“Democratization” in Taiwan and Its Discontents
Mab Huang & Shu-fen Lin
Introduction
The notions of the ‘Taiwan Miracle’ and ‘Taiwan Experience’ that initially referred to
economic performance, have, since the early 1990s, become associated with the much
acclaimed ‘Quiet Revolution’, propagating the Kuomintang (KMT) regime’s
adaptability and sustainability, and, above all, the relatively peaceful process of
political transformation (Gold 1986; Cooper 1988; Hu 1994; Lee 1995, 1996). From
the outset, in tandem with a flurry of social protests, when the first opposition party,
the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), was founded in 1986 in defiance of martial
law, a sense of uncertainty about possible reactions from the authoritarian party-state
and the ensuing direction of political change beset society. However, as the first direct
presidential election took place in March 1996, many political observers, from home
and abroad, celebrated that the election ‘marked the end of democratic transition’
(Higley, Huang, Lin 1998), ‘democracy is taking hold in Taiwan’, and Taiwan has
entered the stage of ‘democratic consolidation’. (Cooper 1995; Hood 1997; Chao &
Myers 1998). Moreover, the DPP’s victory in the presidential election in March 2000
was alleged to be another decisive step in democratic consolidation since the KMT,
after its rule in Taiwan for more than five decades, was replaced.
Apparently, the prevailing discourse of democratization in Taiwan has endorsed
Huntington’s model (Huntington 1991: 7) with an exclusive focus on formal political
institutions. It underscores the importance to ‘transcend the local and engage in the
realpolitik’ necessitated by electoral democracy (Alvarez, Dagnino, Ascobar 1998:
13). While this formulation continues to reign supreme both in academic and political
discourses, it has attracted increased criticisms. Daniel Levine, for instance, contends
that the formulation disregards the role of average people or non-elites as if they were
not involved in the political process or passively agreed to whatever outcome of the
political transformation (Levine 1988: 385). In a similar vein, Laurence Whitehead
criticized that the current comparative work on democratization has ‘contributed to
the empowerment of certain types of actor and the disempowerment of others’, which
may lead to the legitimation of a new hegemonic discourse. He points out that there
has been a critical counter-current of studies on democratization which focuses more
on societal democratization than institutional reform (Whitehead 1996). In the
Taiwanese context, this counter-current can be found in studies on the history and
socio-political role of social movements and their contribution to political
transformation (N-T Wu, 1989; J-M Wu 1990; Chang 1994). Yet, these studies remain
mostly confined to the delineation of local social movements, or to the debate on the
relationship between civil society and the state (Hsiao et al., 1989; Wang 1989, 1991).
Based on the ‘state versus society topology within a territorially bounded entity’
(Cheah 1999: 27), the profound impact of accelerated globalization and transnational
activities on democracy remain an uninvestigated territory.
As an effort to fill the gap, this chapter aims at exploring the political transformation
in Taiwan with a specific focus on human rights movement, the growing tendency to
transnationalize activism, and the impact of such transnationalization on the formation
of the democratic imaginary. We begin with reformulating the framework of political
opportunity structure by drawing on discourse theory which accords due importance
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to values, norms, and identities of social movements. We then trace the way in which
the human rights movement has been imbricated with the opposition movement, and
position it against the context of political transformation. Following this, we
investigate the discursive dynamics of human rights movement at present historical
conjuncture, featuring firstly, the local NGOs’ endeavors to promote human rights
norms and instruments, and to build a connection with transnational networks; and
secondly, the incorporation of human rights into government’s diplomatic discourse.
Finally, we offer our reflections on this development and its implications for further
democratization.
Political Opportunity Structure Revisited
One of the typical accounts of the interrelation between the regime transformation and
the rise of various types of protest and the emergence of the social movement sector1
in Taiwan since the mid-1980s is offered by Chang Mau-kuei. Chang argues that the
wave of social movements arising in Taiwan after the mid-1980s came as a result of
the destabilization of the KMT regime. According to this account, the KMT’s waning
ability to suppress oppositional forces was reflected in the unprecedented outburst of
protests and movements organized by the subordinated and marginalized social
groups, which was inconceivable before the lifting of martial law (Chang 1994: 42).
Chang notes that,
Without an authoritarian regime in transformation, the current wave of [social]
movements would not emerge. Without political struggles within political
institutions, there would be no need to create political opportunities from outside,
nor the necessity of political mobilization directed towards local districts. Without
political mobilization, so-called ‘civil society’ (or to be more precise, the ‘popular
sectors’) would not come into being. Therefore, the present wave of social
movements in Taiwan will not ebb away before the crises of the regime came to
an end (ibid.: 108 emphases added).
The central thrust of Chang’s account is that the wave of social protests was triggered
by marginalized political elites who sought support from subordinated social groups.
These groups had been either de-politicized or considered as politically irrelevant
when the KMT regime was still able to maintain a hegemonic order. However, when
the regime became overridden with internal splits and began to crumble, these groups
were easily mobilized. According to Chang, the elites’ attempt to accumulate
resources, and excluded social groups’ need to empower themselves by cooperating
with those with resources, have given rise to social movements after the mid-1980s.
For instance as far as the women’s movement is concerned, Chang contends that
although the investment of and negotiation for political resources was not so evident
as in the case of labor and farmers’ movements, the women’s movement has
substantially enhanced its ability to mobilize support, disseminate ideas, and
proliferate issues alongside the emerging political openings after 1986 (ibid.: 67).
The concept ‘social movement sector’ denotes, in Tarrow’s words, ‘the configuration of individuals
and groups willing to engage in disruptive direct action against others to achieve collective goals’. Seen
in this light, the social movement sector does not only include social movement organizations but also
‘extends to those who participate only sporadically in their activities, but who participate in a
movement subculture and act as an informal support structure’, see (Tarrow 1988: 432).
1
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Chang’s analysis which focuses on the stability of the elite alignment and the
accessibility of resources is inspired by the resource mobilization model (RM) and the
concept of political opportunity structure (POS). While POS has been frequently
employed to study the structural factors which facilitate or impede social movements,
we contend that the plausibility of the concept of POS is tainted by its entanglement
in the structure/agent dichotomy, and the lack of the dimension of meaning and
identity in the analysis of social movements. Moreover, most POS-inspired studies of
Taiwan’s social movements have tended to neglect the influence of transnational
activism. To overcome these theoretical deficiencies, we propose to reformulate POS.
‘The Political’
The use of the concept of POS can be traced back to Peter Eisinger’s research which
defines political opportunity structure as ‘the degree to which groups are likely to be
able to gain access to power and to manipulate the political system’ (Eisinger 1973;
McAdam1996: 23). As it evolves, according to Doug McAdam, the concept of POS
has been applied indistinguishably to denote the institutional dimension and the
systemic crises that ‘render the existing regime weak and vulnerable to challenge
from virtually any quarter’ (McAdam 1996:24). Consequently, ‘[a]ny environmental
factor that facilitated movement activity was apt to be conceptualized as a political
opportunity’ (ibid.: 25). McAdam contends that one of the repercussions of this
theoretical development is that while an all-encompassing concept may have enabled
researchers to incorporate as comprehensive factors as possible, it nevertheless lacks
the analytical precision and distinctiveness (ibid.: 26). Echoing McAdam, Gamson
and Meyer claim that ‘the concept of political opportunity structure is in trouble, in
danger of becoming a sponge that soaks up virtually every aspect of the social
movement environment – political institutions and culture, crises of various sorts,
political alliances, and policy shifts’ (Gamson & Meyer 1996: 275).
To overcome these conceptual flaws, McAdam suggests that ‘political opportunities’
should be conceptualized in a more specific manner so that they can be distinguished
from other ‘facilitative conditions’. He identifies four dimensions of POS: (i) the
relative openness or closure of the institutionalized political system; (ii) the stability
of or instability of that broad set of elite alignments; (iii) the presence or absence of
elite allies; (iv) the state’s capacity and propensity for repression (McAdam ibid.: 27).
In this formulation, the ‘political’ is a synonym to the terrain of formal institutional
politics occupied by the elite. This view which echoes the mainstream
democratization theory is not embraced without reservation by all social movement
theorists. Sidney Tarrow for instance, defines POS as ‘consistent – but not necessarily
formal or permanent – dimensions of the political environment that provide incentives
for people to undertake collective action by affecting their expectations for success or
failure’ (Tarrow 1994: 85). Although Tarrow similarly associates the concept of POS
with the accessibility to political participation, shifts in ruling alignments, the
availability of influential allies, and cleavages within and among elites, his definition
allows for more flexibility as far as ‘political participation’ and ‘politics’ are
concerned (ibid.: 86).
The feminist scholar Vicky Randall also contends that the mainstream concept of POS
(especially McAdam’s version) ‘tends to accept and even reify the very demarcation
of a distinct public political sphere that social movements like feminism have sought
to contest’ (Randall 1998: 194). She argues that when considering women’s political
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participation, we have to ‘keep in view all arenas of women’s political intervention or
resistance, whether in mainstream political institutions, in “civil society” or the
home’. Moreover, Randall suggests that the economic restructuring (e.g. structural
adjustment project) in many newly developing countries, for instance, has affected
tremendously women’s lives and their political participation (ibid.: 194). In brief, the
essence of Randall’s contention is not that one should shift attention away from
investigating the overall impacts generated by the change of the narrowly defined
political environment. Instead, she suggests that it is necessary to think and do politics
beyond the confines of formal political institutions which are commonly associated
with political parties, elections, and governmental representative organs. Moreover,
she points to the over-determination of political, economic, and cultural factors, and
the complexity of issues with which the women’s movement – and social movements
in general – should deal (ibid.: 195).
Opportunity Structure: Defined or Invented?
Insofar as the nature of interaction between social movements and the external
opportunity structures, Tarrow holds a more dynamic view. He argues that,
…opportunity structure applies not only to the formation of movement.
Movements create opportunities for themselves or others. They do this by
diffusing collective action through social networks and by forming coalitions of
social actors; by creating political space for kindred movements and
countermovements; and by creating incentives for elites to respond (Tarrow 1994:
82).
In other words, social movement organizations (SMOs) do not simply respond
passively to the available opportunities. Instead, SMOs shape and create POS. In an
article published earlier, Tarrow has pointed out that one of the major problems of the
concept of POS is that it is unclear whether POS is construed as a set of objective or
subjective factors. He argues that if the objective dimension of opportunities is
emphasized, it is possible to concentrate research on the level of ‘aggregate
correlations between opportunities and actions’. However, if the subjective perception
of opportunities is crucial, it becomes necessary to investigate the perceptions of
movement participants and decision-making process (Tarrow 1988: 430).
