This month marks the 100th anniversary of China’s 1919 May Fourth Movement, which has much in common with Taiwan’s 2014 Sunflower movement.
The May Fourth Movement also started out as a student movement. Its participants were concerned with national affairs, were critical of aspects of traditional culture and advocated democratic modernization, which they referred to as “Mr Democracy” and “Mr Science.”
One hundred years later, commemorative events on both sides of the Taiwan Strait each have their own unique interpretation of the events that took place.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has sought to magnify the nationalistic aspect of the movement and has avoided any mention of the participants’ demands for democracy and freedom, but in Taiwan, some like to portray the movement as the kernel of the democratic freedoms that the nation enjoys today.
Perhaps each of these interpretations contains an element of truth, but neither of them offer a comprehensive analysis of the movement and often draw over-arching conclusions based on partial information that obscures many of the facts.
The malign intent behind Xi’s attempt to co-opt the movement into his brand of state-sponsored patriotism is blindingly evident, but creating an explicit link between the movement and the birth of Taiwanese democracy is equally problematic.
Taiwan’s democratic freedoms do have deep roots, but they also have more immediate origins.
The May Fourth Movement took place in China, while Taiwan was a colony of Japan during the Taisho period (1912-1926), which followed the Meiji Restoration of 1868, a time of rapid modernization and Westernization.
During the Taisho period, Japan underwent a process of democratization, with power shifting from Emperor Taisho to the Imperial Diet. As a result, Japan became a far more advanced society than China.
The flow of ideas from West to East had a significant influence on Taiwanese culture, art and thought. Taiwan’s political and social movements were also affected by the principle of self-determination and Japan’s democratic reforms. A cultured, modern civil society began to take root in Taiwan.
Unfortunately, after World War II ended, this progress was brutally snuffed out by the authoritarian Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime, in particular during the 228 Massacre and the subsequent White Terror era.
Democratic freedoms were gradually restored, but the credit for their reemergence should be given to those selfless Taiwanese who stepped into the breach and sacrificed their lives for the greater good — including liberal intellectuals who were inspired by China’s May Fourth Movement.
The US, as the leader of the free world during the Cold War, assisted Taiwan and its contributions should not be overlooked.
The reason some attribute Taiwan’s democratization to the May Fourth Movement is the diminished status of Taiwanese history in schools.
The nation’s history curriculum is biased toward China-centric viewpoints. This has meant that many Taiwanese are unable to assess history purely from a Taiwanese perspective.
While China’s May Fourth Movement might have provided intellectual stimulation for some of Taiwan’s elite, the more enlightened members of Taiwan’s intellectual class were already looking further afield at international developments.
The evolution of Taiwan’s native reform movement was therefore driven not by the May Fourth Movement, but by the international zeitgeist of the time.
Caution should therefore be exercised when drawing parallels between Taiwan and China.
Once it is understood that the dominant historical interpretation of the May Fourth Movement is incomplete, Taiwan’s lack of a proper cultural and historical understanding of itself becomes clear.
For this very reason, former Academia Historica president Chang Yen-hsien (張炎憲) took a lead role in the publication of Taiwan History: A Repository (典藏臺灣史), which helped shift the debate within academia to the recognition of a Taiwan-centric interpretation of history.
The seven-volume series of books effectively dismissed the Han Chinese-centric interpretation of Taiwanese only having 400 years of history.
Studies by international academics in fields such as archeological anthropology, language and genetics show that 6,000 years ago, Taiwan was either the birthplace or one of the temporary homes of Austronesian tribes, who later fanned out across the South Pacific and Indian oceans.
Last year, a group of young Maori from New Zealand visited Taiwan in search of their roots. This is a good example of the international view that the Austronesian peoples spread “out of Taiwan.”
In addition to exploring Aboriginal history, the books also emphasize archeological studies showing that Taiwan has a history of human activity dating back 30,000 to 50,000 years.
A few years ago, some claimed that there was no such thing as a Taiwanese people. This series of books is an excellent corrective for those who have no conception of their nation’s rich history.
A history in which Taiwan itself is the focus urgently needs to be established, as there are numerous examples of historical amnesia in today’s society.
