Re: Taiwan, capitalism, socialism, and mass murder

On Thu, 26 Apr 2001, Dennis Engbarth wrote:

> dear alan,
>
>     Indeed, the current reality is quite the opposite as Taiwan's
> current government is rather more similar to a  ``center-left`` or
> ``third way`` administration .

I think neo-liberal would be more appropriate. The current government has
no left oriented platforms. The two main parties and the third smaller
party all accept the premises of neo-liberalism and more broadly the
liberalisation of global capital flows. All three are dominated by the
interests of local manufacturing and financial capital.


>The DPP
> whose establishment in September 1986 defied martial law restrictions,
> is the direct descendent of the grassroots opposition movement against
> the KMT and represents the victims -- not the executioners - of the
> white terror.

More to the point, it represents the interests foremostly of its business
donors, making it little different in substance to the KMT. In fact, one
of the ways the KMT remained in power throughout the 90's was because it
was able to carry out many of the DPP's platforms since they dovetailed
with the business donors in the KMT who sought the type of neo-liberal
economic reforms that the DPP advocated (i.e. breaking up of state owned
companies, tax cuts, liberalization of finance laws, gov't 'streamlining',
etc.)


 Chen got his start in politics as one of the defense
> lawyers for eight opposition activists charged with sedition (which
> carried a possible death sentence)  in the December 1979 "Formosa" case,
> in which the KMT cracked down on an opposition effort to form an
> opposition party in substance. He also served several months as a
> political prisoner in the 1980s. Vice President Annette Lu Hsiu-lien was
> one of the "Formosa Eight" and served eight years of a 12-year sentence
> before being released after an international campaign. Taiwan is far
> from perfect, especially given the difficulty of correcting the
> political, economic, social and cultural problems left from nearly 55
> years of KMT rule, but now has a fully elected government (which,
> despite the deficiences of bourgeois democracy is a far cry better than
> a fascist dictatorship), no political prisoners, vibrant environmental
> and labor movements and probably the freest - indeed licentious - media
> in East Asia at present.


Obviously liberal democratic reform is preferable to no reform or the
status quo of martial law. But the pitfalls of the DPP's neo-liberal
reforms should not go under or undiscussed, especially in sociological
circles. The recent turnaround on the part of the DPP on work week hour
limits is but one good example of the limits of DPP reform. Or its flip
flopping on the nuclear energy issue. And the labor movement in Taiwan is
hardly vibrant, how could it be with massive capital flight, rapidly
rising unemployment, and a whole host of problems related to increasing
economic inequality that can't be blamed on the KMT's past.  The KMT and
the DPP are too close on the issues that underly these phenomena for
starters.



 The DPP's victory in March 2000 also had
> historic significance by ending the rule of the last right-wing regime
> left from the World War II period.  Despite the links between Washington
> and the KMT regime during the Cold War period, the polarities have
> changed - Taiwan's government is no longer a rabidly ``anti-communist``
> regime but is rather more similar in character to the social democratic
> ``centre-left`` governments that emerged in Spain, Portugal and Greece
> after similar transitions.

That's just a simplification. The DPP gov't shows no commitment to the
kinds of social welfare programs, trade union rights, etc. that the gov'ts
in Spain, Portugal, and Greece showed in their transitional moments, their
respective limits notwithstanding.



>     Taiwan's main problems include the continued influence of the KMT,
> which has a majority in the national legislature (but will probably lose
> it in the next set of legislative elections in December, which will be
> the first ever conducted under a completely level playing field),

Again, look at the platforms of the KMT and the DPP. Where are there any
substantial differences on key issues that affect social inequality? They
are both neo-libearl to the core. As a matter of fact, in some respects
you will probably find the KMT more 'left' oriented than the DPP insofar
as the former still has some kind of obligations to the state sector by
virtue of its ties to that sector.  Regardless, what stands out during
Taiwan's elections is the lack of difference between the two parties,
aside from the sector of business that contributes to them, and even in
that respect now there is considerable overlap between the two.



>
> Dennis Engbarth
> freelance journalist,
> Taipei Taiwan
>
> Alan Spector ¼g¹D¡G
>
> > 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.============================================================================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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