In his revised edition of Power in Movement, Tarrow seems to settle with a definition
which highlights the relevance of ‘elements of opportunity that are perceived by
insurgents’. Moreover, he adds that ‘structural changes that are not experienced can
hardly be expected to affect people’s behavior, except indirectly’ (Tarrow 1998: 77,
our emphasis). In other words, the dynamic interaction between social movement
groups and POS does not only refer to the fact that SMOs which interact with the
present POS have the potential to shape the future POS for other social movements, it
also brings to the fore a more fundamental aspect of their interaction, i.e., whether and
how, in the first instance, a SMO experiences structural changes and articulates new
discursive practices corresponding to those changes. This echoes our contention that a
more plausible application of the concept of POS is to conceive of the interaction
between POS and social movements as a dynamic interplay between ‘articulation’ and
‘context’. Although social movements are undoubtedly subject to structural
constraints, the way in which movement activists locate themselves vis-à-vis political
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institutions and decision-making processes render a context intelligible.2 In
discourse-theoretical terms, although the existing discursive horizon limits the
‘discursive availability’, social movements are not completely restricted by it. Some
social movements manage to traverse the existing discursive horizon and act as
‘founders of discursivity’ (Foucault 1984: 114), which in turn grants intelligibility and
validity to contending discourses.3
Transnationalism
Drawing our attention to the significance of ‘bringing transnational relations back in’
to the studies of international politics, Risse-Kappen points out that transnational
relations have permeated almost every issue-area of world politics (Risse-Kappen
1995). Moreover, recent studies have also demonstrated that the diffusion of
international norms and principled ideas such as human rights have indeed affected
domestic change (Risse-Kappen 1994; Katzenstein 1996; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink
1999). For instance, Risse and Sikkink point out that many case studies have shown
that the transnational advocacy networks (TANs) indeed serve to ‘put norm-violating
states on the international agenda’, to ‘empower the legitimate the claims of domestic
opposition groups’, and to ‘challenge norm-violating governments by creating a
transnational structure pressuring such regime from above and from below’ (Risse and
Sikkink 1999: 5).4 They postulate the ‘spiral model’ to incorporate the
international-transnational interactions between different types of actor, the domestic
society in the norm-violating state, the links between the societal opposition and the
transnational networks; and the national government of the norm-violating state into
their analysis (Risse and Sikkink 1999: 17-18). Thus, if one locates our previous
discussion on POS in the context of growing transnational activism, one will have to
consider the transnational actors such as international non-government organizations
(INGOs), TANs, and their interaction with domestic actors and institutions as an
integral part of the POS.
To summarize, we propose that when dealing with the interconnection between
domestic and transnational activisms and the way in which it relates to
democratization, we investigate
1.
the conditions of possibility for the emergence of the contentious discourses
and their articulating5 principles, i.e., the broader discursive horizon;
2.
the re-constitution of the discursive horizon, i.e., the zones of engagement
See also a demonstration of this dynamic interplay and an evaluation of women’s political
interventions at different levels in (Gelb 1990).
2
This is close to the concept of ‘frame’ first coined by Irvine Goffman and elaborated by David Snow
and Robert Benford. In effect, the frame theory has drawn increasing attention in the field of social
movement theory (Snow and Benford: 1992). A recent collection of essays edited by Hank Johnston
and Bert Klandermans represents such a trend, see especially articles by Hank Johnston, Bert
Klandermans and Ann Swidler (Johnston and Klandermans: 1995), see also (Touraine: 1988).
3
4
We would like to acknowledge Chen Chun-hung for introducing us to their work.
5
Articulation here denotes the construction of links or a system of meaning between elements which
do not share intrinsic commonalities. In other words, where articulation applies, the link is contingent.
If there exists any immanent or necessary link between elements under consideration, articulation
becomes redundant.
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or the range of discursive contestability available to and created by the
interaction between different types of actor at various levels;
Based on this model, it is to the illustration of the different phases of human rights
movement in Taiwan that we now turn.
Human Rights Movement and Political Transformation
The aftermath of the 2-28 Incident6 in Taiwan witnessed callous state terrorism. A
‘state of siege’ was announced on 9th May 1949 in the name of the Peace Preservation
Command of the Chinese Nationalist Army. This started a period between the 1950s
and the 1960s in Taiwan commonly termed ‘White Terror’, denoting the fear of and
alienation from politics as a result of strict social controls and surveillance after the
effective implementation of martial law and related regulations. The security
apparatus was strengthened and enlarged to form the National Security Bureau, which
coordinated all security agencies in the KMT, including Ministry of Defense, Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Interior, Taiwan Garrison Command, military and local
police. Under this scrupulous network of security, arrests of the political dissidents
who were accused of involvement in subversive communist activities were frequently
reported (Peter Wang 1999: 330). According to the political dissident Peng Min-ming,
the consequence of the proclamation of the state of siege and martial law was
threefold.
First of all, it placed a major part of social life in Taiwan under the control of the
KMT’s military and surveillance agencies. Secondly, the basic rights and freedom
guaranteed by the ROC Constitution were suspended. Finally, the scope of political
offences,7 and the procedure of trial and penalties introduced were at odds with basic
human rights (Peng 1971). The mobilization of society in the antagonistic fight
between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the KMT as the self-proclaimed
legal representative of China had, in effect, de-politicized society from within. It
allowed no dissent, no opposition party, and no critical press.
That said, resistance was not completely absent. Indeed, even in an extremely
totalitarian society, there are always demands that cannot be accommodated by the
hegemonic social imaginary. Despite its authoritarian nature, the KMT did not,
however, give up building a democratic image. In effect, one can trace the appearance
of human rights discourse back to the KMT’s ‘Free China’ rhetoric, and the
publication of Free China magazine in the 1950s. Free China was published by a
group of liberal intellectuals, initially sponsored by the KMT as the democratic façade
for the regime vis-à-vis the CCP in the post World War II context. However, the close
It is now commonly believed that the ‘2-28 Incident’ was a result of the confrontation between some
Taiwanese in Taipei and the police on February 27th 1947. The confrontation quickly spread throughout
the island was ended with the KMT’s violent suppression, followed by the introduction of more
stringent political measures. Many local elites were purged during this Incident and the survivors were
driven out from the island, while on the island, political quietism and conformism ensued.
6
Political offences are understood by Peng as ‘crimes which are incidental to and form a part of
political disturbances, including offences consisting in an attack upon the political order of things
established in the country where committed, as well as offences committed to obtain any political
objects’. See (Peng 1771: 474).
7
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relationship between Free China and the KMT deteriorated and the KMT’s tolerance
of its criticisms of the government diminished when an issue entitled ‘Problems of
Opposition Parties’ of a series called ‘Today’s Problems’ went one step further to
endorse the idea of a multi-party system and its importance for democracy (Chu
1955). Yet, Free China was not closed off until the crackdown on the attempt to
organize a new political party. Several of its leading figures were involved and
arrested in September 1960 (Hsueh 1995), and the intellectual ferment was stifled in
the subsequent decades (Huang 2000b: 237).