For example, this year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of Hua Nan Commercial Bank. On its official Web site, the bank clearly states that it was established in 1919.
However, Taiwan’s first bank, the Bank of Taiwan, erroneously states on its Web site that it was established later, in the 35th year of the Republic of China (1946).
One only look at the Japanese colonial era, Renaissance-style architecture of its headquarters on Chongqing S Road in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District (中正) shows that the bank predates the date on its Web site.
The Bank of Taiwan was established in 1899. Long before Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) relocated his government to Taiwan after losing the Chinese Civil War, the Bank of Taiwan was already operating in China’s Guangzhou Province and Shanghai.
It is difficult to understand why the Bank of Taiwan would cut 50 years out of its 120-year history.
This historical amnesia is even more serious in the field of politics, and is especially prevalent in the Internet generation.
Since sweeping to victory in last year’s local elections, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) has been riding the crest of the so-called “Han wave.” He appears to be in a tearing hurry and his supporters have been promoting his bid to be the KMT’s presidential candidate.
It is a strange state of affairs, especially considering that Han, who has only been mayor for about five months and has no political achievements to his name, chooses to spend his time spouting political opinions and reneging on campaign promises.
Yet in spite of this, his fan base seems to be becoming more fanatical by the day.
Internationally, the echo chamber of social media has resulted in a dangerous cocktail of polarizing lies, bias and hatred, gradually eroding democracy and repeatedly producing populist leaders.
In today’s world there is a real possibility that the electorate could vote for a nakedly populist president such as Han.
Faced with a nefarious neighbor hell-bent on annexing Taiwan, if the public, in a fit of pique, elects such an unsuitable leader, Taiwan’s democracy would face an existential crisis.
Constructing a Taiwan-centric interpretation of history is not enough. The public’s cloudy collective memory, their confused identity and their diverging visions and hopes for the future of the nation have caused Taiwan’s democracy to stray off course.
Taiwan’s collective historical amnesia makes it difficult to establish a robust set of values and convictions to address this problem.
As next year’s presidential election nears, people should keep this thought at the forefront of their minds when politicians are promising milk and honey in search of votes.
Translated by Edward Jones
US President Donald Trump last week told reporters that he had signed about 12 letters to US trading partners, which were set to be sent out yesterday, levying unilateral tariff rates of up to 70 percent from Aug. 1. However, Trump did not say which countries the letters would be sent to, nor did he discuss the specific tariff rates, reports said. The news of the tariff letters came as Washington and Hanoi reached a trade deal earlier last week to cut tariffs on Vietnamese exports to the US to 20 percent from 46 percent, making it the first Asian country
On Monday, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) delivered a welcome speech at the ILA-ASIL Asia-Pacific Research Forum, addressing more than 50 international law experts from more than 20 countries. With an aim to refute the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) claim to be the successor to the 1945 Chinese government and its assertion that China acquired sovereignty over Taiwan, Lin articulated three key legal positions in his speech: First, the Cairo Declaration and Potsdam Declaration were not legally binding instruments and thus had no legal effect for territorial disposition. All determinations must be based on the San Francisco Peace
As things heated up in the Middle East in early June, some in the Pentagon resisted American involvement in the Israel-Iran war because it would divert American attention and resources from the real challenge: China. This was exactly wrong. Rather, bombing Iran was the best thing that could have happened for America’s Asia policy. When it came to dealing with the Iranian nuclear program, “all options are on the table” had become an American mantra over the past two decades. But the more often US administration officials insisted that military force was in the cards, the less anyone believed it. After
During an impromptu Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally on Tuesday last week to protest what the party called the unfairness of the judicial system, a young TPP supporter said that if Taiwan goes to war, he would “surrender to the [Chinese] People’s Liberation Army [PLA] with unyielding determination.” The rally was held after former Taipei deputy mayor Pong Cheng-sheng’s (彭振聲) wife took her life prior to Pong’s appearance in court to testify in the Core Pacific corruption case involving former Taipei mayor and TPP chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). The TPP supporter said President William Lai (賴清德) was leading them to die on
RSS