Desinicization

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Desinicization (Simplified Chinese: 去中国化; Traditional Chinese: 去中國化; pinyin: qùzhōngguóhuà, de + sinicization, meaning "making non-Chinese") is a term which appeared in the political vocabulary of the Republic of China on Taiwan in 2001. It is mainly used by groups which support Chinese reunification to describe what they are opposed to, and to distinguish it from the Taiwanese localization movement.

The term exists to emphasize that pro-unification groups are not opposed to the development of a Taiwanese identity or local symbols such as language, but are opposed to viewing such an identity and symbols as separate from a broader Chinese identity.

Many Taiwanese independence supporters in Taiwan also take the recent Seoul city mayor's move to change Seoul city's Chinese official name from Hancheng (漢城; Hànchéng in Standard Mandarin; Hanseong in Korean; lit. Han River City, but can be deliberately misinterpreted as Han Chinese City) to Shou'er (首爾; Shǒuěr) in 2005 as a model of desinicization.

The Dungans of Kyrgyzstan represent a less conscious process of desinicization, during which, over the course of a little more than a century (since the Hui Minorities' War), a Hui Chinese population became alienated from the literary tradition and local culture of Shaanxi and Gansu.