Taiwan in the Winter of 2023-2024

 I have elected to journey again to Taiwan in the winter of 2023-2024.  This will mark the latest of many trips to Taiwan throughout my life, and a chance to see the world anew.  Taiwan has a lot to offer the world, and to anyone with a sense of purpose and adventure, too.  

TAIWAN IN THE WINTER OF 2023-2024

The stable world order under the working of Kant’s Theory of Perpetual Peace revolves around the structure of the Pacific alliances created by the previous economic paradigm of World War II, in particular the concept of human rights that filtered down through the military dispositions and tribunals that settled the matter of the crimes of the losers.  Taiwan was a province of Japan returned to China after the war but by the doctrine that to the victor go the spoils could have been transferred to the United States, according to the report made by American naval attaché George H. Kerr in his work about the 2/28 Incident (Formosa Betrayed).  Taiwan (ROC) is the United States’ most consequential ally in the Asia-Pacific region.

REGARDING TAIWAN: A HISTORY LESSON

It’s all about the silicon lately.  Recent events concerning the worldwide supply chain for silicon semiconductors include the recently passed CHIPS Act in the U.S., and the concerns about the effect of a Chinese blockade of Taiwan.  Taiwan is the center of the global electronics trade because of the excellence of its semiconductor chip manufacturing expertise, which is crucial to the world’s supply of electronics, from consumer electronics to industry and defense purposes.  In light of these recent events, the importance of Taiwan on the global stage has ascended to a higher plane. 

The world we live in today is far from unipolar.  In fact, the high media drama in the Far East, (which from the point of view of America should also be looked at as the Far West) has worldwide impact.  With the rise of troubling media technologies like A.I., we are headed towards high dramatic tension between democratic ideals and these emerging technologies.  Taiwan, the freest country in the Pacific region, is holding its free elections in the shadow of Chinese influence.  Armed with A.I., mainland Chinese operations may soon have a global effect.  As has often been the case, Taiwan is front and center in addressing questions regarding technology and democratic politics.  

The very concept of surveillance culture, for example, in its modern form, can be traced back to the uprisings in China that caused the overthrow of the last emperor, and brought the insurgents to Taiwan in 1949.  The kind of culture of surveillance and covert action lived out by those figures in history is unparalleled today.  It’s only in late modern China, and the Republic on Taiwan, that surveillance became a politics, as we know it to be today. 

Taiwan’s democratization was the result of prolonged effort.  It did not come all at once, but from the interplay of various social forces working to progress society forward.  That is what has historically shaped social progress in Taiwan.  It is a strategy in great accord with Taiwan’s culture and its place in the world.  The ongoing transformation of Taiwan follows the strategy of constant and ongoing effort.  In the beginning, this effort happened in the context of a brutal one-party state and its critics, but over time, and through brave social movements, the critics won out and Taiwan became a democracy. 

On December 10, 1979, a group of activists were working to bring that democracy about.  In the city of Kaohsiung in Southern Taiwan, these activists held a commemoration of Human Rights Day.  Human Rights Day marks the UN General Assembly’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  The Taiwanese experience of one-party rule, repressive policing, authoritarianism, and the KMT-led White Terror in the early years of settlement on Taiwan showed the relevance of commemorating human rights on Taiwan.  There were plenty of human rights abuses on Taiwan to make example of.  The events surrounding these demonstrations which happened on Human Rights Day, 1979, substantially led to the founding of the first opposition party on Taiwan, and the beginning of ongoing fights for human rights on Taiwan and elsewhere. 

Following demonstrations, the central government arrested virtually every leader of the opposition movement and put them on trial.  This came about through incredible levels of surveillance by the police and central government on the activities of the people, including on churches and church groups.  The methods used to surveil and control public men in early Republican China were revealed to the public at large and to those who cared to listen.  The aftermath of the incident left behind a huge and deeply rooted security/surveillance apparatus and a vocal and tenable opposition party: a party that could function even in this atmosphere of surveillance. 

While facing this intense and extensive surveillance, including the latest in police technology, in the lead-up to, during, and in the aftermath of the event held on Human Rights Day, 1979, the credible and increasingly energized activist corps was also taking advantage of the newest technology available to them, most of all audio recording.  In fact, a few significant artifacts of journalism during the period before the 1979 Human Rights Day demonstrations were recorded talks held amongst opposition thought leaders.  This may even have provoked the surveillance and repression from the security/surveillance apparatus during the incident that followed.  But this technology aided the transfer of information among partisans and made it worthwhile to speak out. If they spoke out, a person’s voice would henceforward not be lost. 

