PROUD TO BE CHINESE: LITTLE LEAGUE BASEBALL AND NATIONAL IDENTITIES IN TAIWAN DURING THE 1970s¹

Defeated by the communists in 1949, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) sought refuge in Taiwan under the conditions of war and aggression that produced strong defensive nationalism and an intensive struggle for national identification. The KMT faced a dual crisis of legitimacy during the 1970s, both domestically and internationally, after being expelled from the United Nations. The urgency of seeking recognition within the boundary by the Taiwanese and beyond by the overseas Chinese led the KMT to use Little League Baseball (LLB) as a form of cultural symbolism, from which “Chinese identity” came to be manifested. This Chinese nation-building project engaged in by KMT elites was extremely successful and demonstrated the extent to which elites have the capacity to forge national sentiment on the basis of an imagined community. This process also successfully solicited support from the overseas Chinese to continue standing by a “Free China,” whose legitimacy had been eroded under the “Red China” onslaught. The eventual demise of this project was, in part, the result of pressure from rival elites with an ability to manufacture an alternative identity that drew upon more primordial factors.