An obviously well-versed and diligent blogger writing a book on the development of Taiwan since the KMT’s arrival there offers an extraordinarily detailed and well-documented post on…well, on a lot of things, from the evolution of Chinese nationalism in Taiwan to the dispute with Japan over the Diaoyutai Islands. I’m not sure who this fellow is, but if you are interested in Taiwan history and politics, you will absolutely not want to miss his post. Just a very small sample.

The contrast between the Taiwanese and Chinese nationalist practices in Taiwan over this period, and into the present, says a great deal about the complicated, contested and often inconsistent ways in which identity politics, and identity itself, have been played out. Chinese imperial culture and nationalism retained a rich and viable language which was reinforced and reworked by the KMT and appropriated by students and intellectuals as part of the contestation of Taiwanese politics. At the same time, Taiwanese nationalism was creating its own discourses and sources of legitimacy, borrowing some from Chinese nationalism, and some from political practices around the world, such as samizdat literature and the Wilsonian ideals of self-determination and democracy. Taiwan’s rich and complex identity is the weave of these contesting discourses, with Chinese nationalism being contested almost immediately upon Retrocession and Taiwanese national identity appropriating, creating and legitimizing new ideologies of identity in new ways up to the present.

Definitely “read the whole thing.” Not just the post, but the entire blog. From the few posts I’ve seen, it’s in a class by itself.