Democratizing Taiwan
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Democratizing Taiwan Democratizing Taiwan By J. Bruce Jacobs LEIDEN • BOSTON 2012 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jacobs, J. Bruce. Democratizing Taiwan / by J. Bruce Jacobs. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-22154-3 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Democratization—Taiwan—History. 2. Taiwan—Politics and government—1975- I. Title. JQ1536.J33 2012 320.951249—dc23 2011048134 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.nl/brill-typeface. ISSN 978 90 04 22154 3 (hardback) ISBN 978 90 04 22590 9 (e-book) Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. contents v For Jung-Sim Kim contents vii Contents List of Tables and Figures . ix Acknowledgements . xi Note on Romanization. xiii Introduction . 1 1. How Taiwan Became Democratic . 5 2. The Japanese and Kuomintang Colonial Regimes. 19 3. The Lee Teng-hui Presidency to Early 1996 . 69 4. The 1996 Presidential Election and the Taiwan Straits Crisis . 106 5. Lee Teng-hui as an Elected President and the 2000 Presidential Election . 127 6. The Presidency of Chen Shui-bian. 173 7. The Kuomintang Regains Power . 229 Conclusion. 269 Bibliography . 275 Index. 295 list of illustrations ix LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Tables 3.1. Central parliamentarians, June 21, 1990 . 77 3.2. Seats obtained by parties in December 3, 1994 Provincial Assembly/City Council Elections . 96 3.3. Ethnicity and party voting, 1995 . 99 3.4. Ethnic self-identification and party voting, 1995 . 99 3.5. Age and party voting, 1995 . 100 3.6. Education and party voting, 1995 . 100 3.7. Employment and party voting, 1995 . 101 3.8. Party voting among professionals and military/civil service/ education voters, 1995 . 101 4.1. 1996 Presidential election results . 115 4.2. 1996 National Assembly election results . 116 5.1. City Council elections in Taipei and Kaohsiung, December 5, 1998 . 135 5.2. Major polls as published, March 7, 2000 . 147 5.3. Presidential election results, March 18, 2000 . 164 6.1. Legislative election results, December 1, 2001 . 187 6.2. Support by county/municipality in 2004 presidential election 199 6.3. Party vote in 2004 legislative election . 201 6.4. National Assembly election, May 14, 2005 . 207 6.5. Chapter titles of six tenth-grade senior high history textbooks (Vol. II) . 224 6.6. Premiers under President Chen Shui-bian . 227 7.1. The January 12, 2008 legislative election in Taiwan . 231 C.1. Taiwanese attitudes towards independence and unification (June 2011) . 273 Figures 7.1. Satisfaction ratings for President Ma Ying-jeou (Global Views Magazine Survey Center) . 256 C.1. Changes in the Taiwanese/Chinese identity of Taiwanese as tracked in surveys by the Election Study Center, NCCU (1992- June 2011) . 271 contents xi Acknowledgements I especially acknowledge a major three-year Discovery Grant from the Australian Research Council, entitled “Democratizing Taiwan,” that facil- itated much of the field research that underpins this study as well enabled the purchase of many research materials. A smaller grant from the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, for another project, also assisted in the prep- aration of this book. I also thank the numerous politicians, officials, journalists and citizens in Taiwan who have spent many hours discussing Taiwan with me in for- mal interviews as well as in less formal settings. Institutionally, I particu- larly wish to express my appreciation to the Graduate Institute of Taiwan History at National Chengchi University, which has hosted me on numer- ous occasions and become my academic home in Taiwan. This book is dedicated to my wife and partner, Jung-Sim Kim, whose support and encouragement has enabled me to finish this project. contents xiii Note on Romanization For scholars of Taiwan, romanization of Chinese words remains a diffi- cult issue. Where known, for personal names I have used the name pre- ferred by the individual. Otherwise, I have used a simplified Wade-Giles romanization. As the final arbiter, I have used the Who’s Who section in various annual editions of Republic of China Yearbook/Taiwan Yearbook. For all place names in Taiwan, I have used the common form used in Taiwan (prior to the introduction of tongyong romanization). For all Chinese-language publications and for the romanization of Chinese terms, I have used pinyin. I have also used pinyin for all Chinese place names and personal names. introduction 1 Introduction In late 2011, Asia has only four relatively stable democracies: India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Possibly, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand