Democratization Of Taiwan Essays - Republic Of China, Kuomintang

Democratization Of Taiwan Taiwan is an island country which is located off the southeast coast of China between the Taiwan Strait and the Philippine Sea. It has a land area of about 32,000 square kilometers, and claims another 3,700 square kilometers of sea around it, giving it close to a total of 36,000 square kilometers for itself. The land of Taiwan consists mainly of mountainous terrain in the east while the west has flat plains which can be compared to the middle central part of the United States. The country has a population of about 22 million people in which 9.7 million of those people are part of the labor force. Some of the groups that make up this population include native Taiwanese (which includes Hakka, the originals of the land), mainland Chinese, and aborigines. Taiwan is one of the major economic powers of East Asia. Taiwan is a truly capitalistic economy in an area where communism has played a major role in the world over the last 50 years. The GDP has been growing at a rate of about 8 percent per year over the last few years. Services make up more than half of Taiwans GDP, while industry and agriculture combine to make up the for the rest of the GDP. Manufacturing is mainly in electronics and machinery, which are among Taiwans major exports. (CIA World Factbook, 2000) Although Taiwan has been a major economic success, its political situation is still more remarkable. Within the last 50 years, sweeping changes have embraced the political arena. It was up until World War II that Taiwan was under the control of Japan, an arrangement which resulted from the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895. (Rigger 34, 1999) However in 1945, at the end of the war, Taiwan was given back to China as part of Japans punishment. The Taiwanese, excited by the fact that once again they were to be reunited in a way, with the mainland China. What had happened however was vastly different from what was expected. The Kuomuntang (KMT) or the Nationalist party had set foot in Taiwan for the Republic of China (ROC) in 1945, and viewed the Taiwanese as traitors for being a part of the Japanese army, and for their lost ties to traditional or mainland China. (Copper 35, 1999) It was during this time that corruption and violence gripped Taiwan, which in essence was used mainly as a production facility of supplies for the Nationalists fight against Communism on the mainland. In 1949, the Chinese Communist Party completely took over mainland China, resulting in the Nationalist government removing itself from the mainland to take up residence in Taiwan. This mass exodus from the mainland gave Taiwan a population that consisted of twenty percent mainlanders. Because of their high influx of people from the mainland, the ROC was able to stay in power, claiming to still be the ruling body over all of China. (Ferdinand 1996, Pg 5) In looking at Robert Dahls criteria for a fully functional democracy, which include free, fair, and frequent elections of officials rather than those imposed by the government, as well as freedom of expression, citizenship for all, ability to gather information free of the state, and what Dahl refers to as associational autonomy. (Dahl Pg 85). A majority of these traits have come about in aiding the evolution of democracies through the formation of a constitution that guarantees these specific ideas. It was during this time that the leader of the KMT, Chiang Kai-Shek made some sweeping changes to how Taiwan was being ruled by that time. To put an end to all the corruption that had occurred during the short time that Taiwan had been put back in control of China, he executed all those that had been accused of corruption in the government and brought about a constitution from the mainland which set up a system of political bodies to help recreate what the KMT once had. The political body which came about was full of provisions for checks and balances to insure the separation of powers, truly resembling a federal system. (Copper 1999, Pg94) The resulting five body government, or five-yaun (chamber) consisted of the Legislative Yaun in which the National Assembly was considered a part, the Executive Yaun, the Judicial Yaun, the Examination Yaun, and the Control Yaun. (Ferdinand 5, 1996) Each of these chambers had a specific duty, much like the different aspects of the government of the United States. The