Conjunctural Crises and the Emergence of Competing Discourses
In the 1970s the KMT regime faced a series of devastating diplomatic setbacks. It
began with the replacement of the Republic of China (ROC) by the People’s Republic
of China (PRC) in the UN in October 1971, which was followed by the US President
Nixon’s trip to the PRC in 1972 and the Japanese Tanaka Administration’s recognition
of the Beijing government in September of the same year (Appleton 1972; Jacobs
1973; Cheng 1980). These diplomatic setbacks reflected the shift in the China policy
of the US and the changing climate of international politics. Noting that the Carter
administration were speeding up the pace of establishing full diplomatic relations with
the PRC,8 the then Premier Chiang Ching-kuo initiated a ‘Human Rights Year’ on
December 25th 1976 directed at Washington policymakers. While Chiang claimed that
it was necessary to maintain social order under the communist threat, he insisted that
human rights conditions had been substantially improved (McBeath 1978: 20).
Moreover, elections postponed in the previous year (for the reason of saving
campaign expense) were re-scheduled in November 1977, and, finally, an organized
political opposition came into being.
During the local elections of 1977, independent non-KMT candidates established an
alliance Tangwai. To the KMT’s dismay, the result of the elections was that the
Tangwai alliance obtained twenty-nine seats in the Taiwan Provincial Assembly and
four posts of county magistrates and city mayors (T-F Huang 1992: 43). After its
success in 1977, the Tangwai functioned as a quasi-political party, fielding candidates,
establishing a campaign group, and issuing a common platform for the forthcoming
elections. It is important to note that the social and political forces that gathered
together to form Tangwai were are far from a cohesive entity, manifesting most
clearly in the diverse demands stated in the platform. The platform comprised twelve
demands including the reinstatement of the Constitution, the lifting of martial law,
respect for human rights, the implementation of a comprehensive health service and
social security, the abolition of economic protectionism, the provision of public
housing, promulgation of a labor law, subsidies for the fisheries, the designation of
environmental policies, the ending of ethnic and language discrimination, and the
release of political prisoners (Li 1988: 128-129).
On may note that the platform had covered not only political and civil rights, but also
social and economic rights. As Jürgen Domes pointed out, there were at least five
groups of activist with distinct political views involved – ranging from liberals to
socialists; from Chinese nationalist to advocates for democracy in Taiwan. Their
8
For instance, the State Secretary of the Carter Administration, Vance paid a visit to Beijing in August
1977 and a number of speeches given by Carter all revealed the US intention to withdraw its
recognition from Taiwan.
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positions with regards to political reform, social welfare, and economic and cultural
policy were often published in the dissident journals (Domes 1981). Given the
diversity and heterogeneity, as the later political development indicated, political and
civil rights were usually prioritized over economic and social rights. As a result, the
opposition movement was increasingly reduced to ‘political’ movement in the narrow
sense of the term. This, as shall be discussed later, had profound and, in effect,
negative influence on the construction of a social imaginary of democracy in the
process of political transformation. Notwithstanding, the late 1970s witnessed the
resurgence of human rights discourse after the long period of political inertia.
Structural Dislocation and Kaohsiung Incident
As the Tangwai continued to develop momentum, the Legislative election scheduled
for 1978 was called off abruptly as a result of the US Cater administration’s
withdrawal of diplomatic recognition. In response to this devastating crisis, the KMT
sought tighter political controls under the banner of national solidarity and security.
Yet, the cancellation of the elections and the tense political atmosphere did not curtail
the expansion of the Tangwai movement. A series of events demonstrated that the
Tangwai was continuing to generate momentum. An unprecedented street protest
since the imposition of martial law took place on January 22nd in 1979 against the
arrest of two political dissidents.9 Following this, the Tangwai Central Representative
Candidates Club was established in June, which organized an island-wide lecture tour.
The Mei-li Tao (Formosa) magazine was founded in August subsequently. Through
these events and activities, the Tangwai not only presented itself as a viable
oppositional force, but also expanded its base of support. In the meantime, given the
adoption of a reform project, the KMT did not manage to halt the escalating crisis.
The political development in the 1970s manifested clearly that the original
conjunctural crisis was transformed into an incurable structural dislocation, although
the ‘political forces which [were] struggling to conserve and defend the existing
structure itself, making every effort to cure them, and within certain limits, to
overcome them’ (Gramsci 1971: 178). This structural dislocation opened the
discursive space up that allowed contentious discourses to emerge and compete for
the construction of a new social imaginary. One of the most revealing examples was
that after the KMT regime loosened its grip on the press in March 1979, many
Tangwai activists lost no time in founding new journals, which proved to be an
important site for advocating human rights discourses vis-à-vis KMT’s rhetoric.
In the early months of 1979 the government apparently received information that the
political opposition was about to set up a human rights organization. To prevent that
from happening, it was decided that the government would preempt the move and
supervise the establishment of a human rights organization sympathetic to its position
and policy. For according to the regulations of martial law existing at that time, the
first non-governmental organization (NGO) in any field to have registered with the
government would automatically exclude other similar groups from being recognized
by the authorities. Thus was created the Chinese Human Rights Association (CHRA),
9
This was a demonstration against the arrest of Yu Ten-fa and Yu Rwei-yen, political leaders in
Kaohsiung. The KMT took some measures against specific participants. For instance, Taoyuan
magistrate Hsu Hsin-liang was reprimanded for his participation in the ‘illegal demonstration’ and
removed from his post. See (Li 1988: 140-141).
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which, however, did not prevent confrontation between the opposition and the KMT
regime (Mab Huang 2000a). In December Meilitao magazine launched a rally to
celebrate International Human Rights Day, which ended in a large-scale ‘liquidation’
of political dissidents. This became known as the Kaohsiung or Meilitao (Formosa)
Incident, and almost all opposition leaders were arrested. The KMT regime and
government-owned media charged the rally as a provocation aiming at undermining
social order and national security, and above all, subverting the government.
