Thu, Dec 09, 1999 page3

• A look back on the road to democracy

  The 20th anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident has served as a focal point for opposition leaders and scholars to think about the factors that led to the event which, more than any other, was the turning point for the democratization of Taiwan

  • By Monique Chu / STAFF REPORTER
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  Challenging Taiwan's political status quo in the 1970s, when the island was in the grip of martial law, required both courage and considerable commitment. But the reason why these opposition leaders dared to risk their lives -- after being labeled "violent political dissidents" and "traitors" by the KMT government -- remains inconclusive.

  Analysts and activists involved in the opposition movement do, however, agree on one thing: that the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident (美麗島事件), sparked by pro-democracy figures, was the result of a combination of both domestic and international forces that began to take shape in the early 1970s.

  Increasing Diplomatic Isolation in the 1970s

  

  Flashback: Chen Wan-chen, left and Chen Chu, right parade in a Kaohsiung demonstration, which was later dubbed the Chaiotou Incident, a year before the Kaohsiung Incident took place.

  PHOTO COURTESY OF NEW TAIWAN FOUNDATION

  Analysts say serious setbacks in the international arena for Taiwan in the early 1970s triggered anxiety among Taiwan's intellectuals over the island's future. This drove them to seek out possible ways to change the status quo.

  "The ROC's withdrawal from the United Nations [in 1971] was a major blow for Taiwan, and so was the US' announcement that it would shift diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing [in 1978]," said Chang Yen-hsien (張炎憲), a specialist in Taiwan history at the Academia Sinica.

  DPP legislator Shih Ming-teh (施明德), a major player in the opposition movement, recalled the effect these drastic changes had among contemporaries.

  "In the past, the US -- which led the fight against communism -- supported Taiwan wholeheartedly. But this was no longer the case after its decision to consider detente with Beijing," Shih said. "We realized it was time to reconsider Taiwan's future from our own viewpoint, instead of allowing the KMT to be the only decisionmaker for the island's destiny."

  Domestic factors

  Like many opposition movements around the globe that helped transform authoritarian regimes into democracies, Taiwan's experience in the 1970s had its own unique domestic roots. They centered on three major factors: the rise of the middle class, the emergence of a well-educated new generation that dared to challenge the island's political system, and the anti-government sentiment that developed during the period of White Terror that began soon after the 228 Incident of 1947.

  But it was the rise of the middle class in the 1970s that ultimately served as the fundamental basis of the social fabric needed for such a movement, analysts said.

  Yeh Chen-huei (?振輝), a political scientist at National Sun Yat-sen University who recently published the book, "Compilation of Non-Governmental Information on the Formosa Incident" (美麗島事件民間資料彙編), offered his observations.

  "In the early 1970s, Taiwan's per capita income exceeded US$1,000. Although it's not a very impressive figure, it does indicate changes in Taiwan's social structure. That is, after adequate clothing and food, the public started to demand political and social reforms from the government," Yeh said.

  Chang also supports this interpretation.

  "The rise of the middle class is often the driving force behind democratic movements in authoritarian countries. Taiwan was no exception," Chang said, citing Hsu Hsing-liang (3信良), Chang Chiung-hung (張俊宏) and Yao Chia-wen (姚1??/CHINESE>) as representatives of the new middle class who joined the opposition movement in the 1970s.

  Legacy of oppression

  The second factor was the new generation that had grown up after the events of the White Terror and were no longer haunted by those events which had turned almost the entire previous generation of people away from politics.

  The results of the 228 Incident and its tragic aftermath, as historian Huang Fu-san (黃富?T) pointed out, was not only the disappearance of the Taiwanese elite -- who fled the island or were killed by the authorities -- but a deep distrust between the state and society.

  "Since the incident, anti-establishment sentiments took root in society," Huang said, although the KMT's heavy-handed rule prevented their expression. But in the 1970s, a new generation emerged, who were less influenced by the White Terror.

  Furthermore, advanced studies in Western countries or in Taiwan had allowed the younger generations to learn more about democracy and freedom -- the normative values praised or practiced in many developed countries but lacking in Taiwan, analysts said.

  Wei Pen (-3本), a researcher who took part in Shih's three-year oral history project on the 1970s opposition movement, said many learned in school "that Taiwan, as the self-designated `Free China,' should work for freedom and democracy." But many were disillusioned by the corruption and undemocratic practices within the KMT after they joined the establishment. They were stimulated to ponder ways to challenge the status quo, Wei said, based on discoveries from the newly completed project that involved interviews with 95 people from both inside and outside the KMT who were active at that time.

  The undemocratic practices in Taiwan at the time were comprehensive, such as that the KMT could cheat with impunity during elections and grant aging mainland-elected parliamentarians lifetime tenure. In fact, it was not until 1969 that periodic supplementary elections were held to infuse new blood into the parliamentary bodies.

  Venues to challenge the status quo

  Pinpointing the shortcomings in Taiwan's political system that where in need of repair, many opposition activists called for a fundamental reform of the system through three kinds of forums for propagating their ideas: publications, elections and demonstrations.

  While demonstrations were used only sparingly by opposition activists, publications and elections were the preferred options. Opposition magazines relentlessly challenged the regime's efforts to control debate. But publishers of these magazines and the KMT were engaged in a cat-and-mouse game: when publications went too far, the KMT closed them down, only to see them reopen under new names, insiders said.

  Elections, on the other hand, were seen by many others as a chance to work within the system to publicize their reformist messages.

  "Many voiced their criticisms of the KMT during the election campaign period because the intelligence system normally turned a blind eye during these times, which opposition figures dubbed as a `democratic vacation' period," Wei said.

  To gain further ground, the opposition decided to coordinate their campaign efforts. In the 1977 local election, the term "tangwai" (黨外, literally, "outside the party") was used by the media to refer to the handful of non-KMT candidates who then made attempts to campaign.

  In 1978, the "tangwai" Campaign Corps (黨外助選1?/CHINESE>) was formed to coordinate the campaigns of all non-KMT candidates in the supplementary elections of that year.

  After 1977 and 1978, the "tangwai" movement gathered momentum, and some opposition pundits such as Shih decided to launch a new party in defiance of the KMT's ban on the formation of political parities. The end product was the launch of the Formosa magazine (美麗島雜誌) in 1979, both as an instrument to propagate their political ideas and as an organizational core for, in Shih's terms, "a new party without a formal title." Although the weekly magazine was forced to stop publishing after four issues, the shock wave delivered by the Formosa group culminated in the Kaohsiung Incident on Dec. 10, 1979 -- a demonstration that later lapsed into a violent clash between "tangwai" activists and KMT-hired agents and local police.

  Far from finalized

  Looking back at the past through the filter of time is a challenging task, and the lack of sufficient original materials has often held back such an undertaking. The attempt to analyze forces that led to the 1970s "tangwai" movement is one such example. But Wei remains optimistic, saying raw materials collected in the project -- a six million word manuscript -- can serve as "reservoirs" for future studies into the series of opposition movements of twenty years ago.

  "Our project does not offer a final conclusion on the late 1970s `tangwai' movement. Rather, it will change the public perception of the Kaohsiung Incident. It will cease to be a taboo subject," Shih said. "[The project] only serves as a starting point for the public to understand that period."

  As original materials on the 1970s opposition movement are surfacing, questions on forces behind the movement may find more comprehensive answers -- say in another twenty years time.
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