With the quest for transitional justice having progressed for more than the past six years, it has unfortunately been used as a political ploy by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) rather than an opportunity for reconciliation and inclusion.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Saturday last week attended the opening of a memorial park for former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). She said: “Chiang’s staunch defense of Taiwan is a stance that unites a large part of Taiwanese society, especially as Beijing applies ever greater pressure against the country.”
Her remarks were seen as glorifying authoritarianism and deliberately ignoring Chiang’s role in the White Terror era. Taiwan’s path to implementing transitional justice is now more difficult.
Upon taking office in 2016, Tsai was eager to deliver her promises toward transitional justice. With a legislative majority, the DPP set about implementing its political agenda, including establishing the Transitional Justice Commission and the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee.
However, as Academia Sinica law researcher Chen Yu-jie (陳玉潔) and political science researcher Chang Liao Nien-chung (張廖年仲) said, the formidable task for Taiwan was to implement more vigorous transitional justice mechanisms, and ensure that their integrity and credibility were not influenced by politics.
This noble ideal appears to have been shattered by fierce partisan politics.
Academia Sinica law researcher Huang Cheng-yi (黃丞儀) said that the DPP’s transitional justice policies are predominantly motivated by political rivalry. Members of the Sunflower generation, in particular the New Power Party (NPP), claimed to be more radical on transitional justice and party assets than the DPP.
When the DPP wrestled with amendments to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) in November 2017, the NPP played chicken with the DPP, saying that the government betrayed grassroots workers and sided with corporate interests.
To salvage Tsai’s credibility and public approval, the Act for Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例) was passed the next month. To some degree, her confidant Chang Tien-chin (張天欽) serving as the justice commission deputy chairman and creating chaos demonstrated that the DPP lacked an understanding of transitional justice from the beginning.
The Tsai administration also used the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee to hobble the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) by reducing their financial capacity in future elections.
The committee’s formation was the most impressive achievement during Tsai’s first term, even though it led to antagonistic party politics and polarization of supporters in different camps.
Tsai’s missteps in addressing Chiang’s historical position has set this vision back.
The Taiwan Association for Truth and Reconciliation on Tuesday denounced the government for promoting authoritarian discourses and undermining Taiwan’s democratic values. By praising Chiang’s enlightened rule and his “anti-communist, pro-Taiwan” narratives, the DPP demonstrated a substantial shift in attitude toward the nation’s authoritarian past.
Nevertheless, as the association appropriately said, as the successor of Chiang kai-shek (蔣介石), Chiang Ching-kuo’s first priority was to maintain power. As such, Chiang Ching-kuo first recruited local elites, while the progressive and democratic forces outside the KMT known as dangwai continued to develop.
The 1977 Jhongli Incident was a watershed in Taiwan’s road to democracy, with opposition voices suppressed, leading to the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident, followed by the deaths of democracy advocate Chen Wen-chen (陳文成), the mother and twin daughters of former DPP chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) and Chinese-American journalist Henry Liu (劉宜良).
Nevertheless, Chiang’s repressive tactics were unable to hold back the Taiwanese pursuit of democracy or the establishment of the DPP.
Ultimately, Chiang was compelled to make concessions. Furthermore, some facts must not be forgotten.
Before martial law was lifted, Chiang Ching-kuo demanded that the Legislative Yuan pass a set of security laws continuing restrictions on speech, assembly, and leaving and returning to Taiwan. Chiang also wanted to maintain the suspension of the constitution and the one-party state.
Taiwan’s democratic system would not have been established had it not been for “the price of democracy.” That is to say, Taiwanese society agitated for serious democratic reforms at a critical juncture.
As for the “anti-communist” narrative, the purpose of Chiang’s regime was to compete with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for control of China, not to pursue democracy. Even worse, behind the soundbite, the KMT implemented one-party and totalitarian rule. Taiwanese have been long subjected to brainwashing and propaganda, and yet on Saturday the nation’s democratically elected leader chose to publicly praise Chiang Ching-kuo.
It was not only civil society that opposed the DPP’s reversal; inside the party itself there was much tussling over the stance and its impact on transitional justice.
What is puzzling is that Tsai would have made this rookie mistake. One possible explanation is that she misjudged the situation in her confidence about the DPP’s ability to win elections.
Another plausible explanation is that she was testing the waters for garnering independent voters and some support from the pan-blue camp, especially the “light blue” elements, in preparation for this year’s local elections. If so, she turned transitional justice into an election consideration, which would not only be to the severe detriment of past efforts, but also undermines the process of transitional justice for some years to come.
Has Tsai not forfeited an opportunity to “calibrate” the stigmatization of transitional justice by the KMT, thus contributing to the substantiation of those accusations in appearance, if not in reality?
Huang Yu-zhe is a student in National Chengchi University’s Graduate Institute of Law and Interdisciplinary Studies.
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