Transnational Network and International Pressures
To no avail did the CHRA make a gallant attempt to explain the government’s
position to the international human rights community. They served, however, as a
liaison between the government and some Tangwai human rights activists
incarcerated by the authorities. The embryonic opposition human rights movement,
however, was still born. Indeed it was working in defense of political dissidents by
drawing support from both local and overseas Taiwanese communities (e.g., World
Federation of Taiwanese Association, WFTA), especially those based in the U. S. and
Japan. It also managed to draw attention from Amnesty International, the U.S.
Congress, as well as international media (Huang 2000a; Chen 2002: 18). Although the
KMT protested against the unfavorable media coverage of the Incident and declared
that ROC is a sovereign state whose internal affairs shall not be interfered, it could not
but make tactical concessions. Under increased local and international pressures, the
political dissidents were convicted in public trial. The KMT also released some
dissidents and reduced the sentence of a number of opposition leaders. During the
trial, it was reported that international human rights organizations observed the case
closely and would use it as an indicator of Taiwan’s human rights conditions.10
To come to terms with these pressures, the KMT implemented a series of electoral
reforms including the promulgation of the ‘Public Officials Election and Recall Law’
in May 1980, which delegated matters concerning elections to a Central Election
Commission. The KMT also announced that the election cancelled in 1978 would be
held in December 1980.11 Although according to the new law non-KMT candidates
were not allowed to campaign under a common anti-KMT platform, many lawyers
who defended those arrested in the Kaohsiung Incident took part in this election. This
election was indeed considered to be one of the most important in Taiwan’s political
development, for it was characterized by the competition on an unprecedented scale
and relatively relaxed censorship on campaign speeches. Moreover, with the infusion
of new and younger members as the result of the election, the Legislative Yuan began
to function more as a representative institution than a rubber stamp (Cooper 1981;
Engstrom and Chu 1984).
In spite of state terrorism and authoritarian control, the values and validity of
democracy and human rights and were not entirely denied by the KMT regime at the
rhetoric level. As an exiled and self-proclaimed ‘Free China’ vis-à-vis its CCP
counterpart, the KMT regime did not cease to instrumentalize and re-articulate human
rights discourse in order to secure international supports and maintain its own
10
New York Times, March 3rd 1980, p. 19.
11
The result of the Legislative Election: the KMT won 72.2% of the votes and the Tangwai candidates
received 26.8%, (Domes 1981: 1014)
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legitimacy in the Cold War context. Like its Chinese communist counterpart,
however, the nominal constitutional provisions of rights and freedom were not
underpinned by effective legislation (Kent 1999: 31), and the human rights abuses
took place in the everyday life. It is significant to note that the KMT regime helped
passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and singed, ratified, and
deposited the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide. In addition, it drafted its own version of Genocide Convention and
incorporated it into domestic law in 1953 (Peter Huang 2001).
Even so, the human rights violations and abuses in Taiwan were not submitted to
international scrutiny and criticism. On the one hand, this is due to the inconsistency
of the responses of the West to human rights problems to the Communist bloc
countries, and to other, mainly third world, countries (Müllerson 1997: 109). Insofar
as the stance of the US was concerned, the KMT regime was one of the unpopular
authoritarian governments which received US security and economic assistance.
Although the US government at times gave casual pressure to some of its satellite
countries which violated human rights (ibid: 110-111), the pressure did not really lead
to the improvement of the human rights records of these countries. The situation was
no less bleak after the KMT regime was expelled from the UN in 1971 as a result of
the realignment of international politics. Sine then, Taiwan has endured international
isolation and exclusion from taking part in subsequent development of the
international human rights regime. On the other hand, the Taiwanese case attests to
Risse and Sikkink’s proposition that the information gathering of the norms-violating
state would require at least ‘some minimal links between the domestic opposition and
the transnational networks (Risse and Sikkink 1999: 22). Without the existence of a
rather viable opposition, the activation and operation of the transnational network
would not take place.
Accelerated Political Liberalization
It is adequate to argue that the political development both domestically and
internationally in the 1970s created the conditions of the possibility for the emergence
of contending discourses, and the contestability of the existing discursive
configuration was stretched to such a significant extent that it became increasingly
difficult to maintain the discursive validity. With further political transformation took
place since the mid-1980s, the political landscape was not only marked by the
establishment of the first opposition party DPP and subsequent institutional reforms; it
was also characterized by the burgeoning social protests and movements, and a
proliferation of counter-discourses vis-à-vis KMT Chinese nationalist
authoritarianism.
The lifting of martial law was followed by the eruption of a myriad of protests.
Despite difference in terms of the estimated number, all statistical records show the
striking increase of protests between 1983 and 1988. Issues raised in these protest
ranged from environment, women, labor, to aborigines, farmers and students.
Although these protests were loosely defined as social movements, there were
significant variations. For instance, these protests appeared in various forms ranging
from local ad hoc ‘self-help’ activities to nation-wide demonstrations. While some
were organized by immediate victims, others involved the coordination of a variety of
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political parties, social groups, and intellectuals.12 Moreover, some initially
spontaneous and sporadic protests were transformed into long-standing professional
NGOs and sustained their influence,13 while others dissipated after their immediate
demands were fulfilled or simply as a result of the lack of organizational resources.
As noted earlier, local human rights advocates sought supports from transnational
human rights networks such as Amnesty International (AI) after the eruption of
Kaohsiung Incident. Apart from that, some NGOs founded in the 1980s had either
established connection with or obtained supports from transnational organizations and
networks. To mention just a few, the Consumers Foundation which pioneered the new
social movements in the 1980s, the formation of the Awakening magazine aiming at
the propagation of feminist ideas and the raising of consciousness of the women, and
the development of Women’s Research program in the Population Studies Center at
the National Taiwan University, received subsidies from the Asia Foundation Taiwan
Branch (Huang 2000a). The Women’s Rescue Foundation was founded by the
Presbyterian Church in Taiwan with the assistance of National Committee on
Self-Development of the People of the Presbyterian Church in the USA (Chen 2001:
618).
