Transitional justice was first discussed after Taiwan’s first transfer of political power following the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) defeat in the 2000 presidential election by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). However, it only became a viable political program when the DPP returned to power in 2016. President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration now needs to deliver on its promises.
During the 1990s, former South African president Nelson Mandela overturned white majority rule in South Africa and former Cape Town archbishop Desmond Tutu managed the transitional justice process through the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
At about the same time, Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) became Taiwan’s first directly elected president, but given the political environment of 1990s Taiwan, it was impossible to push through transitional justice.
Germany is still implementing transitional justice, which is not merely confined to politics, but also applies to culture. If Taiwan’s reforms are restricted to changing the shape of political power, it will be difficult to achieve real transitional justice.
Following the passage of the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例) in December last year, a transitional justice promotion committee is to be established with former Control Yuan member Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄) as its chairman.
However, Huang appears to be a flawed candidate due to several political decisions during former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration.
Huang has served several legislative terms for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), promoted a new national flag and national anthem, and also has his own ideas on culture.
However, when Ma, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, won the presidency in 2008, some politicians allowed themselves to be taken in and hitched their wagon to the wrong horse, as did many intellectuals, cultured individuals and reformers who previously opposed the KMT party-state and even flaunted their left-wing credentials.
This is the malign effect Chinese culture has on many politicians: It will eat up even the most public-spirited and upright politician. A culture incapable of guilt or shame lacks the core social conditions to carry out transitional justice.
KMT New Taipei City mayoral candidate Hou You-yi (侯友宜), who headed the Taipei Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division at the time of democracy activist Deng Nan-jung’s (鄭南榕) self-immolation in 1989, continues to play down his involvement in the incident.
At a forum on freedom of speech, Hou responded to comments by Premier William Lai (賴清德) on his involvement in the incident that Lai should focus on matters of national importance.
Showing no remorse, he said he has no regrets on the matter.
Is it so difficult to apologize for a mistake?
Germany’s transitional justice process has been affected not just by German culture, but also by religion and wider international attention, as well as pressure from the victorious Allied Powers to address German National Socialist Workers’ Party (Nazi) offenses.
When South Africa overthrew apartheid, South Africans dreamed of a shared national community. Religion provided an additional impetus and a new model of “truth and reconciliation” transitional justice was developed.
What about Taiwan? After Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) death on April 5, 1975, Tomb Sweeping Day was fixed to that date to honor his death. On Tomb Sweeping Day this year, several military generals from the KMT party-state era honored Chiang’s greatness, ignoring the fact that he lost China, ruled Taiwan as a dictator and even deprived it of national status.
These generals, who relied on Chiang’s party-state for protection, on seeing the faint emergence of a new Taiwanese state are suddenly full of admiration for communist China and hostility toward Taiwan’s democratization. The difficulties facing Taiwan’s transitional justice process will test the common will of Taiwanese to build their new nation.
Lee Min-yung is a poet.
Translated by Edward Jones
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
To counter the CCP’s escalating threats, Taiwan must build a national consensus and demonstrate the capability and the will to fight. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often leans on a seductive mantra to soften its threats, such as “Chinese do not kill Chinese.” The slogan is designed to frame territorial conquest (annexation) as a domestic family matter. A look at the historical ledger reveals a different truth. For the CCP, being labeled “family” has never been a guarantee of safety; it has been the primary prerequisite for state-sanctioned slaughter. From the forced starvation of 150,000 civilians at the Siege of Changchun
The two major opposition parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), jointly announced on Tuesday last week that former TPP lawmaker Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) would be their joint candidate for Chiayi mayor, following polling conducted earlier this month. It is the first case of blue-white (KMT-TPP) cooperation in selecting a joint candidate under an agreement signed by their chairpersons last month. KMT and TPP supporters have blamed their 2024 presidential election loss on failing to decide on a joint candidate, which ended in a dramatic breakdown with participants pointing fingers, calling polls unfair, sobbing and walking
In the opening remarks of her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) framed her visit as a historic occasion. In his own remarks, Xi had also emphasized the history of the relationship between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Where they differed was that Cheng’s account, while flawed by its omissions, at least partially corresponded to reality. The meeting was certainly historic, albeit not in the way that Cheng and Xi were signaling, and not from the perspective
RSS