Some aspects of Chinese culture remained through the cultural revolution, but some previously important cultural features, like those related to music or Buddhism for example, were nearly wiped out. Maybe as a result, to this day some of the biggest hitting Mandarin singers are Taiwanese. In the movie space, HK used to produce lots of great movies, but many of them couldn't be made anymore given the HK takeover and how mainland movie production is now driven by propaganda goals. I hope to see Taiwan pick it up.

It's also pretty hard to claim there is one Chinese culture.

Where is confucianism taught in modern day China? Don't be tricked by the Communist Party's claim that they endorse his teachings, everything happening in the Mainland today goes completely against confucianist ideas. (Chinese) legalism is much closer to what is taught in China today and the teachings of Carl Schmitt have recently become very popular among party members. Of course it wouldn't look good to the world if they said they endorse and stand for fascism, so they don't say this part out loud.

I'm not siding with GP, and I've little to no knowledge of either China or Taiwan, but to say that culture is Confucius, food and decorations doesn't sound right. That's just tradition, culture is more fundamental, in my mind.

...and also Chinese Wall and Kung-fu...

CCP did everything it could to wipe out old traditions, and replace them with communism and cult of leaders. Latter they realized it is not enough to keep coherent national identity, and started promoting a few symbols they liked from past. The "big red door decorations" is not Chinese culture, it is a small fragment of it.

> It is simply absurd to claim Chinese culture only survived in "a few small places" in the mainland.

I do not claim that. It did not survived at all on mainland. "A few small places" are outside of mainland: Taiwan, Honk Kong, Macau and perhaps Singapore.

Taiwan has it even stranger as they were ruled by Japan for 50 years (long before WW2) so much of their culture had started to become Japanese culture or a Japanese-Taiwanese hybrid culture. Japan massively modernized the country to the point that when Taiwan has handed back to China, Taiwan was more advanced than China. I read one description that described it as being re-invaded by a bunch of uncultured ruffians that went looting and pillaging everywhere.

Some elements that come to mind:

  - Traditional Chinese characters used more often in Taiwan than Mainland China.
  - Yayue (3,000 years old Chinese court music).
  - Taiwanese recreation of Tang Dynasty dances.
  - In Taiwan poems are composed/written/recited in Hokkien, on the mainland it is done in Mandarin.
  - The preservation of uninterrupted institutional religion (eg Daoist priests) that was largely shutdown in China.
  - Taiwan's leader attending ceremonies at temples to mark the birthday of Confucius,  something you wouldn't see Xi Jinping do.
  - Taiwan's ROC governmental organization was based on the Qing dynasty, so it has the traditional Inspection Ministry that accords with the old censorate.

Edit: These are not hard and fast. One will always find examples on both sides of the ditch. They do though play into the narrative of Taiwan being a capsule for culture modified post cultural revolution. Let’s also remember that Taiwan is also heavily influenced from outside via democracy, Japan, and its own aboriginal culture.

- Much of the cultural damage came from the abolition of the "four olds", specifically a lot of old books, paintings, and art in general.

- Additionally, many religious artifacts (statues, murals, temples) were affected (vandalized to completely destroyed). Most of these being classified as backwards superstition artifacts.

- This also extended to banning of religious customs (holidays, festivals, practices) and modifying aspects of language (e.g. honorifics and Confucian terms were largely removed from the language, with many only living on today in Cantonese or other languages like Japanese or Korean).

The actual impacts were a mixed bag though. A lot of the movement centered around destroying core parts of Chinese cultural heritage in favor of adopting progressive western ideas. Many irreplaceable historic artifacts and buildings were forever destroyed, leading to, ironically, a lot of the preserved stuff being what was plundered by the British or moved to Taiwan as part of the Nationalist retreat. On the other hand, the wholesale denouncing of traditional values in favor of progressivism also had positive aspects, like furthering gender equality (the abolition of many traditional sexist practices) and breaking down the traditional rigid structures of power in the family, giving more agency to younger generations (e.g. freedom of choosing marriage partners).

Finally, one must also not forget that Taiwan also does not capture a particularly "pure" lineage of Chinese culture either. The long Japanese occupation (that only ended after WWII) also came with a concerted effort by the Japanese to assimilate Taiwan (such as forbidding education of the Chinese language). Compared to the occupation of the mainland which focused more on feeding the war effort, Taiwan was treated as a permanent possession which meant the assimilation efforts were much more thoroughly executed.

Not exactly sure but I would assume that any trace of religion was the first to go in Mao's revolution.

Almost everything, including the writing system. They even thought about romanisation, but instead just settled on butchering many of the complex characters without fully considering the historical, linguistic or aesthetic concerns.

The KMT ("blues"; historical ruling party of Taiwan, and main opposition to the CCP during the civil war) was indeed an authoritarian party; Taiwan was a dictatorship until 1996, under the guise of "martial law to prepare for invading the mainland". However, they are not officially "fascists", but "republicans".

Since then, they have been a democratic country mostly governed by the DPP ("greens"; formerly an anti-authoritarian dissident movement), which also leads the Taiwan independence movement, which aims at creating a "Republic of Taiwan" rather than a "Republic of China".

I mean if you must compare, the Nationalists that modern Taiwan derives from is more similar to a _conservative_ party in the west while the CCP is a more _progressive_ (and fascist if you view it that way) party.

That being said, the modern day CCP under Xi's rule has started becoming more conservative, while Taiwan's relatively free political climate has given rise to their own versions of progressive political parties.

Nationalists for many, fascists for some. One should not evaluate Chinese civil war with European eyeglasses.