The Academia Historica’s recent publication of documents related to former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) has shed light on his administration’s concerns before the lifting of martial law and revived memories of the nation’s authoritarian past.
After Chiang revealed his intention to lift martial law during an interview with Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham on Oct. 7, 1986, the National Security Council ran a series of scenarios about what might happen in the post-martial law period, the documents showed.
The scenarios were aimed at formulating potential countermeasures, including in the areas of party-state relationship, political operation, news reporting, school management and social movements.
They also included possible requests by a new political party, such as disentangling the ties between the ruling party and government agencies at all levels; barring the ruling party from promoting party affairs in the military, schools, as well as police, intelligence and judicial agencies; and funding party operations with state money.
Hsueh Hua-yuan (薛化元), chairman of National Chengchi University’s Graduate Institute of Taiwan History, said the lifting of martial law was not a voluntary decision by Chiang, but rather a passive response to mounting pressure from the dangwai (黨外, “outside the party”) movement.
“The issues discussed in the documents reflects exactly what was happening back then,” Hsueh said, adding that the Free China magazine published by Lei Chen (雷震) made similar calls in the 1950s concerning the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) party-state rule and interference in the education, judicial and police systems.
Singling out the entanglement between the KMT and state coffers, Hsueh said an opinion piece in Free China said that it had been a “well-known secret” that funding for the KMT’s regional branches came from local government grants that were appropriated under a false pretexts.
Hsueh said another controversial subject was the China Youth Corps, an organization formerly known as the China Youth Anti-Communist National Salvation Corps, which was used by the KMT to infiltrate schools, but was funded by government money.
“When K.C. Wu (吳國楨) served as Taiwan provincial governor, he once argued with Chiang for refusing to allocate government funds to the corps,” Hsueh said.
Academia Sinica historian Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深) said while Chiang gave into political pressure and lifted martial law, he still restricted the public’s freedom of assembly.
“It was not until former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) came to power that Taiwanese were able to enjoy true freedom and democracy,” Chen said.
The documents showed that Chiang was very concerned about China’s united-front efforts, so it was worth pondering “who is the one teaming up with outside forces at the expense of Taiwan’s national security today,” he said.
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