Taiwan, capitalism, socialism, and mass murder

Note from Alan Spector:

 

The following excerpt is from a British Broadcasting Company (BBC) project on the history of Taiwan. I found it interesting, because in all the debates over the various repressive measures taken by capitalist and socialist regimes, there is an overwhelming tendency to minimize or completely cover up massacres by capitalist regimes which are labeled "democratic" while roften inflating statistics on the deaths caused by socialist regimes. For example, Cuba is continually referred to as a regime which "violates human rights" and the U.S./British media continues to focus on the deaths of perhaps 1,000 people during the Tienamein Square protests. In the past, we have mentioned obvious incidents, such as the anti-communist repression in El Salvador and Guatemala which killed perhaps 180,000 people, the U.S. organized fascist coup in Chile which killed tens of thousands, and the U.S. organized fascist coup in Indonesia that killed perhaps 500,000!  Here is another story. Considering the relatively small population of Taiwan at the time, a "massacre of perhaps 18,000-30.000 " people makes any discussion of Castro's Cuba, or even gangster Milosevic's Yugoslavia look pale by comparison. But yet the drumbeat goes on about how "capitalism" is "inherently more favorable to human rights.....etc. etc."  I'm sure there are dozens more countries where situations like this happened, in addition, of course to the other unnecessary deaths from things like measles (40,000 in Ethiopia alone), malaria, cholera, AIDS, etc. etc. These situations should be discussed more actively in courses we teach.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/asia_pacific/2000/taiwan_elections2000/1945_1949.stm

 

 

With the end of World War II Taiwan was handed over to the control of mainland China, under the Kuomintang (nationalist) government of General Chiang Kai-shek. The move brought to an end more than 50 years of Japanese control.

Chiang moved quickly to formalise the island's status as a province of China. On Taiwan itself liberation from Japanese rule was initially welcomed, but many quickly came to resent the corruption of the new government and what was seen as the exploitation of Taiwanese resources for mainland post-war reconstruction. Taiwanese industry, which had been closely tied to Japan, was redirected to supply the needs of the mainland and the island's economy slid into crisis. Unemployment soared and, as protests grew, a brutal crackdown took place in 1947.

In what became known as "the White Terror" an estimated 18,000 - 30,000 members of the island's native-born political and academic elite were executed as Chiang's government asserted its control. For decades afterwards the government insisted the action was a crackdown on communists and gangsters.

As the war with the Japanese came to an end, on the mainland the civil war with Mao Zedong's communist forces resumed more fiercely than ever with the communists increasingly gaining the upper hand. As defeat loomed hundreds of thousands of Chiang's soldiers defected to the communist side.

 

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