It is with deep sadness that we learned of the passing of the Reverend Kao Chun-ming (高俊明) in Tainan on Thursday. He will be remembered as one of Taiwan’s leading lights in its early hours of darkness and a beacon in its transition to democracy.
The Reverend Kao was already a towering figure in the 1970s for his role in the three statements by the Presbyterian Church urging the repressive Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government to move toward freedom, democracy and independence: the “Statement on our National Fate” (1971), “Our Appeal” (1975) and, most famously, the “Declaration on Human Rights” (1977), in which the church urged the KMT government “to face reality and to take effective measures whereby Taiwan may become a new and independent country.”
The Reverend Kao again showed his courage after the now well-known Formosa Magazine incident in December 1979, when thousands of people took to the streets in Kaohsiung to urge the government to end martial law, which had been imposed 30 years earlier in 1949. The government responded by cracking down on the budding dangwai (黨外, “outside the party”) opposition movement and started to arrest all of its major leaders.
One of the Formosa Magazine leaders, Shih Ming-te (施明德), had initially been able to escape arrest, and the Reverend Kao agreed that the church should provide him shelter. This landed Reverend Kao and nine other Presbyterians in prison.
We first met the Reverend Kao and his courageous wife in November 1984 in Taipei, just a few months after he had been released. There had been much international pressure on the KMT regime, and finally then-president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) relented and ordered the release of the Reverend Kao and Lin I-hsiung (林義雄), whose mother and twin daughters were stabbed to death while he was in prison.
During our moving visit, the Reverend Kao recounted some of his prison experiences, but he also told us how he had been able to provide comfort and solace to others in prison. The visit cemented a friendship for life.
We kept in touch over the years, but the next major event was the December 2003 reunion of international human rights and church workers organized by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. The Reverend Kao gave a moving account of the church’s role in Taiwan’s transition to democracy.
He spoke at the Tainan Theological College and Seminary with his interpreter. We had Japanese, Americans and Europeans in the group, so the Reverend Kao spoke Japanese and the interpreter needed to do only one translation: into English.
We met the Reverend Kao for the last time just two years ago, in Tainan in March 2017, when we were doing research at National Cheng Kung University. We visited him and his wife at their home for a simple meal. Although he was getting weak and frail, he was still full of spirit, talking about how we could advance Taiwan and its future in the international community.
We will fondly remember the Reverend Kao for his warmth, his vision, his courage and his great contributions to Taiwan’s transition to democracy. He was an inspiration to all of us.
Gerrit van der Wees is a former Dutch diplomat. He and his wife, Chen Mei-chin, published Taiwan Communique, which chronicled Taiwan’s transition to democracy.
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
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS