended that globalization phenomenon weakened the power and boundary of the nation-state, and enabled transnational alliances among local groups; thus they argued that Taiwan should discard the obsolete nation-building framework lest it would be "left behind" by the increasingly globalized world.2
