The evolution of Taiwan’s democracy — starting with the dangwai (黨外, “outside the party”) political movement during the 1970s and 1980s, the formation of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 1986 and the party’s ascent to government in 2000 — was a long and thorny path involving contributions by many democracy advocates.
Democratization transformed Taiwan from a one-party authoritarian state led by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) into a new, de facto independent nation state, outside of “China.”
Many participants of the dangwai movement who devoted themselves to revolutionary political reform either had a hand in the foundation of the DPP or joined the party later. Some left the party shortly afterwards, while others stayed.
During the early days of the DPP, successes and failures occurred in equal measure.
The period was also marked by clashes between ideological purists and those who had joined the party as a means to advance personal interests. Political ambition, egotism and economic exigencies conflicted with the culture of the dangwai protagonists. The pursuit of power for power’s sake was no less a cause of friction within the party.
When the DPP was formed, dangwai protagonists who had been rounded up and arrested after the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident were still rotting in jail. Meanwhile, the defense attorneys who provided legal counsel to defendants in the Kaohsiung Incident trials had attained a high socioeconomic status. They played a major role in the foundation of the DPP, and leading members of the dangwai movement formed the Formosa faction within the party.
Shortly afterwards, a group of dangwai assistant cadres, called the Dangwai Writers and Editors Alliance, joined the DPP and formed the Assistance and Support Force. This grouping eventually branched off to form the New Tide faction, which later became the largest and most substantive faction within the DPP.
During the party’s infancy, the Formosa and New Tide factions tussled with each other for power and over the direction of the party.
The New Tide faction was initially opposed to the dominance of dangwai leaders within the party’s higher echelons and wanted the party to rely on social power for support.
However, the New Tide faction eventually followed in the footsteps of the dangwai leaders.
Competition between factions within political parties is, of course, inevitable, but the power struggles inside the DPP became increasingly severe as the party grew.
Born out of the Kaohsiung Incident, defense attorneys initially filled the party’s top positions.
In 1964, then-National Taiwan University political science professor Peng Ming-min (彭明敏), who in 2001 became an adviser to then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), coauthored a paper with two of his students titled A Declaration of Formosan Self-Salvation.
Peng argued that Taiwan should establish itself as a separate nation with a new, democratic constitution.
Peng’s credentials as an early advocate for democracy enabled him to harness popular support to defeat former DPP chairman Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) in the DPP’s primary ahead of Taiwan’s first direct presidential election in 1996.
In 2000, Chen was defeated in the Taipei mayoral election, despite enjoying wide support among the public.
Unwilling to pass the baton, Chen obtained the support of then-DPP chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) and ran for president later that year, achieving Taiwan’s first peaceful transition of political power and bringing an end to the party-state system.
Having already left the DPP, Hsu ran as an independent, while former DPP chairman Shih Ming-te (施明德) also harbored presidential ambitions.
During the latter half of Chen’s second term as president, when he came under fire from academics supposedly sympathetic to the pan-green camp, Shih initiated the Red-Shirt Army movement under the guise of anti-corruption and took down Chen.
However, instead of uniting the pan-green camp, Shih succeeded in uniting the pan-blue camp, in particular the colonialist KMT’s pro-unification faction, and in so doing provided the faction’s brand of deep-blue politics with a modicum of legitimacy.
Chen is a polarizing figure, loathed and revered in equal measure, and the DPP was certainly tarnished by his presidency. Sadly, Shih lost his status within Taiwan’s revolutionary movement as a result of his actions.
The KMT informant scandal that later engulfed the DPP was instigated primarily by Shih, who has been poking his nose into other people’s affairs. This has caused the Kaohsiung Incident defense attorneys to become tarred with the same brush.
Instead of sticking strictly to the facts of the matter, former DPP legislator Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄) and former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) exacerbated the situation, casting aspersions about those who “lived extremely comfortably” during the party-state era, compared with those who “lived a frugal life without luxury.”
Their behavior does beggar belief and runs the risk of inciting an evidence-free witch hunt.
Unfortunately there is a certain kind of DPP politician who changes their tune after leaving public office, who becomes governed by emotion and who even goes so far as to parrot the talking points of the colonialist government-in-exile they used to oppose.
This is the most depressing aspect of Taiwan’s political reform movement. Is today’s politics just about raw ambition and egotism? Is political power sought for no reason other than to feather one’s nest?
How do such politicians, to whom voters have previously lent support, look at themselves in the mirror, let alone face the country and the electorate?
Lee Min-yung is a poet.
Translated by Edward Jones
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