Church Shooting Exposed Taiwan's Domestic Political Challenges
Taiwan will have no chance of surviving an invasion if its people are politically divided.
David Wenwei Chou, an immigrant from Taiwan and a naturalized U.S. citizen, opened fire at a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods, California, on May 15th. One person was killed, and five others were wounded. Early media reports are mistaken Chou as a Chinese immigrant and alleged incorrectly that political tensions between China and Taiwan drove him. In truth, shooting has exposed complex domestic political challenges in Taiwan that were unknown to outsiders until now.
Understand Taiwan's Population
A quick review of Taiwan's history and the ethnic composition of its residents help set the island's domestic political challenges in context. There are 23 million residents in Taiwan today. According to the Life of Taiwan, a tour guide site, the major ethnic groups in Taiwan include:
· Aboriginal groups -- who have lived on the island for centuries and have their own languages and cultures
· The Hoklo people- They are Chinese immigrants from Fujian, the mainland Chinese province nearest Taiwan, between the 17th to the 19th century. Most of them speak Taiwanese (a language very similar to Minnanhua in Fujian) and reject Taiwan as part of China, even though they recognize they are of Han Chinese descent. About three-quarters of Taiwan’s population identifies as the Hoklo people.
· The Hakka people -- another group of Chinese immigrants who settled in Taiwan in the 18th century. They have their unique language and culture too. There are about three million Hakka in Taiwan today.
These three groups are also considered benshengren, meaning "local people," or people who have lived on the island for generations. In contrast, a fourth group, with a population between two to three million, is called waishengren -- meaning "newcomers." They are mainlanders who initially came to Taiwan between 1945 and 1949.
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