In the meantime, the plurality and dynamism of the discourses articulated by different
social groups was eschewed by the ascendancy of the issue of national identity as the
rallying point of the anti-KMT struggle under the DPP’s leadership. In a meeting with
social movement groups in August 1989, some movement activists contended that the
DPP should not ascribe all social problems to the KMT regime while failing to take
initiatives in social reform. The single antagonism constructed during the course of
struggles against the KMT was thus put into question as different social movement
groups began to demand the recognition of their needs that could not be fulfilled or
replaced by an identification with ‘Taiwan’.
One of the typical responses from the DPP could be found in its response to the
founding of the Labor Party by its former member Wang Yi-hsiung. The DPP
defended that the party cannot survive if it binds itself to any particular stance on
issues concerning, for instance, workers.14 Those activists, on the contrary, contended
that without appropriate awareness, existing social problems would not be solved, and
social justice would not be obtained even the DPP replaces the KMT in the future.15
The basis of the equation of ‘self-help’ activities with social movements was their shared
extra-institutional, non-governmental, and sometimes illegal character before martial law was lifted.
Lin Chia-chen, for instance, argues that ‘self-help’ activities are basically different from social
movements. In the former case, participants are grouped by their common status as ‘victims’, whereas
in social movements, non-victims often constitute a significant proportion of activists and leadership.
See (Lin 1987: 30).
12
Based on the level of organizational rationality, Wu Jieh-min distinguishes those ‘spontaneous’
(rather than planned rationally) events and sporadic demands for social re-construction without
organizational form – the ‘self-help’ groups – from professional social movement organizations
(SMOs), see (J-M Wu 1989: 33).
13
Remarks of the then DPP chairperson Yao Chia-wen, ‘Taiwan opposition struggles for unity to
challenge government’ by Ann Scott Tyson in The Christian Science Monitor, 24th December, 1987.
Wang Yi-hsiung, a former member of the DPP and a long term activist of the worker’s movement, left
the DPP and founded the Worker’s Party in 1987. He claimed that ‘[w]e [workers] do not discuss the
problem of independence or unification since workers are not able to solve this problem’. The
Independent Evening Post, 1st November, 1987, p. 2.
14
15
See The United Daily News, August 6th 1989. The meeting of the DPP and representatives of social
- 11 -
This view not only signified the SMOs’ discontents with the prevalence of nationalist
politics and the DPP’s lack of a clear agenda of social reform in the late 1980s; it also
foresaw accurately the situation after the DPP took power in 2000.
Since the DPP’s triumph in the presidential election in March 2000, the relationship
between the DPP and social movements has become ever more ambivalent. The
debates on the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant and on the shortening
of working week were two cases in point. In effect, it is clearly stated in the DPP’s
1995 party platform to ‘[o]ppose the establishment of more nuclear power plants’ and
to ‘use new energy resources to replace nuclear power plants within ten years’.
However immediately after the election, Chen Shui-bian maintained that his policy in
nuclear power plant would not be tied to the party platform. Since then, the Chen
administration has remained ambivalent about that issue.16
The controversy over shortening workweek was again symptomatic of the escalating
tension between the DPP and social movements.17 During the campaign for the
presidential election, the DPP promised a forty-hour workweek, however, it failed to
keep its promise after their victory.18 Ironically, the KMT which used to maintain an
intimate tie with local capitalists turned out to backup the demands made by labor
organizations. This case again exposed that the seemingly close connection between
the labor movement and the DPP is also under a rapid process of transformation. If
one juxtaposes these two cases with the government’s pledge for human rights
protection and prioritizes human rights and NGO diplomacy, one indeed gets a mixed
picture.
The Era of Transnationalism and Human Rights Diplomacy
Undoubtedly, the initiative for getting back to the international human rights
community and setting up a national commission came from the civil society. For a
group of NGOs have been working for some time in promoting the ideas, coming
together in a coalition of twenty-two NGOs in December 1999. Before the
presidential elections, the coalition managed to secure the endorsement of the ideas by
three candidates, including Lien Cheng and Chen Shui-bian. It also set up a working
group to draft a bill for the organization of the national commission. In his inaugural
speech on May 20 2000, the newly elected President declared that Taiwan will include
international human rights in its legal codes – referring in particular to the
international bill of rights –, establish an independent national human rights
commission, and invite International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and AI for advice
with regard to the implementation of human rights instruments. For the time being,
the government has ratified International Bills of Rights, set up an advisory
committee on human rights affairs under the Presidential Office and the Human rights
movements groups, including women’s groups, students’ organizations, environmental, and workers’
organizations in exchanging opinions of social reforms was held in August 5 th 1989.
16
China Times, 89/05/07, 89/05/17, 89/06/02, China Evening Post, 89/05/16; see also information
collected in http://forums.chinatimes.com.tw/special/unclear5/main.htm.
17
Labor’s Rights Association, May 15, 2002,
18
China Times, 2000/06/22, 2000/07/19, 2000/12/11, 2000/12/25, 2000/12/27,.
- 12 -
Education Committee in the Ministry of Education. It also promised to issue a report
and a white paper on human right policies. Moreover, the preparation for the draft
plan in accordance with the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action is also
underway.
It seems that an era of rights is arriving, but we suggest that activists shall maintain
vigilance and embrace a rather thoughtful optimism at this crossroads. For precisely at
this conjuncture where human rights discourse is to be promoted, disseminated, and
institutionalized, a number of problems have to be addressed carefully, which
includes, first the government cooptation of the human right discourse and its impact
on the nascent transnational activism; second and perhaps more important, the
NGOization of human rights movements.
