The changing trust that Chinese students who study in Taiwan exhibit toward the Chinese government is a critical, but rarely explored topic, which is crucial for maintaining the sovereignty of Taiwan. I conducted a panel study and adopted a political socialization approach, proposing and verifying five hypotheses based on the theories of cognitive dissonance, assimilation, social contact, and social identity. The results indicate that compared with the average score for political trust that Chinese students exhibit at the time of arrival in Taiwan, the scores obtained four months later significantly declined by 0.09. Specifically, 50% of students exhibited a decreased level of political trust, whereas 33% exhibited an increased level of trust. The regression model developed in this study explains 23.6% of the variance in the changes in the political trust of Chinese students studying in Taiwan. In addition, five hypotheses were empirically supported.

Does studying in a democratic country elicit cognitive dissonance in students from communist countries and lead to changes in their political attitudes? This study recruited subjects from among Chinese students studying in Taiwan and adopted a panel study to explore the changes in the external political efficacy of these students. On the basis of cognitive dissonance theory, rational choice, social identity, and political socialization theories were combined to create a theoretical model. The results showed that the mean external political efficacy of all students was significantly lowered by 0.18 units on a scale of 1 to 4. The proposed regression model explained 26.87 percent of the variance in the degree of changes in external political efficacy. Four hypotheses were empirically supported.

This study investigates whether visiting the authoritarian nation of China reduces Taiwanese youths’ identification with the democratic Taiwan. There is a significant reduction in the students’ Taiwanese political identity following their visit, namely a reduction of 0.06 on a scale from 1 to 4.

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