The culture of Taiwan is a blend of Confucian Chinese and indigenous Taiwanese cultures. Despite the overwhelming traditional Chinese influence, Japanese culture has influenced Taiwanese culture as well. The common socio-political experience in Taiwan gradually developed into a sense of Taiwanese cultural identity and a feeling of Taiwanese cultural awareness, which has been widely debated domestically. 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 the prior dominant frame of a Taiwanese and Chinese dualism. 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. State cultural policy overview Historical context Taiwan's culture and cultural legacy has been largely shaped by the processes of imperialism and colonization as the structural and psychological effects of successive colonial projects have been integral to developing Taiwan's self-image and the evolution of both official and unofficial Taiwanese culture. For most of its colonized existence, Taiwan remained on the cultural margins, far from the centers of civil and cultural life of each regime, and with every regime change, Taiwan's cultural center shifted. At various times Taiwan's cultural center has been indigenous Taiwan, Amsterdam, Amoy (Xiamen), Qing-era Peking, Imperial Japan, postwar China and even, arguably, the United States. Before the Qing Empire ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895, Taiwan's culture was characterized by Qing frontier societies of Han farmers and highland Aborigines. Due to Taiwan's strategic location along East Asian trade routes, the Taiwanese were also exposed to cosmopolitan influences and the effects of European commerce. By the middle of the Japanese era (1895–1945), Taiwan had begun to shift from local to contemporary global culture, under the guidance of Japanese style "westernization". Beginning during Japan's build-up for war, Japan invigorated its policies to Japanize Taiwan for mobilization against the Allies. Japan's effort taught Taiwan's elite Japanese culture and language but did not largely interfere in religious organizations. When Japan's suppressive wartime policies were lifted following World War II, the Taiwanese were eager to continue with their prewar cosmopolitan activities. Japan's colonial legacy has shaped many of the customs and mannerisms of the