Disparate Cleavage Structures

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Kim Young-sam, Kim Dae-jung, and Roh Moo-hyun, bolstered by having, at times, legislative majorities in the National Assembly, allowed South Korea to make significant headway in resolving issues of human rights violations committed during its 20^th century colonial and authoritarian regimes and promoting some sort of political reconciliation. On the other hand, moderate Lee Teng-hui, a self-proclaimed disciple of non-democratic ruler Chiang Ching-kuo, made some significant contributions to Taiwan’s democracy, but very little in the way of transitional justice. His successor, Chen Shui-bian, though at the outset being much more dedicated to pursuing justice for past human rights abuses and improving Taiwan’s record on human rights, was consistently thwarted by a KMT majority in the Legislative Yuan. Efforts at addressing issues of historical justice in Taiwan’s democratization period have thus manifested as somewhat piecemeal attempts to come to terms with some, but not all, past abuses.

4.1.3 Disparate Cleavage Structures

One of the most salient differences between Taiwan and South Korea in general is the relative ethnic homogeneity of Korean society in relation to the existence of several ethnic and sub-ethnic groups in Taiwan, as well as competing notions of national identity.

This is not to say that no similar societal split exists in Korea. In fact, there is a historical regional cleavage between southeastern Youngnam and southwestern Honam, which reached its height in the years following the end of World War II. Robinson (2007) observes that, starting with Park Chung-hee, the authoritarian governments aimed economic development projects at the Youngnam provinces, where their leaders originated, while those of Honam were not only passed over in terms of economic development, but people from that region were also “systematically excluded from government leadership positions” (p. 169). The Gwangju 5.18 Incident deepened the sense of exclusion and resentment amongst those from Honam, including Kim Dae-jung, as it allowed the government to smear them as communist sympathizers (Ibid., p. 169).

This rift carried over into the democratic period. According to Kim, Choi, & Cho (2006),

“electoral competition since the democratic opening was used as an expression of regional frustration and/or animosities,” and Koreans consistently voted along regional lines (p. 1). However, starting in the mid-2000s, the existing cleavage began to dissipate.

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A notable indicator of this change was the election of Roh Moo-hyun of New Millennium Democratic Party. Kim, Choi, & Cho note that “the NMDP was a regional party

representing the Honam region, but Roh himself came from the rival Youngnam region”

(p. 2). The split has now all but shifted from regional rivalries to a gap in generational issues, with older Koreans preferring conservative parties and candidates, while the younger generations tend to be more progressive. In any case, the regional identity

cleavage has not defined politics or collective memory pertaining to the authoritarian past for at least a decade.

Taiwan, on the other hand, has found its population polarized on the issue of national identity, meaning between those who align themselves more closely with the idea of being a part of Greater China, and those who identify more with Taiwan as a unique nation-state separate from China. These competing national identities bear at least some relation to Taiwan’s ethnic and subethnic makeup. The most well-known of the various groups in Taiwan and the two that have the most bearing on the national identity issue are the benshengren, those islanders who immigrated to Taiwan from China between the 17^th and 19^th centuries and spoke the Fujian or Hakka dialects, and waishengren, also called

“mainlanders,” those who arrived in Taiwan in 1949 in collective retreat with the KMT from the Chinese Civil War. The contentious relationship between these two groups has its origins in the history of Taiwan’s governing systems, exclusionary practices of the mainlander-dominated KMT, and the horrific violence and aftermath of the 228 Incident (Shih and Chen, 2010; Yeh, 2017).

During Japanese rule, Taiwanese Hoklo, Hakka, and aboriginals were given official designations by the government that separated them from the colonial settler Japanese.

This gave them a distinct sense of collective identity, and helped pave the way for later nationalist movements (Shih and Chen, 2010, p. 90). They were also made citizens of the Japanese Imperial government, with some serving in low-level official positions or volunteering as soldiers in the military. The Taiwanese did still resist Japanese

colonialism, quite fiercely, and suffered greatly because of it. Jacobs (2007) cites three estimates, writing that “close to 8,000 Taiwanese died resisting the Japanese in 1895” and that “the Japanese killed 12,000 ‘bandit-rebels’ during 1898-1902, while a Japanese

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source states that the Japanese colonial regime executed over 32,000 ‘bandits,’ more than one percent of Taiwan’s population, in the same period.” (p. 231).

