Taiwan, a long way to democracy

Audio 48:30

By: Valérie Nivelon

We are going to Taiwan, where democratization means revisiting the painful past of "White Terror".

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The arrival in Taiwan of the Chinese nationalist party in 49 opened a dark era for this archipelago hitherto colony of Japan. For 40 years, the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Sheck and then his son imposed an authoritarian regime based on a cult of his personality and the dream of a return to mainland China.
Today, Taiwan wants to rehabilitate the victims of the White Terror, but the results remain incomplete. 100,000 people arrested and at least 1,600 sentenced to death.
In the name of the "struggle against the Communists", the "White Terror" ended in the 1980s with the democratization of the country. A long way which today allows a consensus to emerge among the Taiwanese: that of attachment to their autonomous and democratic system.

Taiwan, a long way to democracy, is a long format report, proposed by our correspondent Adrien Simorre in Taïpei.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
A big thank you to Wei Hua-Tu from the National Museum for Human Rights, to the National Museum on February 28, to the historian Chung-Hua Lin and to all the speakers who agreed to share their testimony.

References :
- The February 28 massacre in Taiwan, Testimonies of silence, Agnès Redon, Nicolas Datiche , Les Éditions du Net, 2018
- Histoire de Taïwan , Hsiao-Feng Lee, L'Harmattan, 2004.

Milestones :
At least 5,000 years ago: Austronesian aboriginal presence (ancestors of current indigenous populations).

1544: the Portuguese arrive in Taiwan which they name "Ilha Formosa" (beautiful island).

1622-1662: the Dutch are defeated in the Penghu Islands and fall back to the southwest of Taiwan. Convert the natives to Calvinism and transcribe their language into Latin letters.

1626 to 1642: Spanish bases in the north of the island (Fort San Salvador in Keelung; fort Santo Domingo in Tamsui). The Spanish will be expelled by the Dutch.

1662: the Dutch are in turn driven out, by Koxinga (Zheng Cheng-kong), loyalist of the Ming, at the head of an army of 25,000 men.

1683: the Zheng dynasty is dislodged and Taiwan passes under Manchu (Qing) command.

1895: at the end of the Sino-Japanese War, the Qing government cedes sovereignty over Taiwan to Japan.

1911-1912: the Qing Empire is overthrown by Chinese revolutionaries who proclaim the Republic of China.

1945: the island is allocated by Japan to the Republic of China - then under the domination of the Kuomintang (KMT).

February 28, 1947: popular uprising known as "Events of February 28". The government of the Kuomintang (KMT) sends troops from the continent and represses the protest in blood.

1949: transfer of the seat of government of the Kuomintang from mainland China to Taiwan, after its defeat against the Communists of Mao Zedong on the mainland. Martial law was introduced on May 19, 1949.

1950 - 1987: "White terror".

1978-1988: presidency of Chiang Ching Kuo (1910-1988), son of Tchang Kaï-chek. Gradual liberalization of the political regime and gradual lifting of media censorship and public expression. Chiang encourages the participation of the Taiwanese in the administration and in the KMT, hitherto reserved for the mainlanders, paving the way for his successor Lee Teng-hui.

Mid-1980s: massive mobilization of various social groups to call for democratic change and modernization. The process of democratization of political life in Taiwan will last until the 1990s 

July 14, 1987: lifting of martial law, in force since May 19, 1949. 

1988 - 1996: chairman Lee Teng-Hui, the first Taiwanese to come from the ranks of the KMT.

1996: 1st presidential election by direct universal suffrage.

Presidential 2000: first political alternation in power: Chen Shui-Bian (DPP).

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