section_path: Culture
section_name: Culture
paragraph_text: Culture
  
  The cultures of Taiwan are a hybrid blend from various sources, incorporating elements of the majority traditional Chinese culture, aboriginal cultures, Japanese cultural influence, traditional Confucianist beliefs, and increasingly, Western values.
  
  During the martial law period, the Kuomintang promoted an official traditional Chinese culture over Taiwan in order to emphasize that the Republic of China represents the true orthodoxy to Chinese Culture as opposed to Communist China. The government launched what's known as the Chinese Cultural Renaissance movement in Taiwan in opposition to the cultural destructions caused by the Chinese Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution. The General Assembly of Chinese Culture was established to help promote Chinese culture in Taiwan and overseas. It was Kuomintang 's first structured plan for cultural development on Taiwan. The Chinese Cultural Renaissance movement in Taiwan had led to some aspects of Chinese Culture being better preserved there than in mainland China, for example the continued use of Traditional Chinese. The influence of Confucianism can be found in the behavior of Taiwanese people, known for their friendliness and politeness.
  
  The lifting of martial law ushered a period of democratization whereby Freedom of Speech and Expression led to a flourishing Taiwanese literature and mass media in Taiwan. The Taiwanese Constitution protects "speech, teaching, writing and publication." In 2022, the Economist Intelligence Unit 's Democracy Index ranked Taiwan as having the second highest democracy score in Asia and Australasia. Freedom House has ranked Taiwan the second freest place in Asia while CIVICUS rated Taiwan and New Zealand as the only "open" countries in the Asia-Pacific. In the aftermath of China gaining control of Hong Kong and restricting freedom of speech and protest, 36,789 Hong Kong residents moved to Taiwan from 2019 to 2022, an average of about 9,000 immigrants per year. In 2018, Taiwan only had 4,000 Hong Kong immigrants.
  
  Reflecting the continuing controversy surrounding the political status of Taiwan, politics continues to play a role in the conception and development of a Taiwanese cultural identity, especially in its relationship to Chinese culture. In recent years, the concept of Taiwanese multiculturalism has been proposed as a relatively apolitical alternative view, which has allowed for the inclusion of mainlanders and other minority groups into the continuing re-definition of Taiwanese culture as collectively held systems of meaning and customary patterns of thought and behavior shared by the people of Taiwan. Identity politics, along with the over one hundred years of political separation from mainland China, has led to distinct traditions in many areas, including cuisine and music.