THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF TAIWAN IN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

1. THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF TAIWAN IN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE By Linda Gail Arrigo

2. Introduction • In almost any international accounting, Taiwan is fortunate as of 2005 to be at a high per capita income, nearly to the level of some European countries, and substantially democratic. It faces threats, but probably not immediate ones.

3. However, the young people in Taiwan are in general not aware of their own history, because of the past decades of suppression – forty years of martial law, 1947-1987. Moreover, the non-violent and gradual transition to democracy in Taiwan has yielded a reluctance to examine this past, as has been done with “Truth and Justice” Commissions in Latin America and South Africa.

4. Added to this, young people in Taiwan, as in the rest of the world, are caught up in the e-age of instant information that is fast but has a very shallow time depth, and of virtual images that can depict imagination but also blur a sense of reality. The common outcome is materialistic values for the moment, and a weak sense of long-term purpose.

5. Still, this past should be understood, and understood in a perspective that is international, not just the view from within Taiwan. That is the purpose of my lecture.

6. My view is that of an American who has worked for human rights in Taiwan, after coming here first in 1963. I have also been in communication with human rights activists from many parts of the world, and that has shaped my world view.

7. American Power after World War II • After World War II, the United States was the only major power that had not suffered great losses from the war. Thus it was in a suitable position to take over the center of world empire from Great Britain.

8. This it could do with economic power and free markets rather than direct colonial control. So in some ways at first it appeared to be a liberating force, and it advocated land reform and liberal political forms, against the feudal structures of old colonial governments and empires.

9. But as a large inward-looking and self-sufficient country, the United States did not and still does not have a deep understanding of the other people of the world. Its priority has been to maintain its control of cheap labor and resources.

10. In competing against the Soviet Union and China and their ideals of social revolution, following WWII, the US strategy was to support “liberal” elites – usually dictators who actually exploited their own people, although they pretended to be democratic.

11. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek was one such early example. Here as in many cases the US was careless of the rights and welfare of small countries. Although during WWII, US propaganda promised the people of Taiwan freedom and self-determination if they turned against Japan, actually the US turned a blind eye to the White Terror in Taiwan after 1945

12. It was in the interest of the United States to deny to the Chinese communists the China seat in the United Nations, although they won the Chinese civil war in 1949. So the United States supported Chiang’s claim of legitimacy of the “Republic of China” on Taiwan, representing “one China” (including Mongolia), although it was obviously a ridiculous claim.

13. And now that the US has come to terms with the Peoples Republic of China and Taiwan is a pawn in that bargain, the US still expects the people of Taiwan to bow to US interests in this manipulation of fiction.

14. During the long years of martial law in Taiwan, the news in Taiwan did not report objectively on political developments around the world.

15. The Chiang Kai-shek government allied itself with the most conservative and repressive regimes in Asia and Latin America, though the World Anti-Communist League. For example, the Park Chung-hee regime in South Korea, dictators in Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, and Central America.

16. The ROC aided the United States in its wars in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. The Kuomintang’s intelligence networks in Asia helped the US Central Intelligence Agency. US bombers and aircraft were repaired in Tainan, and the families of US officers in Vietnam lived in Tienmou. Millions of Vietnamese and SE Asians died.

17. There were US military bases in Taipei at Chungshan N. Road, at Gung Guan, at Linkou, and in the Kaohsiung harbor, and elsewhere. Finally these were mostly withdrawn by about 1970 as the US decided to play “the China card” against the Soviet Union.

18. However, the US still insisted on tight control of Latin America. The CIA helped the Chilean military to overthrow a democratically-elected leftist government in Chile in 1973; the military killed about 30,000 people. There were similar anti-communist terror operations by government-run death squads in Argentina and elsewhere.

19. The US was accused of providing torture training to the governments. Taiwan provided military training to many of these same governments, and in particular gave money and training to El Salvador in the early 1980’s, when death squads were killing about 300 people a month – killing leaders of peasant and labor movements, as well as intellectuals, priests and nuns.

20. Similarly, from 1980 the ROC became very good friends with the South African generals. The white minority government of South Africa was coming under increasing international pressure and boycott for its vicious treatment of the black majority; it named Taiwanese “honorary whites”, and Taiwanese moved in with formal diplomatic recognition, and provided investment to stabilize South Africa economically and exploit the cheap black labor.

21. International criticism of US support of dictatorships did lead President Jimmy Carter to declare a human rights policy in 1978, and although this policy was directed mostly against the Soviet Union, it did provide some breathing space for the Taiwan democratic movement in 1978-79.

22. However, my own experience was that the US Embassy cooperated with the Taiwan security agencies in trying to stop my own human rights reporting, and the US tacitly approved the Kuomintang’s crackdown on the Meilidao movement in late 1979.

23. The Economic Development and Democratization of Taiwan • Both Korea and Taiwan had good basic infrastructure from the period of Japanese colonization, and following WWII the United States moved to build up South Korea and Taiwan as a frontline in the containment of communism

24. Taiwan received more US aid per capita than anywhere else in the world. In the late 1960’s, the US opened up its markets to Taiwan and South Korea exports, and by the mid-1980’s, both countries were highly industrialized.

25. It could be said that the rising demands for democracy, largely led by the middle classes, proved the American promise that economic development would lead to democracy.

26. However, there is little reason to thank the American government for this. It was not an easy process. Both Taiwan and Korea suffered decades of brutal military rule, with thousands of political prisoners, and suppression of legitimate social movements like labor and environment.

27. Although Taiwan seems poised to continue its economic advance spearheaded by its place in the international e-industry, it has already paid a heavy price in industrial pollution and environmental destruction.

28. As Taiwanese capital increasingly moves to use cheap Chinese and SE Asian labor, there is of course polarization of incomes in Taiwan.

29. The same thing has happened and continues to happen in the United States; now computer programming is being moved to India. This is the huge process of globalization, which will likely pull down the standard of living of labor all over the world, and make it increasingly difficult for governments to provide social welfare and environmental protections.

30. It is not likely that much of the world can follow in Taiwan’s happy path of development. Taiwan benefited from a particular geo-political history. It has been relatively privileged, but that does not mean that such privilege will necessarily last forever.

31. Facing the Future • In international perspective, Taiwan is now a rich country with a low rate of unemployment. Its resources are relatively ample. But it needs to make further advances and reforms to become a humane and advanced country with a pleasant living environment.

32. Moreover, it is an extremely wasteful country – wasteful of food, water, energy, and environment.

33. The pattern of economic development is to continually tear up clean land and mountains and seashore, and to over-develop until the beauty of nature is extinguished. This is not sustainable development, and the people of Taiwan will pay a high price for it in the future.

34. A great deal of effort must be put into forging a new social and political agreement for the future of Taiwan. High rates of economic growth may not be beneficial.

35. Taiwan faces the threat of invasion by China. It is continually being warned by the United States not to “rock the boat”. Taiwan has not in the past had a good reputation internationally among many peoples of the world, because it has been seen as a pawn of US imperialism.

36. Even now the US presses the Taiwan president to make statements in support of its vicious invasion of Iraq, and Taiwanese seem to have no conscience on this matter.

37. I believe that Taiwan must demonstrate that it has its own principles of international human rights, in order to persuade the world to support its self-determination in the face of Chinese threats.

38. There is danger both in action, and in lack of action. But any people must take responsibility for their own future, and the young people of Taiwan must know that they must make their own decisions, and live with the consequences.