Taiwan’s retrocession injected a renewed sense of nationalism in the war-torn island’s residents, and there was enthusiasm in becoming part of a Chinese constitutional republic after fifty years of repressive rule by the Japanese. However, the vehemently hostile attitude of many KMT officials and military leaders towards vestiges of the Japanese colonial state alienated the Japanized native population and government mismanagement and corruption incited anger and resistance (Shih and Chen, 2010, p. 91). To many of the benshengren, the KMT came to be seen as the “second colonizer,” and this gave rise to the belief that “compared to the Japanese colonial rule by law and order, the KMT colonial style and authoritarian rule seemed even worse and unacceptable” (Hsu Ching-fang, quoted in Denney, August 2015). Taiwanese associated Japanese rule with violence and repression, but also with modernization, the taming of disease, and the building of vital infrastructure. Taiwanese nationalist historical narratives tend to compare this with the chaotic and despotic governing style of the KMT, and this comparison further ingrained a unique sense of ethnic and national identity. Tensions between the

benshengren and the newly arrived waishengren culminated in the 228 Incident, which marred the relationship between them for decades and has at times divided politics along contentious ethnic and sub-ethnic lines.

This divide has a large impact on how either group views who is responsible for what occurred following the KMT’s arrival in Taiwan as well. Although a number of

prominent mainlander intellectuals and politicians have acknowledged Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT’s culpability in the 228 Incident and subsequent White Terror, “Chinese mainlanders tend to identify strongly with the KMT and its historical legacy” (Wu, 2005, p. 5), meaning there may be an acknowledgement of violence or injustice committed, but it is generally justified with the argument that many bad elements desired to destroy the regime or cause chaos on the island. This split in collective memory and historiography is all the more curious due to the fact that, at the height of the White Terror, a very large number of mainlanders were targeted by the Chiang regime. This is because the party was desperate to root out communist infiltrators and spies, most of which they suspected

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would have come with the KMT from China in 1949 (Huang, Personal Correspondence, May 23, 2017). Nevertheless, Wu (2005) posits that because such a split exists, “a reassessment of the [KMT’s] performance on moral grounds is likely to worsen ethnic tensions” (p. 5). In other words, transitional justice, if handled improperly, could have severe negative consequences in regard to the prospect of ethnic reconciliation in Taiwan.

Of course, this explanation does not fully account for who does and doesn’t support transitional justice in Taiwan. Despite the tendency of those who identify as sub-ethnically benshengren Taiwanese to also take the view opposite that of the pan-blue camp, that Taiwan is an entity separate from China and that the KMT committed wrongs in the past for which its leaders need to be held accountable, identity is complicated and beliefs are not evenly divided along ethnic lines. Not all benshengren Taiwanese are invested in the idea of transitional justice, and some may even outright oppose it. This has a lot to do with the KMT’s political education and permeation of almost all facets of society during party-state rule.

During the martial law period, the KMT controlled political ideology through a

combination of clientelism, educational indoctrination, and social penetration in the form of professional and other organizations (Wachman, 1994, p. 247-248). As mentioned in section 4.1.1, the KMT also recruited native Taiwanese into its party ranks, in increasing numbers after Chiang Ching-kuo came to power, with the effect being that many of these non-mainlander members have also maintained a significant connection to the party and are willing to defend it against criticism of its authoritarian roots. These factors add a separate layer to the already complicated issue of identity politics in Taiwan and play just as big a part in how different Taiwanese view transitional justice as does ethnic or

subethnic identity.

Nevertheless, as in the case of South Korea, Taiwan’s cleavage structure is evolving, albeit slowly, towards that of generation and party affiliation. The Taiwanese label has taken on a more civic connotation, with citizens of all backgrounds claiming a Taiwanese identity and an increasingly small number who identify solely as Chinese. There is uncertainty over whether this shift will have a strong effect on the pursuit of transitional justice in Taiwan, however, as the majority of the younger generation who weren’t

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directly impacted by authoritarian rule are increasingly more concerned with post-materialist, forward-looking issues.