Abstract

What did "China" mean to Taiwan, culturally and politically, in the island's post-1949 history? In what sense did Mainlander immigrants of 1949 contribute to Taiwan's unique identity in its modernization process? By dissecting a New Confucian's legendary life and thought, this dissertation explores the Chinese heritage that exiles brought to Taiwan after the KMT's exodus from Mainland China. ;Once a confidant of Chiang Kai-shek with socialist vision, Xu Fuguan the non-conformist turned into a devout "democratic Confucian" only after the trauma of 1949. Facing the challenges of American hegemony, lingering Japanese influences and two other Chinese-processed importation, the KMT's Leninist ideology and Hu Shi's liberalism, Xu's crusade for New Confucianism in Taiwan did not succeed. First of all, his cultural conservative colleagues were divided due to conflicting interpretations of Confucianism. He did not win over the Taiwanese public, whose trust in traditional Chinese culture had crumbled after the February 28 Incident of 1947; nor did he convince the iconoclastic liberals of the compatibility between Confucianism and democracy, because the KMT demonstrated more powerfully a dictatorship in the guise of traditionalism. Moreover, his hostility to modern art antagonized the alienated, Americanized literary youth; his confrontation to the Protestant-sponsored Tunghai University eventually forced him to leave Taiwan in 1969. In fact, not just the New Confucian cause blundered, even liberalism failed, too, witnessing the KMT's suppression of the democratic movement in 1960 and the self-destructive aftermath of the "Controversy over China and the West" throughout the 1960s. ;Nevertheless, Xu's pugnacious dialogues with his fellow exiles proved that Taiwan under the "white terror" was not as sterile as the label "cultural desert" suggested; the seeds they sowed anticipated the growth of pluralism of the island in the 1990s. The revival of many May Fourth contentions during this period familiarized Taiwan with Chinese conservative and liberal legacy of the Republic period, yet other cultural forces outside the exile community still distinguished Taiwan from pre-1949 China, let alone the China after 1949. It needs time and patience for the two entities to reach mutual understanding