ABSTRACT
As we saw in the previous chapter, Taiwan and China have different ways of and use different metrics to define their nationalism, which reflect the separate histories and geographies that have shaped them over centuries. Inevitably, the separateness of those two societies has had an impact on the politics of the Taiwan Strait and on the reactions in Taiwan to Beijing’s efforts to reconstitute an imagined China that serves as the wellspring of Chinese nationalism. The values, customs, languages, and histories that shape a place’s identity can also serve as sources of friction when one’s nationalism seeks to impose itself on another society, as the developments in Hong Kong since 2003 have demonstrated.