Human Rights Diplomacy
Since Taiwan was denied membership in the UN and to return to the UN will not be
achieved in the short term under current configuration of world politics, the
government takes a rather indirect route. Following the lead of the former president
Lee Teng-hui’s pragmatic diplomacy and the propagation of Taiwan’s democracy,
(Chen 2000: 2), the DPP government employs human rights diplomacy and promote
unofficial dialogues in addition to the long-standing ‘economic diplomacy’. The
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) sets up a special NGO Committee and appoints
‘ambassadors-at-large’ with an emphasis put on gaining entry for Taiwan in
international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) to raise the island's diplomatic
image’ (China Times May 23 2000), and facilitate Taiwan’s participation in
inter-governmental organizations (IGOs). This new orientation of foreign policy has
been best elaborated by the former Foreign Minister Tien Hung-mao:
In recent years, the international community has praised our country's democratic
development and achievements, and the measures that we have adopted to guarantee
and protect human rights have been recognized by people all over the world…They
constitute an important strength in preserving our national security. Any system or
action that violates democracy or human rights can be seen as a threat to our survival.
Democracy and human rights are the two sides of a same coin, especially in this
post-cold war era where civilized nations attach great importance to human life and
human rights. This trend has gradually brought the international community to give
human rights precedence over the concept of sovereignty, and we therefore should
promote "human rights diplomacy" and "democracy-based diplomacy”.19
It is noteworthy that the alleged ‘human rights diplomacy’ has concentrated on
providing humanitarian aids. For instance, MOFA supervises the establishment of a
mechanism to deal with Taiwan’s humanitarian relief work in the international
community (Central News Agency December 5 2001). Both the government and
NGOs in Taiwan have been working with international organizations, such as
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), Medecins du Monde (MDM), CARE.20 Despite the
humanitarian intent, the government has the hidden agenda, i.e., to get Taiwan back to
the World Heath Organization (WHO). In 2002, the government and local NGOs such
as Taiwan International Medical Alliance (TIMA), Medical Professionals Alliance in
19
Hung-mao Tien, ‘The Current State of ROC Diplomacy’, an Abridgment of the Report by
to the Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee, Legislative Yuan, June 5, 2000.
20
http://www.taiwanheadline.org.
- 13 -
Taiwan (MPAT) have joined forces again to bid for the observership for Taiwan in
WHO, and the campaign also managed to obtain some international support.21
According to Tien Hung-mao, the government has adopted a multilateral approach,
which includes expanding its links with international civil society, noting its
increasing participation in the world movement for democracy.22 Nevertheless, the
alleged active role in contributing to democratization and human rights protection in
other countries has been less evident, despite some recent attempts from the NGOs to
take part in organizations such as the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL)
(Chen 2000: 4).23 If one examines this ‘human rights turn’ in foreign policy together
with the persistent violation of human rights inside Taiwan, one may doubt the
government’s commitment to human rights. This said, however, the government’s
human rights diplomacy, though utilitarian in disguise, has indeed enhanced the
intelligibility and validity of human right discourse. One of the most urgent tasks thus
is that local NGOs and their efforts in building transnational network remain
independent from and critical of the government’s diplomatic imperatives, and oblige
the government to fulfill its promises.
The Expansion of Human Rights Discourse and Some Problems
Insofar as the local civil society is concerned, the past few years witnessed the
proliferation of human rights discourses, and the possibility for the emergence of a
social imaginary of democracy beyond electoralism becomes available. A number of
trends of development and events warrant a thoughtful optimism. In June 1996 a group
of 58 organizations, led by the TAHR, the Humanistic Education Foundation, the Green
Party, and the Judicial Reform Foundation, came together to form the campaign to save the
innocent in the Hsichih Trio case24 from execution. Amnesty International issued a series
of Urgent Action appeals on behalf of the three men in 1995 and 1996.25 When two AI
members visited the three convicted in Hsichih Trio case in May 2000 – shortly after the
President’s inaugural speech which announced its human rights policy, TAHR together
with the other two organizations held a press conference contending that the government
shall improve domestic human rights records simultaneously.
Apart from this, the flourishing women’s movement and pluralization of feminist
21
This includes, European Parliament, US Congress Senate, Nordic Medical Association, and Council
of the World Medical Association, http://www.taiwanheadlines,org.
22
Central News Agency, December 5, 2001, http://th.gio.gov.tw/show.cfm?news_id=12264.
In Chen Jie’s article (Chen 2000: 4), he argues that no Taiwanese NGOs asked for monitoring role in
the elections in Cambodia (1998), Indonesia (1999) and East Timor (1999). In effect, the authors of this
chapter have taken part in a discussion on the possibility of participating regularly in ANFREL and
setting up a corresponding organization such as Taiwan Network for Free Elections.
23
24
Three men arrested in August 1991 in Hsichih. They were accused of murdering a husband and wife,
and convicted on charges of murder, robbery and rape and sentenced to death. The three men claim to
have been tortured and forced to make false confessions and there appears to have been no direct or
physical evidence to convict them, other than their confessions, see
http://www.tahr.org.tw/english/sjh.html.
25
http://www.tahr.org.tw/english/sjh.html
- 14 -
SMOs have brought to light the idea that ‘women’s rights are human rights’, and
therefore expanded the scope of human rights. Despite differences in terms of their
stance on issues such as sexual liberation and the legalization of sex industry, the
women’s movement in Taiwan has started relatively early in building transnational
connections. The participation in the comfort women campaign in 1992, the hosting
of International Forum on Sex Workers’ Rights and Sex Industrial Policy in 1998 and
the East Asian Women’s Forum 200026 are just a few examples. The promulgation of
‘Equal Employment Opportunity Act’ which announces the entry into a new stage of
women’s movement also bears the traces of the influence of global feminism.27
The recent victory of a transnational coalition28 against the Taiwanese investor’s
violation of labor’s right in Chentex Garment in Nicaragua represents the efforts made
by labor’s movements in this regard.29 The involved trade unions and NGOs in
Taiwan emphasized that ‘labor’s rights are human rights’, and brought the case to the
advisory committee on human rights affairs under the Presidential Office and to
MOFA. The Chentex case, as well as the Hsichih Trio Case discussed above, exposed
exactly the problem and limit of current human rights diplomacy. Not only the human
rights of migrant workers in Taiwan and those work in Taiwanese factories abroad are
not protected (Chen Jie: 2000: 6), but human rights abuses persist in both public and
private life.