In the 1960’s and 1970’s, Taiwan had a competitive advantage in cheap labor compared to other countries, and this was used by the state to rapidly develop economically while making higher and higher quality goods.  Taiwanese companies started making transistor radios and televisions in the 1960’s and began making integrated circuits in the 1970’s.  Although political freedoms like the freedom of expression were low, the Taiwanese economy was getting stronger and more competitive globally, with a strong export-oriented regime.  Broadcast media took off and became deeply ingrained in Taiwanese society.  It was this broadcast media and the means of producing it that became integral both to history and the organizations of that time period. 

The events which surrounded that day, December 10, 1979, were an appeal to freedom of the press, as it is understood globally.  The ruling party, which was also the only party allowed by law, wished to restrict the freedom of expression to only the state-controlled forums, but the opposition activists stood by their human right to impart and receive information and ideas through any media, up to and including the freedom to use the means of producing that media to do the work of political organizing!  A structure was put into place of an organization that would call for a government instituted to protect the very concept of human rights itself. 

Although Taiwan maintains par in global surveillance with the Five Eyes surveillance network of the major Western countries and is situated in a fraught zone of global geopolitical struggle and conflict, it has a different story than that of most nations.  Instead of having ups and downs, Taiwan has continued a steady and relentless pace of improvement and development throughout its history.  This has often come hand-in-hand with political repression that has been inexorably beaten back by the will of the people expressed through demonstrations, peaceful assembly, and political organizing. 

REGARDING GLOBALISM

It is a strange time to be a global person in a global world.  This is a time when being “global” in your personal history or even outlook is a sort of currency you can spend for personal cachet.  It was unavoidable from the way that the 20th century unfolded, I suppose.  But for those who experience this sort of expectation-cum-intercession on their behalf because of their background, as if they had more answers to the same questions because of the color of their skin or their language, it does prompt the question: is this a sort of forced exile? —Not from a country per se, but from a set of purely national institutions and familiar spaces, inhabited by all the flavors of provincial protection that others enjoy? 

For those of us who have been tagged with the moniker “global” isn’t it true for you as well that you are answering new questions more than you are finding new answers?  And if your experience is like mine, the traditional sources of comfort and assurance don’t show up at the right time in your ventures to find those truths you seek, do they?  When sources of authority as ultimate as politics and philosophy turn out to have too limited of a reach to answer the questions you have been presented with isn’t it true that geopolitics itself becomes the sandbox within which to work over the thoughts in your mind?  Perhaps you have also decided that some international system of government is necessary to reshape politics and philosophy into helpful forms for you. 

It is no mistake that we crave actionable global frameworks for politics and philosophy.  Actionable human rights frameworks are essential to the future of humanity.  They would be an oasis in the shifting landscape of global existence.  Most emergent globalism is based on the spread and advance of technology.  But what is technology except the necessity for new forms of human organization to account for the increased power of the individual, which leaves him drifting off, unmoored from a sense of purpose?  Techno-libertarianism has been a failure of purpose.  The technology of individuals will always be subject to the repression of larger apparatuses of state and corporate control.  Techno-libertarianism has led to nothing but acquiescence, tacit or with intent, to this repressive control.  To offset this, we should expand the appeal to rights beyond the strict limit of countries of origin. 

The reality is quite different.  Globalism, in my experience, is really a sort of individualism fueled by a careful balance of national priorities by the individual.  In the best case scenario, there is some overarching plan of global cooperation like climate change under which to shelter a global identity.  Else, ideologies and theories like democracy and labor rights provide the functional energy to assert global identities to effect change or reform.  We are again limited to the familiar in the usefulness of globalism, but the functional power of this globalism is based only on the capacity of the individual to create a bridge linking politics and philosophy of one place to another.  It’s globalism as individualism: a lonesome irony. 

REGARDING THE XI’AN INCIDENT

The infamous Xian Incident was the prototype of progressive change in Republican China and Taiwan.  When an outsider observes the history of progressive social change in Taiwan, they might wonder why it is that each popular movement elicited such monumental social policy change.  Understanding this is embedded in the context of the Xian Incident.  That happened when Peter H.L. Chang, the “young marshal” of northeast China, kidnapped Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and forced the intransigent Generalissimo to listen to his demands on the future policy of Republican China.  What is not so easily dug up out of the popular histories is that the context of the Xian Incident embedded Peter H.L. Chang in another student social movement, prior to those that happened on Taiwan.

On December 9, 1936, a large demonstration was held to commemorate the first anniversary of the January 29 Movement.  A student was shot and wounded by the military and special police agents, and the political fervor of the people rose to a fever pitch.  Peter H.L. Chang was ordered by the Generalissimo to pacify the movement with violence if necessary.  Instead, the “young marshal” interdicted Chiang Kai-shek under an old Chinese tradition of “admonishing” a leader.  He had promised the demonstrating students to take practical action on their demands.  During their meeting, Chang convinced the Generalissimo to present a unified front with the Communists to fight against the incursion of Japanese forces.  

This change in policy that Chang, the “young marshal,” forced on the leader, brought China the closest it had been to unification under liberalism in the Republican era and stopped the civil war for a time, although both sides resumed conflict after Japan was defeated, much to Chang’s chagrin.  The more lasting effect was arguably the precedent set by the incident, namely that social movements would prompt an aggressive response of social policy change by the government of the Republic of China.  This precedent carried over to the Republic’s time on Taiwan, where social movements led incrementally to Taiwan’s complete democratization.  Arguably the threat of another Xian Incident kept the government responsive to the people’s demands. 

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was an authoritarian character in history.  It was the folks around him that ensured that democracy eventually emerged from the chaos of the 20th century.  Without the willingness to disobey amongst his soldiers and bureaucrats there would have been a certain strain of fascism among his organization.  But the spirit of conscience amongst men like Peter H.L. Chang that led them to be willing to disobey and be disloyal when that would preserve the ideals of republicanism and democracy ensured, and still does to this day, that liberty and justice would prevail over time.  It teaches an important lesson that must be learned in this period of illiberal governments: sometimes you have to be disloyal to be a good person.  

THE FORMOSA INCIDENT

By the 1970’s a group of activists in opposition to the ruling Nationalist government on Taiwan had put together a regular magazine called Formosa with branch offices all across Taiwan from which they could affect popular sentiment and campaign for opposition candidates without a formal party system which was forbidden by the ruling Nationalist party.  On December 10, 1979, the Formosa magazine held a rally for international Human Rights Day in the southern city of Kaohsiung.  This was also an effort to channel popular sentiment over the canceling of elections in the wake of the United States cutting off support for the Chiang Kai-shek regime.  The hope was to reinstate elections where opposition activists could make some gains.  

Police were highly active in suppressing the crowd that turned up that day, and the events led to confrontations by some elements of the crowd, later alleged to be planted by the police or government, with the riot cops.  Leaders of the opposition movement were arrested in the days and months after the incident and subjected to fatigue bombing in police custody, from which coerced confessions resulted.  Beginning in March 1980, the most prominent opposition leaders were put on trial in a military court on charges of sedition. 

Nothing is higher than the law so it’s instructive to look at the system of law in this case.  

The law of Taiwan takes an inquisitorial bent.  While it is true that in recent years Taiwan has adopted a jury trial system for some cases, the system remains most patterned on German law.  

Accordingly, it is also important to take in the uniqueness of the political system.  Making use of a special vocational seat in the legislature allowed certain opposition activists to campaign for the labor candidate and his allies anywhere on the island.  Those factors combined with the continued martial law on the island, to produce the context in which coerced confessions, loss of full pretrial right to counsel, and a military trial for the defendants occurred.  All eight were found guilty and their coerced confessions were given great weight in the decision.  It is generally agreed that their defense was adequate but that martial law and structural concerns muffled their voice.  Human rights observers noted some of these drawbacks. 

Truly, the Formosa Incident was, in context, the opening of an inquiry into the power of the press.  Nowhere else but in Taiwan can you find a robust debate about the nature of democracy itself.  The opposition activists basically proved that the press could function as an ad hoc opposition party, and many were very interested to see how that came about.  Of course this had to do with labor and specifically how labor worked as a progressive force in the midst of martial law.  Martial law on Taiwan spanned a long period of time when administration was done as if the entirety of Taiwan was adjacent to the field of battle.  The combination of martial law overhead with labor unrest underground is one of the most influential circumstances encapsulating the Formosa Incident.

One could also say that this represented the Republic on Taiwan’s effort to come to terms with the legacy of WWII in China and the Civil War that followed, a period during which events like the Xi’an Incident occurred.  That Nationalist government came to Taiwan with so much baggage that it took a long time to face reason and further modernize.  China is a unique society with different languages and customs, the democratization of which has in modern times always been desired by some of the foremost men of their day.  Some would even say that Chinese society needed to be re-democratized from an ideal or idealized past.  But those men have always faced tough scrutiny and struggled with an inferior position compared to traditional elements. 

However, sometimes they have achieved victories, including a long campaign on Taiwan for democratization.  But the complete victory was still a ways off at the point when eight defendants were arraigned in Kaohsiung.  The stature of the trial offered the defendants a small victory which they built on, several years later producing the first opposition party government that Taiwan had ever seen, which included several participants in the trial, both defense attorneys and defendants.  

Battles over the evidence that could be presented at this trial incorporated the very material conditions of society themselves into the trial of the Kaohsiung Eight.  Police audio recordings of the December 10, 1979 demonstration were hard to hear and not dispositive of anything, but also there were recorded tapes of the defendants that the defense was not allowed to introduce because they were “incomplete”.  This included speeches defendants made on the day.  These battles over technology shaped everything Taiwan was to become as Taiwan headed into the 1980’s tech boom.  To its core, the trial was very influential on Taiwan’s real conditions heading into this crucial era.  

A.I. INTERFERENCE ON TAIWAN

The strategic investment in the age of A.I. is in surveillance technology, data centers, and the freedom of lines of communication.  Taiwan has grabbed headlines for being at the forefront of A.I. innovation as it has been at the forefront of all technological advances since the 1970’s.  It will be important for trans-Pacific policy to protect the undersea cables that connect to Taiwan.  In combination with combating misinformation, protecting these cables is paramount in safeguarding democratic interests in the Asia-Pacific region.  On the business side of things, A.I. will supercharge sectors like advertising and manufacturing and will again prove the importance of supply chains for high tech.  It is far mor likely that the average American will need to be prepared to deal with the effects of A.I. more than being prepared to use it. 

The reason can be inferred from NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s presentations about his company’s A.I.-optimized computers.  The target market for these A.I. systems are those who design video games and factory floor layouts.  The upside of A.I. is in rendering the former and adjusting the latter in real time at a distance.  The use cases of A.I. are simply too remote from the average consumer for the consumer to have to consider how to really make use of them.  The recent court decisions upholding the argument that A.I.-generated works cannot be copyrighted shrinks the use cases for large-language models.  The end result is that your average person should be getting prepared for the effects of A.I. more than the use of it.  Nowhere is this more apparent than Chinese election interference in Taiwan. 

LOOKING FORWARD

The 1980’s were a crucial period in the Taiwanese economic miracle.  Taiwan is one of the resilient “four Asian tigers” economies and the production of electronics has always been a fundamental component of that success.  As much as the issues surrounding technology and its connection to democracy were reflective of the social and economic situation of their time, they also foreshadowed the current situation.  Sing 2016, Taiwan’s government has been in the hands of the Democratic Progressive Party, the nucleus of which includes the opposition activists from Kaohsiung in 1979.  Presidential elections are slated to happen in January 2024.  

The DPP has always been more favorable to Taiwanese independence than its rival.  China has for this reason been opposed to the DPP more than to the Nationalist Party, although the situation is generally even more complicated.  Among the triumvirate of China, the Nationalist Party, and advocates for Taiwanese independence, each position held by one of the three parties is usually opposed by the other two.  Notwithstanding this tenuous balance of power, the issue of technology intersecting with issues of democratic governance has shown up again, this time in the form of A.I.  A recent press report from Taiwan warns of Chinese interference in the Taiwanese election discourse by Chinese-controlled A.I.  Although China has increasingly used social media to interfere in Taiwanese society, A.I. supercharges this phenomenon. 

It will be instructive to observe how this plays out, and also how it is opposed by the domestic power of the press that the Formosa Incident popularized in Taiwan, all those years ago.