| dc.description.abstract | The main purpose of this dissertation is to make a thorough study of “Chung-Li Incident” which resulted in the rise of opposite group of politicians of the Kuomintang (KMT). Furthermore, the incident led to the whole process of how these politicians organized and institutionalized an opposite political party to against the single party KMT at that time. In other words, through the investigation of this historical incident, this paper will examine and analyze how it influenced the Taiwanese political arena as a whole in the 70s, the 80s, and till today.
In the 70s, the Taiwanese economy had been tremendously prosperous, moreover, the uprising of bourgeoisie in Taiwan and the United States had adopted its One-China policy by recognizing Mainland china’s sovereignty which led to the diplomatic turmoil that Taiwan had faced at that time had caused many dramatic changes took place in politics and social aspects altogether. The major change in Taiwanese Political situation was that people who were did not join the KMT could still be able to join the elections for local government posts. This had allowed the growth of opposition group of politicians and candidates of the KMT and it had booming greatly especially in 1977 for these oppositionists had won some posts in elections.
It was the twenty-seventh year since Taiwan had started the home rule regulation and in the same year, Taiwan had held one time local county magistrate’s posts elections which was the by far the largest local government posts’ election. Afraid of that the KMT would not ring the ballot fairly, a riot had taken place in the town of Chung-Li. And this rebel, since then noted as the “Chung-Li Incident”. It was not doubt that there were various rumors of what caused the riot; however, it happened accidentally.
This paper also reviews the similarities and differences between the “Chung-Li Incident” and the “228 Incident (also known as 228 Massacre)”. It is to say that the whole “Chung-Li Incident” was not as severe as the white terror happened in the 50s, which indicated that the KMT had displayed a higher and better tolerance towards other voices outside of the party than in the 50s.
After the “Chung-Li Incident”, many of the oppositionists had begun the so called anti-KMT activities of forming and organizing political movements. The emergence of the opposite political movements had intervened by the KMT which set out to arrest those opposite leaders, later known as the “Formosa Incident”, in 1979. Even though the KMT had purged there oppositionists by all means, they still determined to form an anti-KMT political force. It turned out that these oppositionists had assimilated more and more people and gradually tried to find more alliances among people by winning in more local elections. The KMT had always been trying to suppress the opposite voices outside of the party. In the early 80s, the United States had created a so called “Taiwan Relations Act (TRA)”which explained how the US would deal with the relations with Taiwan. This TRA has assured Taiwan with its national, social and economical security, and it eventually changed the ways how the KMT treated the oppositionists outside of the party.
The last part of this paper will use Robert A. Dahl’s ideology – Polyarchy, to dissect the effects of the “Chung-Li Incident”. It is to note that the KMT had found it was more difficult to suppress the opposite voices without getting criticisms from other democratic nations. In addition, the KMT had realized that it had become impossible to suppress other opinions so it had to allow the inevitable legal development of other political parties took place. In other words, the KMT had no choices but to learn to put up with the political voices outside of the party. Thus, it had forced the political situation in Taiwan changed from a dictatorship state to a more democratic nation.
More and more nations had transformed from dictatorship to democracy in the mid 70s, including Taiwan. A major milestone of how Taiwan had becoming more democratic was when the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was organized and created in September 28, 1986. The emergence of the DPP represented that Taiwan has moved to a new political stage: more freedom in politics which also means that Taiwan is on its way to becoming a better and more well-developed democratic country. | en_US |