Pathways to Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage in China and Taiwan: Globalization and “Chinese Values”

Abstract

What might motivate the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to recognize same-sex marriage and what has spurred Taiwan’s Constitutional Court to instruct the Taiwan parliament to legalize same-sex marriage? This chapter traces the emergence of advocacy for marriage equality in the context of two different and evolving political systems. Taiwan looks set to become the first nation in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage as the result of an active LGBT movement, multiparty strategizing and government efforts to differentiate Taiwan from China in international arenas. However, the nature of such legislation may be influenced by public protest against marriage equality on the grounds that it will undermine religious and traditional Chinese family values. While domestic pressure for marriage equality is a more recent and restrained phenomenon in China, the rise of the PRC as a global superpower, the absence of civil society organizations opposed to same-sex marriage and the current administration’s emphasis on promoting “Chinese” and core socialist values, may eventually enable the recognition of same-sex marriage equality by government fiat.