46 Chapter 2

Chapter 2 The Chinese Nationalist Party Regime and the Media, 1945-1987

As a colonial regime from without broad support or legiti- macy in , the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT; ) govern- ment applied numerous measures to secure its power before democratization. Just as the Japanese colonial government conducted its policy during 1895-1945, the KMT attempted to Sinicize Taiwanese by means of incul- cating . Both the Japanese government and the KMT also shared some other similarities in the way they ruled Taiwan, such as the pro­- motion of “national language,” the establishment of a discriminatory system against Taiwanese and the suppression of dissenting media. In addition, in order to protect its power, the KMT proclaimed itself as the sole legitimate representative of the Chinese nation as opposed to Communist China during the period 1945-1988. The KMT regime thus portrayed both the Taiwan Inde- pendence Movement and the democratic opposition as threats to the Chinese nation on Taiwan. The KMT controlled almost all before democratiza- tion. The media formed part of the ideological state apparatus of the colonial KMT regime, playing a vital role in propagandizing its version of Chinese ideol- ogy and attacking the Chinese Communists, the Taiwan Independence Move- ment and the democratic opposition. Nevertheless, some burgeoning voices of Taiwan identity emerged in the opposition magazines from the mid-1970s. This chapter thus selects newspapers such as the Taiwan New Life News, the , the , the Independent Evening Post to examine the con- struction of national identity in the print media. In addition, this chapter also uses radio stations and three free-to-air TV stations as cases to analyze the KMT’s policy of constructing a Chinese identity in the electronic media. Lastly, the chapter discusses the development of opposition magazines as well as the birth of Taiwan identity in opposition magazines.

A Colonial Power: The Chinese Nationalist Party

The claim that Taiwan belongs to China is very recent. Not only did Chairman Mao Zedong declare that Taiwan should be independent in his interview of

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/9789004227699-004 1945-1987 47

July 16, 1936 with Edgar Snow,1 but Chiang Kai-shek also declared, in April 1938, that the KMT should help Taiwan to be independent in order to fulfill Dr Sun Yat-sen’s will.2 Chiang Kai-shek’s views shifted after the involvement of the U.S. in the Sino-Japanese war, and he successfully pushed for the “restora­- tion” of Taiwan following Japan’s defeat to be added to the Cairo Declaration in 1943 (Wachman 2007:69-81). Finally, Chiang Kai-shek sought to reassert ­China’s sovereignty over Taiwan after the defeat of Japan (Wachman 2007:36). When the KMT government retreated to Taiwan in 1949 following its defeat in the , Taiwan became the base for the KMT government to retake China. The KMT regime proclaimed itself as the sole legal regime for the Chi- nese nation, and even legislated the “Temporary Provisions Effective during the Period of the Communist Rebellion” (Dongyuan kanluan shiqi linshi ­tiaokuan 動員戡亂時期臨時條款) in 1948, which lasted until 1991. Moreover, the KMT government also applied martial law (Jieyan fa 戒嚴法) from 1949 until 1987 in order to secure its control over Taiwan. Most importantly, the KMT tried to Sinicize the people of Taiwan so as to justify its Chinese national- ist autocratic rule over them. The KMT regime was the last of a long line of colonial regimes. From 1624 until the late 1980s, Taiwan had a series of six colonial rulers: the Dutch (1624- 1664), the Spanish (1626-1642), the Zheng Family (1662-1683), the Manchus (1683-1895), the Japanese (1895-1945) and the KMT regime (1945-the late 1980s) (Jacobs 2008:37-52). Like the Japanese before them, the KMT regime applied systematic discrimination against native Taiwanese in order to rule over them, despite claiming that the Taiwanese were members of the same Chinese nation. The KMT also forced all Taiwanese – Hoklo, Hakka and aborigines – to speak the colonial language “,” and fined and humiliated students who spoke their mother tongues at school. Taiwanese students also had to learn about Chinese history and geography instead of their own history

1 Chairman Mao Zedong claimed that Taiwan should be independent in his interview of July 16, 1936 with Edgar Snow. Snow asked, “Is it the immediate task of the Chinese people to regain all the territories lost to Japanese imperialism, or only to drive Japan from North China, and all Chinese territory above the Great Wall?” Mao responded, “It is the immediate task of China to regain all our lost territories, not merely to defend our sovereignty below the Great Wall. This means that Manchuria must be regained. We do not, however, include Korea, formerly a Chinese colony, but when we have re-established the independence of lost territories of China, and if Koreans wish to break away from the chains of Japanese imperialism, we will extend them our enthusiastic help in their struggle for independence. The same thing applies for Formosa [Taiwan]. As for Inner Mongolia …” (Jacobs 2008:37). 2 Chiang Kai-shek delivered a speech of the KMT’s future and the war with Japan to the KMT Interim Representative Assembly in April 1938 (Hsiao & Sullivan 1979:463).