When asked whether he wanted a memorial built in his honor, King Agesilaus II of Sparta said: “If I have done any noble action, that is a sufficient memorial; if I have done nothing noble, all the statues in the world will not preserve my memory.”
This sentiment is undeniably reflected in Taiwan today; all the statues in the world cannot whitewash Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) brutal totalitarian legacy. Those who still idolize Chiang are a declining minority and are often ridiculed for their blind romanticism.
Taiwan has transformed itself into a democratic state, even though the wounds of past trauma have not fully healed. Transitional justice is a continuous process meant to address these wounds. Being one of the key tenets of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) platform, transitional justice is often misleadingly portrayed by the pan-blue coalition as a DPP ploy to crush the opposition.
The truth is the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is not ready, and might never be ready, to confront its own wrongdoings. By doing so, the KMT would have to abandon the cult of personality it has crafted around Chiang, and eventually also his son and successor, former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), as the stern, but benevolent patriarch.
Understandably, due to the KMT’s considerable influence, transitional justice has not been smooth sailing. Even the removal of statues has encountered a lot of irrational opposition, similar to how the removal of confederate statues in the US has often been opposed by zealous believers of the “lost cause.” While many monuments of KMT authoritarianism have been removed over the years, transitional justice is not as simple as removing statues.
The most important issue transitional justice must address is the enduring KMT-legacy status groups that are still disproportionately dominant in the military and government.
Chiang Kai-shek’s rule was one marked by intense inequalities, with rules that heavily favored waishengren (外省人) — those who came from China with the KMT after the Chinese Civil War, and their offspring — over benshengren (本省人) — people who came to Taiwan in the centuries preceding World War II. Social mobility for a large number of Taiwanese was thwarted because of KMT-imposed barriers to entry.
On the other hand, this period also saw the creation and consolidation of a status group of a waishengren elite, still prominent in military and government circles today. The patrimonialism present during KMT rule developed into a structure that sociologist Max Weber termed as traditional authority as opposed to rational legal authority.
The overwhelming majority of generals in the military have a waishengren background. I am not suggesting a polemic that automatically assumes these generals have no merit because they are waishengren; this is a counterproductive oversimplification. Rather, we see the continued maintenance of a status group that often excludes benshengren. Sociologists can explain this with principles from social class reproduction theory.
A report by Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun, or Nikkei, alleged that up to 90 percent of retired Taiwanese military officials had provided intelligence to China for profit. While this controversial report should be taken with a grain of salt, it illustrates a larger problem — the ingrained KMT ideology of Sinocentric historicism which often leads to justifying collaboration with China’s regime — is still very much prevalent in Taiwan’s military command. This Sinocentric historicism is often accompanied by an inability to imagine a Taiwanese future. It is very concerning that many of the powerful in the military share this way of thinking. In light of increased Chinese hostilities, transitional justice has received renewed purpose and urgency.
Taiwan’s military is no longer the KMT’s military. Chiang Kai-shek should be remembered for his rampant corruption and abuse of power, hardly the ideal military man. Removing statues that glorify KMT authoritarian rule only addresses the surface of the problem. In addition to these symbolic changes, Taiwan must eliminate the surviving roots of the KMT’s Chinese ideology in its power structure and challenge the privileged status groups that emerged alongside this ideology. Let justice be done though the heavens fall.
Linus Chiou studies physics and history at the University of Virginia.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry