Procedimiento de investigación

The Kuomintang (KMT) was the founding party of the Republic of China. Under the leadership of Chiang Kai – shek, the KMT ruled parts of China under the banner of Republic of China throughout the late 20s, 30s and 1940s. During this period of time the KMT was involved in conflict with the Communist Party of China (CPC), who under the leadership of Mao Zedong wanted to bring about a communist revolution, and the armies of Imperial Japan. By the end of World War Two (WW2), Chiang Kai – shek was still in power and committed to rooting out the CPC completely.

Between 1946 and 1949, a civil war raged across China that saw CPC and KMT fight brutal battle after battle to gain control of territory. Eventually by 1949, Chiang Kai – shek was defeated and he fled to the Island of Taiwan along with the government of Republic of China as well as two million of his supporters. Meanwhile, Mao declared the foundation of People’s Republic of China on the mainland and declared Taiwan to be a breakaway province led by a rebel government. However, Western countries acknowledged the Republic of China to be the true government till late 1970s.

After fleeing to the island of Taiwan, the KMT was in tatters. The party had just lost a war against the Communists that it should have won. A large number of its members and elites had

deserted the party and moved to Hong Kong and the United States. Those who did move to the island along with the KMT leadership included over two million people who were in desperate conditions43. But among these two million people were professionals and bright minds who had been left no other choice but to follow KMT to the island of Taiwan to start over. For the party, it was a moment of somber reflection and reorganization. Chiang Kai – shek spent time exploring what had led to the defeat at the hands of the communists. This soul searching led him two answers; organization and societal control/capture.

To address the misgivings that led to the defeat on the mainland, Chiang Kai – shek set upon the task of reforming the KMT along its original manifesto founded on the ‘Three People’s

Principles’ of Sun Yat Sen. The part was supposed to be nationalistic, a believer in democracy and committed to welfare of the citizenry. Moreover, the party structure was supposed to be functional in its nature rather than administrative. The party had to be redesigned in accordance with its Leninist roots. So, instead of top-heavy structure of leaders running a political party, the KMT was supposed to become the basis of the society by having cells of party cadre across all walks of life. That meant there was always party cadre in small cells operating as oversight in the community, be it a small village or a factory or an educational institution or even the military (Dickson, 1993). The idea behind this was twofold; control of the society through constant oversight and better understanding of societal demands that could be addressed via service delivery.

Chiang Kai – Shek’s son, Chiang Ching – kuo led the General Political Work Department (GPWD) under this system. Additionally, he also controlled the Taiwan Garrison Command

43 _{During one of the interviews with an Administrative Deputy Minister, they narrated a story}

about how the island’s locals were deeply disappointed at the KMT and its allies when they moved to Taiwan. The local elites in Taipei assumed that those moving to the island were some of the cultural and social elites who were highly sophisticated. Instead what they saw were two million desperate and battered refugees who landed and assumed automatic privilege.

(TGC). Between these two organizations, Chiang Ching – kuo, the future president of Taiwan and KMT, controlled the secret police, the organization that oversaw all elements of the society including the military. And because the party was given such a dominant role in the society, one third of the 600,000 armed forces were active KMT members. There were political commissars appointed by the GPWD to posts in the military as well as in the bureaucracy to ensure the ‘Three

People’s Principles’ were being implemented.

Career growth in military and especially in the bureaucracy depended on party loyalty as well as commitment to the core ideals of the KMT. Younger officers interested in career progression and economic security found it necessary to become members of the party and report on their colleagues and departments as and when required. In essence, by seizing control of the state through this intense level of penetration, the KMT was not only able to reshape the society as it wished but it was also able to push through societal transformation such as land reforms that would be impossible under a weak government (Painter, 2004; Dickson, 1993). The land reforms served a purpose as well. Most of the land was owned by local Taiwanese, reforming ownership of the land and giving ownership to mainlanders and other groups dislodged the established Taiwanese landed elite in favor of a newer elite that owed its status to the KMT.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the KMT successfully set up institutions and structures that deeply penetrated Taiwanese society and ensured complete state capture. With this kind of presence in every walk of life, KMT was able to rely on loyalist cadres in the military and bureaucracy. And as economic growth was on top of the agenda, party leadership gave much more leeway to the technocrats and economic bureaucratic elites. To give the perception of professionalism and continuity, the party allowed for policy delegation to specialized committees. Hybrid organizations i.e. institutions made up of technocrats and career bureaucrats like the

Council of United States Aid, were given the task of navigating the economy towards industrialization. Similarly, large State-Owned Enterprises, controlled by KMT loyalists, were tasked with targeted investment in sectors that the government saw as having potential (Cheng et al, 1998; Clark, 2000; Chen, 2008; Rigger, 2011; Yeh, 2014).

With regards to the military, Chiang Kai – shek’s KMT did not view the military as the guardians (Chen, 2008; Rigger, 2011; Yeh, 2014). In fact, the KMT viewed the military warily and was concerned of the risk of being infiltrated by Communists or another anti – KMT element. Having witnessed numerous occasions in mainland China where KMT soldiers on the frontlines defected to the CPC because of Communists infiltrating the ranks, the party was reluctant to give the armed forces a complete free hand. So, from day one, they set up a system of checks in balances in the military that appointed party commissars, under the command of the GPWD, within the armed forces. The purpose of these appointments in addition to KMT’s control of the Taiwan Garrison Command (TGC) was to ensure the military had a narrow purpose and ensure it was not to play a part in politics. Under the leadership of Chiang Ching – kuo, the KMT established and empowered the TGC, which was the secret police they used to crack down on any dissent until it was disbanded by President Lee in 1992. The result of this was that while KMT was in complete control of the island, it utilized the secret police and police force to maintain domestic order while the military had a limited local role if any.

This meant that for KMT to implement its agenda and rule Taiwan, it relied on a different kind of troops; an army of bureaucrats and technocrats. It is important to differentiate between the two terms as bureaucrat refers to the career bureaucrats that were recruited through the Examination Yuan’s annual entrance examination since 1931 while the technocrats were technical experts recruited by the party to serve as subject matter experts in organizations like the

Economic Stabilization Board or the Economic Planning Council. As Taiwan was a one-party state, the technocrats could move laterally to take up positions often staffed by career bureaucrats. Plus, the technocrats could be political while the career bureaucrats were supposed to remain focused on administrative tasks and were insulated from politicking (Cheng et al, 1993; So, 2013; Painter; 2004).

As mentioned above, President Lee was at one time a bureaucrat/technocrat who turned into a politician. Taking cue from Japan, KMT strongly believed that in order to have national development, there was need for policy stability along with a growing economy. This meant that like Japan, Taiwan trusted its bureaucratic elite, who were technical experts within their issue areas, to formulate policy with a long-term view to maintain economic growth. The government’s job was to maintain law and order while ensuring the policies were implemented. If done right, the country would witness development and growth consistently (Clark, 2000) but if the policies backfired, the leadership of the KMT had plausible deniability by the virtue of policy delegation to technocrats and bureaucrats. In interviews senior bureaucrats, serving and retired, largely endorsed this point of view and credited the Japanese way of doing business as being the main driver of economic boom during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. They also agreed that given the elite status bureaucracy had in the society, it was a prestigious career choice and provided people with a meritorious path to becoming the elite. This is also how the KMT was able to attract talented local Taiwanese to join its ranks by the way of bureaucracy. Such initiatives eventually helped KMT recreate its image so that it was no longer viewed as the occupying force but instead the face of a new Taiwan. This was especially the case under the leadership of President lee Teng – hui.

The KMT is credited with democratizing Taiwan with a structured set of reforms that aimed to not only change the nature of the political system to become a multiparty democracy

but also aimed to re – educate the society on the need for democracy for continued growth. Previous literature argued that the turn to democratization for KMT was based on its selfish instinct to survive (Chen, 2008; Rigger, 2011; Yeh, 2014). But that does not take away from the fact that the way KMT instigated the democratization effort is largely why Taiwan is a vibrant democracy now.