may eventually become democracies, but their militaries remain too powerful and their democratic roots still lack the power to resist a concerted authoritarian restoration. All of these potential democ- racies also have substantial ethnic problems and poverty. Mongolia too has taken steps towards democratization, though it too has yet to reach the goal of a stable democracy. Thus, Samuel Huntington’s promise of a “Third Wave” of democratization, beginning in 1974,1 remains largely unfulfilled in Asia and Africa. India became democratic through the participation of the Indian National Congress in British colonial rule during the 1930s and through having many great leaders such as Gandhi and Nehru. Yet, British colo- nial experience did not create democracies in Pakistan, Burma, Singapore or Malaysia. Japan had Taisho democracy during the 1920s, but its mili- tary gained strong authoritarian power. Japan’s current democracy was built by the allied occupation forces following Japan’s surrender on August 15, 1945. Clearly, no simple theory can explain democratization. India demon- strates that a democracy does not require great wealth. It also demon- strates that a multi-ethnic society can be democratic and it demonstrates that democracy can occur with substantial illiteracy. In this book, I will argue that increasing economic prosperity with increasing equality can facilitate democracy, but it is not necessary. Similarly, higher levels of education can also assist, but are not a precondition. In Asia, the two stable “Third Wave” democracies are Taiwan and South Korea. Both share a number of similarities. For example, both had important Japanese colonial periods. Both had repressive authoritarian regimes replace the Japanese colonial government. Both had close alliances with the United States. Both democratized in the late 1980s. In both, the former oppositions came to power at about the same time. And, 1 Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Cen- tury (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). 2 introduction in both, the more conservative forces regained power in late 2007 and early 2008. Both have similar governmental structures with a president and a premier providing dual executive leadership. Yet there are also important differences. South Korea had military coups d’etat while Taiwan has essentially had civilian control over the military. Taiwan’s political parties have a certain stability, unlike South Korea’s. I had origi- nally intended to devote a chapter to comparing Taiwan and South Korea, but this has been published elsewhere.2 However, we will return to this comparison in the Conclusion. This book thus focuses on Taiwan’s democratization, particularly at the central level.3 Chapter 1 begins with a definition of democracy and draws the important distinction between “liberalization” and democrati- zation. It also distinguishes between democratization and Taiwanization. The chapter then analyses ten important factors that have contributed to Taiwan’s democratization. Chapter 2 argues from 1624 with the arrival of a non-aborginal popula- tion, the Dutch, until the death of Chiang Ching-kuo in 1988, Taiwan lived under six different colonial regimes. The chapter notes important simi- larities between the Japanese and the Chinese Kuomintang (also KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party) colonial governments, before beginning a shorter treatment of the Japanese colonial government and then an extended treatment of the Kuomintang colonial governments under Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo. This chapter demonstrates that Chiang Ching-kuo engaged in “liberalization,” but he did not create democracy in Taiwan. Chapter 3 considers the first eight years of Lee Teng-hui’s presidency (1988–1996). It discusses how Lee overcame the power of the Mainlander elite though a series of shifting alliances and how he revised the constitu- tion with the assistance of people in the Kuomintang and the then oppo- sition Democratic Progressive Party. The chapter includes the decision to choose the president by popular election. Chapter 4 analyses the first popular presidential election in 1996 and the simultaneous Taiwan Straits Crisis, which the Chinese instigated in 2 J. Bruce Jacobs, “Taiwan and South Korea: Comparing East Asia’s Two ‘Third-Wave’ Democracies,” Issues & Studies: A Social Science Quarterly on China, Taiwan, and East Asian Affairs, 43, no. 4 (2007), pp. 227–260. 3 For democratization in a rural locality, see J. Bruce Jacobs, Local Politics in Rural Taiwan under Dictatorship and Democracy (Norwalk, CT: Eastbridge, 2008), pp. 258– 317.