This year, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lost control of both the executive and legislative branches of government. It was not able to prevent the passage of new regulations regarding illicit party assets. Next up is legislation promoting transitional justice. Reform is a long and winding road, and there is some way to go yet.
The KMT is an unwilling participant in the process of its own political cleansing; this reluctance can be seen in news reports. The party, in its reaction to the demands of transitional justice, has been sinister and obstreperous.
Clearly, this is not going to be easy.
In 1945, the KMT took over responsibility for Taiwan on behalf of the Allies upon Japan’s surrender, and it occupied Taiwan. Not two years had elapsed before the 228 Incident, in which the KMT instigated a crackdown so that its government-in-exile could clear away the cultural and political obstacles to its rule.
When it was booted out of China for good in 1949, in what Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) — who at the time was director-general of the party — referred to as “the destruction of the nation,” this was a way of putting an end to the party’s troubles.
When the exiled KMT first arrived in Taiwan, it set about establishing absolute rule in the name of “rebuilding.” It did this through the application of its party-state ideology.
The 228 Incident, which came at the beginning of the party’s colonial rule of Taiwan, swept away potential dissidents and any possible rivals.
Following this, there was the White Terror of the 1950s and 1960s, a cruel period where the party was prepared to do away with 100 people if it meant rooting out just one suspected communist sympathizer.
The political entity we know as the KMT commandeered control over the state organs of the so-called Republic of China. The equation of the party with the state allowed the KMT to do as it pleased, and its tendrils permeated not only the government, but society as well.
The disease went right through to the core of the nation.
In what way was this a “democratic” republic? This was the China of the KMT; it was the commandeered territory of the Chiang dynasty. The anti-communist preoccupation was but a pretext to execute a scorched-earth policy and to consolidate the regime’s political power, while the teachings of the Institute on Policy Research and Development inculcated party members with the party-state ideology.
The KMT’s fall is perfectly encapsulated in the tried-and-tested phrase: “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The collapse of people, of organizations, through the corrupting influence of power, has been observed countless times throughout history and is a lesson worth learning.
The KMT, which once had control over Taiwan’s politics and military, had access to unprecedented assets, but lacked a soul. Power filled the vacuum created by this lack of soul.
Participating in politics in Taiwan in the post--democratization era requires more than simply overseeing the transition from authoritarian to democratic rule, it requires an ability to change and reinvent oneself that the KMT simply does not have, and this is why it ultimately collapsed and was spurned by the electorate.
It is a miracle that it has survived as long as it has, more than half a century after its exile from China in 1949.
The legacy of this time is its all-pervading, corrupting influence on Taiwanese society, a sickness that needs a new spiritual project to heal.
Lee Min-yung is a poet.
Translated by Paul Cooper
George Santayana wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This article will help readers avoid repeating mistakes by examining four examples from the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces and the Republic of China (ROC) forces that involved two city sieges and two island invasions. The city sieges compared are Changchun (May to October 1948) and Beiping (November 1948 to January 1949, renamed Beijing after its capture), and attempts to invade Kinmen (October 1949) and Hainan (April 1950). Comparing and contrasting these examples, we can learn how Taiwan may prevent a war with
A recent trio of opinion articles in this newspaper reflects the growing anxiety surrounding Washington’s reported request for Taiwan to shift up to 50 percent of its semiconductor production abroad — a process likely to take 10 years, even under the most serious and coordinated effort. Simon H. Tang (湯先鈍) issued a sharp warning (“US trade threatens silicon shield,” Oct. 4, page 8), calling the move a threat to Taiwan’s “silicon shield,” which he argues deters aggression by making Taiwan indispensable. On the same day, Hsiao Hsi-huei (蕭錫惠) (“Responding to US semiconductor policy shift,” Oct. 4, page 8) focused on
Taiwan is rapidly accelerating toward becoming a “super-aged society” — moving at one of the fastest rates globally — with the proportion of elderly people in the population sharply rising. While the demographic shift of “fewer births than deaths” is no longer an anomaly, the nation’s legal framework and social customs appear stuck in the last century. Without adjustments, incidents like last month’s viral kicking incident on the Taipei MRT involving a 73-year-old woman would continue to proliferate, sowing seeds of generational distrust and conflict. The Senior Citizens Welfare Act (老人福利法), originally enacted in 1980 and revised multiple times, positions older
Taiwan’s business-friendly environment and science parks designed to foster technology industries are the key elements of the nation’s winning chip formula, inspiring the US and other countries to try to replicate it. Representatives from US business groups — such as the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, and the Arizona-Taiwan Trade and Investment Office — in July visited the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) headquarters and its first fab. They showed great interest in creating similar science parks, with aims to build an extensive semiconductor chain suitable for the US, with chip designing, packaging and manufacturing. The
RSS