The Preparatory Office of the National Human Rights Museum — as part of the commemorations for the 30th anniversary of the lifting of martial law — invited National Chengchi University history professor Hsueh Hua-yuan (薛化元) to edit a history of the Martial Law era, entitled From Imposition to the Lifting of Martial Law. It is a pity that it has not received more attention.
The volume provides a factual account of one of the longest unbroken periods of martial law in the world. It details how the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration used the machinery of government to suppress an unarmed and defenseless public by arbitrarily closing down newspapers and magazines, and using the now repealed Punishment of Rebellion Act (懲治叛亂條例) and Anti-Insurgency Act (懲治叛亂條例) to try many ordinary citizens using military tribunals to maintain its grip on power.
The victims of the KMT were not just people ideologically wedded to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or Taiwanese independence; many wholly innocent members of the public were also caught up in the dragnet.
After martial law was lifted, legislation was passed in the 1990s to provide financial compensation to those who lost their youth, their liberty — and in some cases even their lives. However, the payments were negligible.
In the words of Japanese academic Masahiro Wakabayashi, the numerous types of bullying tactics and inherent contradictions of the KMT regime meant that after the end of the Chinese Civil War, Taiwanese society became like a coiled-up spring. The potential energy of the spring — the pent up frustrations of the public — provided the motivating force for the Republic of China’s “Taiwanization.”
Or, in the words of a common Chinese saying: “Persisting in evil will bring about one’s own self-destruction.”
Of course, from a historical research perspective, one should not overlook the complexity of the Martial Law period. Two of the main events that brought about its end were the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident and the founding of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 1986.
When looked at from this angle, one can see that the lifting of martial law was certainly not a result of the “benevolent rule” and “charitable nature” of then-president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國).
It is important to understand that prior to the breakthrough that enabled the DPP to overcome the ban on political parties, representatives of the dangwai (黨外, outside the party) had already mustered several million votes.
Opposition to the KMT party-state was by that point far stronger than it had been at the time of the events involving democracy pioneer Lei Chen (雷震) in 1960.
Furthermore, at that point, many exiled democracy advocates in the US were preparing to form a “Taiwanese Democratic Party” to put pressure on the KMT.
The hard work of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs in the US, founded in 1982, paid off and gave the democracy movement impetus in Washington.
A “Gang of Four” — then-US senators Ted Kennedy and Claiborne Pell, as well as then-US representatives Stephen Solarz and Jim Leach — formed a working committee on the democratization of Taiwan. Their efforts eventually led to a joint resolution in 1986 calling on the KMT government to “permit the establishment of political parties.”
This significant “international factor” in the removal of martial law should not be overlooked.
Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) has said that he believes Chiang came around to the ideas of democracy and “nativization” later in life and that this was the main driver behind the lifting of martial law.
Lee has also said that in the world of “Chinese politics,” it is only when there is a change in a leader’s thinking that change can take place.
The Martial Law era was simply an excuse by a dictator to shore up his monopoly on power. Taiwan was not in a genuine state of war and there was therefore no need for military rule.
As we are greeted with the sad news that Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Chinese democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) has died — killed at the hands of the Chinese authorities — we should pause to reflect upon the absurdity of “Chinese-style democracy.”
The CCP has to this day kept in place a ban on the formation of political parties, which is essentially the same as martial law. The million-dollar question is when China’s coiled spring of pent-up public discontent will finally snap.
Chen Yi-shen is an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Modern History.
Translated by Edward Jones
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