Martial law era stings still smart
Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the lifting of martial law. In this quarter century, Taiwan has evolved into a full-fledged democracy and made significant progress toward respect for human rights.
Looking back on the occasion now, the public had already begun to challenge martial law through growing opposition and street protests in the 1980s. The lifting of martial law by former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) in 1987 was a response to inevitable social changes.
The end of martial law led to freedom of speech, assembly and expression. Social movements have thrived over the past decades, pushing forward reforms in various fields, from labor rights, gender equality and agricultural developments to environmental protection, through both clashes and peaceful sit-ins.
Though the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed illegally in 1986 before martial law restrictions were revoked, the election of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the DPP in 2000 forced the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) into opposition for the first time in its history and completed the nation’s first peaceful transition of power.
So much progress has been made over the past 25 years. However, more efforts are needed to deal with the legacy of martial law.
Martial law was declared by Chiang Ching-kuo’s father, Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), in 1949 after the then-KMT regime in China was defeated by the Chinese Communist Party in a civil war and retreated to Taiwan. During the Martial Law era, thousands of people were arrested, imprisoned, tortured and murdered by the KMT government to suppress dissent.
The government’s violence against civilians in the White Terror, the 228 Massacre and other tragedies are a collective memory of dark and painful days for Taiwanese.
In an annual ceremony held to commemorate victims who lost their lives or were deprived of their freedom during the era, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who doubles as KMT chairman, yesterday reiterated an apology to the victims and their families, pledging to prevent similar incidents in the future.
He stressed the importance of the nation’s democratic system and peaceful cross-strait relations in preventing such tragedies, while vowing to continue promoting cross-strait relations to avoid a war.
As Ma and the KMT continue to focus their efforts on closer economic ties with China, they should remember that China is still an autocracy, while Taiwan has developed into a democracy. Developing economic relations with China is not the ultimate solution to our economic recession, and Beijing’s notorious human rights record is certainly the opposite direction of what Taiwan is pursuing in the post-Martial Law era.
Ma emphasized his determination to atone for the KMT’s past mistakes with his public apology. However, little progress has been made in uncovering the truths behind the incidents.
As a party that continues to insist on a party-state mechanism, the KMT obviously has not learned from its past mistakes and is not ready to fully repair the damage it has done.
The DPP, on the other hand, has also failed to help bring Taiwanese a better tomorrow, as it made few contributions to the nation during the eight years of its administration.
Both the KMT and the DPP should be blamed for obstructing the nation’s developments with bipartisanship in politics. As the lifting of martial law 25 years ago came in response to the public’s demand for change, it is, therefore, important for Taiwanese to demonstrate people power and demand that political parties improve their performance and work harder to bring about a better future for Taiwan.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS