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
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS