Taiwan: Another Greece?
Kagan, Richard C.
IN A RECENT Newsweek article the econo mist Paul Samuelson wrote, "[this nation, economically,] belongs up there with the miracle nations of Japan and Israel ... [Its] per capita living...
...At the moment liberals within the KMT are wary of speaking out...
...Its hierarchy, chain of command, and totalitarian nature are traits it shares with the Communist party...
...On the whole, they distrust and resent the mainlanders...
...In 1960, when it developed an opposition party, the editor was immediately arrested and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment...
...The young Americaneducated Taiwanese wants to change the island from within...
...The United States' earlier diplomatic effort, which died with Kennedy and the subsequent rise of Rusk and Johnson, should be revived...
...His point, however, is equally applicable to Taiwan: Economic development does not necessarily imply or protect the process of democratization...
...This tendency is gaining strength, e.g., the successful attempt to form coalition voting blocs in the capital city, Taipei, to elect a Taiwanese mayor...
...Some of these "youths" are now 40 years old...
...On the whole, their program is the result of their reaction to the authoritarian, unscientific, and in many ways irrational system of Taiwan's government...
...once he dies the KMT will face a crisis in prestige, strength, and loyalties...
...Such an alternative would mean political resolution of the island's demand for a government based on parliamentary democracy, and a modus vivendi to be worked out with the People's Republic of China...
...Yet there is growing criticism of the KMT within and outside the Party...
...And the young—be they Taiwanese or mainlanders— share a basic antipathy toward the ruling party—the Kuomintang...
...Within two years he was supervisory officer of the southern part of that province...
...Subsequently, the chief writers for both magazines have been forced out of work by the government...
...Will the United States government seek a keeper of the peace on Taiwan among the Nationalist generals and allies of Ching-kuo, thereby raising the danger of a renewed Chinese civil war on Taiwan's soil where it is at best a foreign intrusion—or will it look to the Taiwanese for an alternative to a militaristic police state...
...The KMT's reprisal was to declare the city a federalized area whose mayor would no longer be elected but appointed...
...This professor, an editor of Free China and a follower of Bertrand Russell, was put under semi-house arrest and removed from his teaching position in the fall of 1966...
...The editor of the newspaper withdrew his support from Apollo and thus the smaller magazine, refusing to bend, had to bear the brunt of the Party's fury...
...The task of the KMT and the legislative representatives has been defined by President Chiang K'ai-shek as helping to "consolidate Taiwan as a base for counterattack, and not to let the implementation of our national task of mainland recovery be interfered with...
...The rightists maintain that all adverse criticism of China's cultural values and any attempt to criticize the government's policies impedes the national purpose—the return to the mainland...
...Hu Ch'iu-yuan's supporters come from the group of "Marxist" educated Chinese—former Communists or sympathizers and those who were trained in Moscow...
...And so, after his death, Hu Shih's memoirs and private affairs have become part of the arsenal used to besiege his followers...
...He is well aware RICHARD C. KAGAN of the animosity felt toward him by the Taiwanese and is preparing himself against the eventuality of revolt...
...His problem is that now Taiwan is not in a revolutionary stage and that he has no mass following...
...T T a,IwnN (or Formosa, which is the island's Portuguese name) was settled in the 16th and 17th centuries by Chinese from South China who were fleeing from the mainland's political chaos and economic hardships...
...thinkers as the conservative economist Hayek and the socialist Bertrand Russell...
...The rightists are aware of this problem and are seeking support from outside the Party...
...The first step is to divide mainland Chinese from Taiwanese...
...Taiwan's future, if under the rule of Chiang Ching-kuo, however, may not be much different from the present condition of Greece...
...Its] per capita living standards...
...His main aims are to outlast the life of the KMT, gather a personal following, and then seek change...
...One example of Party purgings is the attack on a very popular professor who symbolizes Western learning...
...The Taiwanese intellectual is thus caught between identities and political realities...
...A provincial legislature does exist, but its purse strings, crucial political decisions, and even TAIWAN: ANOTHER GREECE...
...Although his proclaimed policy of "total Westernization" was somewhat modified to allow for coexistence with selected parts of Chinese culture, he was to many brave mainlanders the champion who challenged the orthodoxy of Chinese tradition...
...The staff of the Apollo magazine and the editor of a major newspaper who was also a high Party official had planned to publish a joint criticism of the arbitrary and dictatorial actions of the Minister of Information who had already closed down several student publications and had falsely accused and black-listed newspaper men as being Communist agents...
...The older Taiwanese intellectual was trained in Japan and possesses a sophisticated revolutionary attitude...
...But this surveillance hampers him less than his educational background: White America trains pragmatists, not revolutionaries...
...Their liberalism is not necessarily au courant with American thinking—they use as models such diverse TAIWAN: ANOTHER GREECE...
...He was a young Communist in the 1920's and studied in Moscow...
...They are unconcerned with the heritage of the May Fourth movement and seek solutions to China's problems with a much more pragmatic, ahistorical approach...
...Those people who belong to the AngloAmerican educated group attach themselves to Western ideas that are antigovernment and proindividual...
...Many of these writers are now living off money borrowed from friends, and some of them are still under semi-house arrest...
...thereafter, to divide both groups by generational lines and educational background...
...The Apollo, a successor publication, was closed down in December 1965 on the vague grounds that it violated the "objectives for publication...
...In 1887, China recognized the strategic importance of Taiwan and gave it the status of a province...
...The rightist mainlanders are well-represented in the China Magazine...
...But the recent example in Greece and the present political instability in an economically robust Taiwan invalidate this notion...
...Stevenson began maneuvering toward this policy when he pointed out that Taiwan's population and size placed it within the upper 15 per cent of nations in the U.N...
...This policy, first enunciated by Chester Bowles, not only advocated the neutralization of the off-shore islands but also an independent Sino-Taiwanese nation.* Ambassador * For elaboration of this policy see the study by Chen Lung-chu and Harold D. Lasswell, Formosa, China, and the United Nations (New York: St...
...Americans tend to apply a neo-Marxist economic approach to developing nations: i.e., economic growth produces a middle class which develops the political stability that will nurture political democracy...
...They constitute a Russian-trained or -oriented group of former Marxists or Communists who vociferously blame the United States for the loss of China, label Professor John K. Fairbank of Harvard University as Mao Tse-tung's righthand man, and relentlessly attack the former liberal holders of power and influence...
...This magazine leads in the attack on the former members of Free China and the Apollo...
...Since these arguments surfaced in 1919, the history of China has been rewritten by the Communists, as if all the criticism of Chinese culture had led to the radical policy changes—the family system is greatly modified, the young are the leaders, women have equality, and the Chinese feudal tradition of Confucianism has been replaced by the Chinese proletariat-peasant tradition of Maoism...
...They are still involved in the debates which were dramatically thrust forward in the May Fourth movement of 1919...
...His use of the secret police and his puritanical character earned him the sobriquet of "iron commissioner...
...They want to abolish KMT rule over Taiwan, end the civil war with Communist China, put Taiwan into the hands of its residents, and raise it from the fictional status of a province within "the Republic of China" to that of a country in its own right...
...Born in 1909, he is now 58 years old...
...Despite job offers from abroad, he has not been allowed to leave Taiwan...
...Since in theory this legislature represents all the provinces of China, another election will have to wait until the mainland is reconquered...
...their major writings are banned...
...The nature of his concerns is evidenced in the recent construction of military block houses right in the cities of Taiwan to put down any local disorder...
...The historical record on Taiwan is equally distorted: modern history is written to prove the viability of the Chinese spirit over Western machinery, the family system is extolled, and any attack on Chinese traditional culture is considered Communistic...
...In Taiwan he is known less politely as "pig-face...
...Taiwan's political instability has its sources in the nature of the ruling Nationalist party (the Kuomintang), the division of the country's intellectuals, and the problems of Presidential succession...
...T T HE KuoMINTANG (National People's party) was reorganized in 1924 with the help of Russian advice along Communist lines...
...Taiwan now reached an economic development that was second in Asia only to Japan...
...From 1954 to 1960, the organ of this liberal movement was a publication called Free China...
...As a result of the disappointment with the Nationalist government, Japan's rule is now idealized and Japanese is often preferred to Chinese as the foreign language on the island...
...His succession to the Presidency seems only impeded by the fact that he is ill with diabetes...
...Our economic aid to Taiwan and Taiwan's economic advancement will not mitigate the hardships of Ching-kuo's rule...
...The rightists in the Party are gaining with the rising influence of Chiang Ching-kuo, son of President Chiang K'ai-shek...
...The island was run as a frontier outpost by the local gentry and clans...
...Those debates centered around the values of the Chinese family structure, the rights of women, the tyranny of China's traditional system of rituals and beliefs, and the anachronism of a Chinese system of values in a Western world...
...His personal power has been maintained by his relation to his father, his system of spying and political indoctrination, and his special organization of many personal youth groups...
...Whether or not the ending of the civil war will make Communist China less bellicose, it will force Taiwan to focus more attention on the island's welfare, to move from martial to civil law, and from a military-based economy-90 per cent of the budget is reserved for military expenditures —to a civilian-based economy...
...When the KMT's Central Committee and Chiang K'ai-shek were informed of the forthcoming public criticism, they summoned the editor of the large daily newspaper and advised him to keep all Party criticism both secret and within the Party...
...C C HIANG K'AI-SHEK in many ways is the KMT...
...Common to all liberal types (Chinese mainlander or Taiwanese, young or old) is the hope to end the civil war with China, shed the military rule of the island, and reorient economic development away from short-range planning and a wavering economy toward long-range planning and a peaceful economy...
...Until his death in 1962, Hu Shih, a participant in the May Fourth period, a student of John Dewey at Columbia University, and a former ambassador to the United States, was the leading liberal in Taiwan...
...Though the leaders of the KMT have written a national constitution which is democratic in form, it has been shelved until "the return to the Mainland...
...The legislature is composed of aging KMT mainlanders who were elected in 1947...
...Ching-kuo's accession to the Presidency would mark a shift from party rule to outright military rule...
...They do not want to reform the Kuomintang or even establish an opposition party...
...RICHARD C. KAGAN When, in 1945, the Japanese were forced to return Taiwan to China, the Taiwanese welcomed this, for they had always identified themselves racially and culturally with the Chinese and had idealized the democratic political goals of the Republic of China...
...After staying in Russia for 12 years, he returned home in 1937 and became deputy commander of a military bureau in the province of Kiangsi...
...The older Chinese intellectuals are mainly concerned with the adaptation of China's cultural heritage to the modem world...
...His answer is to overthrow the KMT by violence and establish a Taiwan for the Taiwanese...
...Ching-kuo has also attempted to control and reduce the autonomy of the liberal Presbyterian Church of Taiwan, the largest and most progressive on the island...
...Japan's colonial rule provided a hitherto neglected and economically backward island with a strongly developed agricultural base, an efficient system of communications and transportation, a literacy rate of 80 per cent, and an urban middle class...
...In his youth Chiang Ching-kuo received little formal higher education in China, for at the age of 16 he went to the Soviet Union to attend military school and receive political indoctrination...
...The source of their power is Chiang K'ai-shek's son Chiang Ching-kuo...
...Some liberals feel that equal cooperation between mainlanders and Taiwanese can become the basis for an independent Taiwan...
...have climbed rapidly relative to Western Europe...
...We should attempt to end the civil war by reducing military aid to an army that is too small to invade the mainland and too large merely to keep domestic order...
...Unless we begin to open up the question of Taiwan, its citizens will continue to live under an increasingly unstable and politically repressive government...
...While presently serving as a legislative representative from Fukien, he is proving his loyalty by incessantly attacking all liberals and "deviants...
...To characterize the intellectuals of Taiwan is a problem of political long division...
...This situation has been described by one China scholar as a "submerged totalitarianism" where nothing is spelled out, and where crimes are judged and decided on an ad hoc and ad horninem basis...
...Businesses are now controlled by one group or another but never shared...
...It has also been estimated that there is one paid informer for every ten Taiwanese...
...and] its 1966 gross national product rose by 8.2 per cent...
...Although a minor publication, it is often used by the Party (the Kuomintang) to start movements of censure and repression...
...its press releases are entirely controlled by the central government...
...The younger Taiwanese intellectual has been trained in America...
...For the present, the country is run under martial law...
...Martin's Press, 1967...
...Some reforms, mainly in taxation, communications, and defense, were instituted by an ambitious military governor...
...They advocate the freedoms of speech, press, and assembly, and the right to establish a loyal political opposition party...
...However, in 1895, only eight years later, China was defeated by Japan, and Taiwan was traded to the victor...
...He understands the need for a tightly knit organization resembling a military chain of command...
...The editor of the China Magazine is Hu Ch'iu-yuan, the leader of the rightists...
...The political consequences of these improvements were the development of Taiwanese nationalism, a sense of political identity, and a politicized community of intellectuals and businessmen...
...Since the death of Hu Shih and the rise of Chiang K'ai-shek's Russian-educated son, their power has grown considerably...
...But the Taiwanese soon realized that they were considered culturally inferior by the Chinese who were exploiting Taiwan...
...Because its staff members have connections in the Kuomintang, they have been able to gain access to and publish private letters from Hu Shih's collection which reveal the hesitations, doubts, and criticisms of the Party once expressed by Hu Shih's close friends...
...the rightists not only detained him but also carried out economic and political reprisals upon his proteges and students...
...If he returns to Taiwan (which is rare), he is kept under strict surveillance...
...His national identity was forged in opposition to the Japanese, but he is unable to accept the Chinese mainlander ruling class...
...In 1947 and 1948, Nationalist reprisals against Taiwanese rebellion resulted in the death of 10-20,000 Taiwanese and in involuntary exile for most of the Taiwanese political leaders...
...Samuelson was writing about Greece, before its recent military coup...
...Yet he has an unclear idea of organization, political alternatives to the Nationalists (the Kuomintang), or the process of change...
...Chiang Ching-kuo's main concerns are maintaining security and stability, and protecting the basis of Chinese culture from foreign influences as a way to legitimate future power...
...and thus it could be considered a nation in itself...
...Only personal loyalty to Chiang K'ai-shek has checked open dissension within the ranks...
...Today's Taiwanese intellectuals are best characterized by their total noninvolvement with questions of the nature and viability of Chinese culture...
...Taiwan's Minister of Defense will then probably ally himself with military and rightist elements in order to crush all "subversive" forces, which will exacerbate political dissatisfaction...
...The KMT is now in transition from a "liberal" to a more reactionary position...
...The KMT was also quick to destroy this embryonic opposition by enforcing complete political and economic segregation between Chinese mainlanders and Taiwanese...
...His major books on Chinese culture and the values of Westernization are now banned...
...Chiang Ching-kuo was the first son of Chiang K'ai-shek's first wife, not the present Madame Chiang...
Vol. 16 • January 1969 • No. 1