This brings to our attention the structural problems affecting the articulation,
circulation, and promotion of human rights discourses at the moment. First of all, the
competing developmentalist discourses in global capitalism. As Pheng Cheah
rigorously argues, more critical attentions will have to be paid to the ‘constellation of
forces at a given conjuncture’ which gives a particular vision of human rights ‘more
normative validity and historical affectivity’ (Cheah 1999: 36). For instance, if one
takes into consideration the current trend of accelerating economic globalization and
the unevenness of development and redistribution, one shall not be surprised at the
fact that some versions of human rights discourse are more susceptible to co-optation
of the logic of neo-liberalism. The Chentex case and the various cases concerning
migrant workers in Taiwan are exemplary in this respect.
Secondly, the effect of international pressures. Undoubtedly, more and more local
NGOs become cognizant of the importance of connecting with TANs in the context
where the government engages itself in building its image as a human rights protector.
26
This conference was organized by Taipei Alliance of Licensed Prostitutes (TALP), Solidarity Front
of Women Workers (SFWW) and Pink Collar Solidarity (PCS).
27
According to Chen Jie, the Act was initiated by feminists who were inspired by the debate at the
Nairobi conference in 1985, which urged women’s rights to education and employment.
28
The Taiwanese NGOs include Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions, Taiwan Labor Front,
Committee for Action on Labor Legislation, and The Labor Rights Association; international
organizations include International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation, Nicaragua
Network (US), Campaign for Labor Rights (US), National Labor Committee (US), Center for
Constitution Rights, UNITE (US), Center for Constitutional Rights (US), and the United Steelworkers
of America.
29
Ninety workers from the Chentex factory in Nicaragua's Las Mercedes Free Trade Zone were fired
one day after workers filed at Ministry of Labor offices the documentation for the legalization of the
union they had formed on January1998. The Chentex factory, which is Taiwanese owned, produces
pants for Buggle Boy, see,
http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/swatch/headlines/1998/chentex_aug98.html.
- 15 -
Nevertheless, insofar as the effect of the international pressures are concerned, one
has to note that Taiwan’s enduring international isolation, as well as the lack of an
effective regional mechanism such as European Convention for the protection of
human rights Asia (Jetschke, 1999: 134) subject Taiwanese government to mainly
moral and informal pressures.
Thirdly, the NGOization of the human rights movement. From the selected cases
discussed above, it is apparent that the existence of alternative human rights
discourses articulated by the NGOs and the autonomy as well as legitimacy of the
latter are extremely important. Here, we identify two problems that we consider
would affect the extent to which NGOs maintain their autonomy and legitimacy.
1.
Revenue. At present, due to the economic recession, the public funding for
the NGOs is on the wane. But it is precisely at the moment when the
government promotes human rights and NGO diplomacy that we need to be
more alert on the pattern of the distribution of public funding and how it has
contributed to the re-configuration of local civil society. Sabine Lang’s
study on the NGOization of the feminist movement in Germany has warned
that the overt dependence on public funding will lead to the effect that ‘too
little presence [of the NGOs] in the public discourses of civil society;
instead, energy is put into private lobbying strategies to secure jobs and
finance’ (Lang: 1997: 113). In the context of Taiwan, although the process
of NGOization is just at its nascent stage, the relationship between the
structure of funding and the agenda-setting will have to be followed closely.
2.
Accountability. Despite the significant role played by NGOs and the
transnationalization of their activism in radicalizing the political imaginary,
it is important to make sure that the NGOization of activism does not lead to
the de-politicization (ibid: 117). That is to say, NGOs – local or
transnational – normally act as the representative of the disadvantaged
population, and the process and mechanism of mobilizing public opinions
and forging a consensus, as well as accountability, are problems that shall
not be overlooked. The controversy over licensed prostitutes and the
legalization of sex work in Taiwan since the late 1990s had made it clear
that there is always a gap between the NGOs –grassroots or state-oriented –
and the disadvantaged population these NGOs claim to represent. To
maintain the mechanism of accountability becomes absolutely crucial.
Conclusion
Throughout our analysis, we have demonstrated that the human rights movement has
played a critical role in Taiwan’s political transformation. We have also argued that
local movements and their connections with international organizations and TANs
have, at different historical stages and to various degree, enabled the transformation in
Taiwan and contributed to the process of democratization. Indeed, against the
‘actually existing democracy’ in Taiwan, a growing tendency of transnationalism has
served increasingly to expose the boundaries and the power structure inherent in the
social imaginary sustained primarily by a neo-liberal economic order, rules of
political participation informed by party politics and elections, and national-populist
political discourses. We suggest that as active social agents, social movements are not
passively ‘determined’ by existing power structures, but judge, respond to, and resist
- 16 -
the structural constraints. By deconstructing the dominant discourses and inventing
their own opportunities, at certain historical conjunctures, social movements engender
a radical transformation of the discursive horizon, and thus become the ‘founders of
the discursivity’. At other times, the existence of social movements functions as a
critical reminder of the inadequacy of any political project and mobilization that does
not take into consideration the heterogeneity of society. Moreover, as our reflections
on the ‘human rights turn’ in foreign policy and the NGOization of human rights
movement indicate, it is absolutely important to scrutinize the articulating principles
of different human rights discourses. In so doing, one gets a fuller picture of and
engages more closely with the context which allows the prevalence of any particular
version of human rights discourse, and therefore formulates more progressive
strategies to ensure the protection of human rights and the expansion of the
democratic imaginary.
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