It has been 70 years since the 228 Massacre took place in 1947, and it has been 72 years since Nazi Germany was defeated in 1945.
In Germany, Nazi accomplices in their 90s are still being brought to court, but in Taiwan, there is no investigation into criminal responsibility for the massacre.
Taiwan’s transitional justice, or, more precisely, the transition process from dictatorship to democracy and the righting of all the wrongs that were committed as a result of the injustices that were part of the authoritarian system, is progressing far too slowly.
The general impression is that Germany took a brave view of the crimes committed during World War II as it reviewed the dark history of the Nazi era following the end of the war, but actually the denazification process did not get a very smooth start, and it was not until the student movement of 1968 that there was greater progress.
Consider the fact that Adolf Hitler ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945 and turned it into a totalitarian dictatorship. The smooth operation of the state apparatus requires the interaction of thousands upon thousands of components. Although the West German government dismissed some of the officials and civil servants that served under the Nazi regime, it still had no choice but to keep most of them.
In practice, it was very difficult for all the government departments to remove all the staff that had served during the Nazi era because it would have been impossible to keep the government running if every single civil servant had to be replaced.
Sadly, that also meant that there were still plenty of government officials left that thought of the Nazi regime as a good thing.
Konrad Adenauer, the first post-war chancellor of West Germany, was criticized for not doing enough to promote denazification. His own account was very revealing and according to his description: “One does not throw out dirty water as long as one doesn’t have any clean water.”
The whole denazification and transitional justice process met with strong resistance during Adenauer’s time in office.
His comments about “dirty water” brings to mind how, not very long ago, former director-general of the Executive Yuan’s Central Personnel Administration Chen Keng-chin (陳庚金) called on Taiwan’s civil servants to “goof around as much as possible” because of his opposition to pension reform proposals.
This kind of attitude is precisely what Adenauer was talking about when he made his comments about “dirty water.”
Most civil servants are nothing like Chen, who was a senior official during the party-state era. The kind of mentality represented by Chen can, to a certain extent, explain why the transitional justice process in Taiwan is progressing so slowly.
The continued existence of people like Chen in the state apparatus is one of the obstacles to transitional justice.
Chen’s statement exposed his own flaws and shortcomings, but not only that: He also shone a light on the people hiding in the darker corners of the state apparatus who support such views and openly or covertly goof around as much as they can.
Liao Lin Li-ling is vice president of the Taiwan United Nations Alliance.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
It is employment pass renewal season in Singapore, and the new regime is dominating the conversation at after-work cocktails on Fridays. From September, overseas employees on a work visa would need to fulfill the city-state’s new points-based system, and earn a minimum salary threshold to stay in their jobs. While this mirrors what happens in other countries, it risks turning foreign companies away, and could tarnish the nation’s image as a global business hub. The program was announced in 2022 in a bid to promote fair hiring practices. Points are awarded for how a candidate’s salary compares with local peers, along
China last month enacted legislation to punish —including with the death penalty — “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists.” The country’s leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), need to be reminded about what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has said and done in the past. They should think about whether those historical figures were also die-hard advocates of Taiwanese independence. The Taiwanese Communist Party was established in the Shanghai French Concession in April 1928, with a political charter that included the slogans “Long live the independence of the Taiwanese people” and “Establish a republic of Taiwan.” The CCP sent a representative, Peng
Japan and the Philippines on Monday signed a defense agreement that would facilitate joint drills between them. The pact was made “as both face an increasingly assertive China,” and is in line with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s “effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea,” The Associated Press (AP) said. The pact also comes on the heels of comments by former US deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, who said at a forum on Tuesday last week that China’s recent aggression toward the Philippines in
The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday announced that the military would hold its annual Han Kuang exercises from July 22 to 26. Military officers said the exercises would feature unscripted war games, and a decentralized command and control structure. This year’s exercises underline the recent reforms in Taiwan’s military as it transitions from a top-down command structure to one where autonomy is pushed down to the front lines to improve decisionmaking and adaptability. Militaries around the world have been observing and studying Russia’s war in Ukraine. They have seen that the Ukrainian military has been much quicker to adapt to