These moves have confirmed the presence of a general political maturity in the government and populace which is capable of handling further democratization.
One of the key foci of change during this time has been the ruling party itself, the Kuomintang (KMT). In the following article, Dr. Wu Wen-cheng, an associate professor of Political Science at Soochow University in Taipei, assesses the transformation of the KMT, especially as it has changed in conjunction with the rest of the political system and in response to Taiwan's socio-economic development.
Professor Wu argues that the KMT has gradually transformed itself from a revolutionary and exclusive party into a pragmatic and inclusive party, and that it has done so in response to the changing demands of the electorate. The one-party system has moved to the threshold of a competitive party system.
Political analysts have long been fascinated with the evolution of one-party regimes as they adjust to the changing environments experienced by developing societies. Researchers in this area have indicated that there are a number of political variables that help explain the overall process of transformation. Six of these have special relevance to the case of Taiwan: inclusiveness, technocratic power, participation, party vs. governmental role, interest articulation, and political competitiveness.
Taiwan's case is particularly interesting because of the unique problems— and successes—it has experienced as it moves toward further liberalization and democratization. In many ways, the realities of Taiwan's political development do not fit the theoretical models posited by recent scholarship in political science.
Inclusiveness
In its mainland period (before 1949), the KMT used to recruit almost exclusively from among elites—mainly intelligentsia, military officers, and government officials. But even though the KMT's membership had increased substantially in Taiwan during the 1950s and 1960s, an effort was made to broaden its political base by recruiting members from other sectors of society, including the local Taiwanese elite.
Party membership amounted only to 6.89 percent of the population in 1968. A full 60 percent of these members were politicians, civil servants, or military officers, and 61 percent of all KMT members were mainlanders (that is, people whose "home province" was on mainland China). In the first two decades, the KMT in Taiwan remained elite-oriented and predominantly a mainlanders' party.
But in the 1970s and 1980s the party's membership increased rapidly, with an average annual growth rate exceeding 20 percent. People from all walks of life were recruited. By the end of 1983, KMT membership had reached 2,121,000, or 11.37 percent of the population and 19.45 percent of the electorate, with 70 percent of them Taiwanese. The make-up of the membership has become younger, better educated, and more balanced. In short, the KMT has transformed itself from an exclusionary party into an inclusionary party, and from an elite party or cadre party into a mass party.
The KMT has also opened other channels of political recruitment. Of these, the most important has been election. Hundreds of thousands of people have been recruited into official positions through the electoral process. Following public service in local government, some have become candidates for national leadership. Most elected officials and representatives have been Taiwanese, thus enhancing the representativeness and legitimacy of the ROC government.
Government examinations are another open, fair, and equitable way of recruitment. From 1968 to 1980, more than 200,000 people passed the civil service examinations and were subsequently employed by various governmental agencies or government-owned enterprises. As a result of these examinations, government employees or bureaucrats have become better educated, more qualified, and younger, and they have strengthened the capacities and performance of the government.
The military is another important channel of political recruitment. In the past three and half decades, about 80,000 people have graduated from military and police academies. As a result, the older military officers have gradually been replaced by young, well-educated, professionally-minded, military academy graduates. Beginning in 1970, more Taiwanese became cadets, and the number of middle and lower ranking Taiwanese officers increased. Some of these officers have now retired from military service and have transferred into party or government service.
All of these channels of political recruitment have reinforced the expansion of party membership by making the political system more inclusive.
Technocratic Power
The members of the KMT's Central Standing Committee (CSC) and other decision-making bodies in the 1950s and 1960s were mainly revolutionary party elite and generals who specialized in ideology, propaganda, and mobilization. They were most concerned with ideology, national security, and social stability.
But along with rapid economic development and social change, the national political elite has undergone a structural transformation. Technocrats who specialized in management and climbed up through the governmental bureaucratic ladder began to emerge in the late 1960s. They became a mainstream in the CSC in the mid 1970s, and have dominated the CSC ever since. The technocrats first captured the Cabinet (the Executive Yuan), then the CSC and the other decision-making bodies. They are development-oriented and concerned mainly with transforming Taiwan into a modern industrialized society.
The second most important structural change in the makeup of the political elite is the trend toward "Taiwanization." In the 1950s and 1960s, Taiwanese-meaning those people who consider their "home province" to be Taiwan—were encouraged to participate in local elections and politics, but they were virtually excluded from national politics. Only a few Taiwanese who had ties with the KMT during the mainland period were allowed to join the national elite.
Even in the Taiwan Provincial Government Council, Taiwanese formed a minority of its membership. Sweeping changes came in the 1970s and 1980s. The number of Taiwanese members in the CSC (now 16 out of 31) and the Cabinet (currently 11 out of 23) gradually increased. Moreover, the Taiwan Provincial Government Council (TPGC) members and elected national level representatives since 1972 have been mostly Taiwanese. Successful Taiwanese politicians owe their political prominence to various elections, and they have now found it politically expedient to respond to the demands from the electorate and favor a faster pace of democratization and liberalization.
In addition, some prominent young social and natural scientists have been co-opted into the elite circle and are now positioned in the second echelon of the national leadership. Since most of them have studied abroad and have been influenced by Western democratic theories, they also tend to favor democratization and liberalization. These two groups together are still a minority in the CSC (6 of the 16 Taiwanese members are technocrats and have never gone through electoral politics, only 6 of them owe their present position to electoral success), but their influence will be greater in the near future.
Participation
The KMT has gradually expanded political participation in Taiwan by its decisions to hold various elections. Although the ROC government began to implement local self-government and to hold elections in 1950, political participation for the majority of the Taiwanese in the 1950s and 1960s was limited due to the KMT leaders' concern for political stability and their mentality of "political tutelage." Only the provincial assembly and local governments were open for Taiwanese participation. National elections were suspended for two decades (1948-1968).
But political participation during the 1970s and 1980s gradually expanded, and now is much more comprehensive. In 1968, for example, the KMT decided to hold a supplementary election for the National Assembly, Legislative Yuan, and Control Yuan, thus broadening electoral participation to the national level. Five more national elections have been held since then, and the seats being contested have greatly increased.
The rate of political participation in terms of the number of candidates to the number of contested seats, both within the KMT and among the non-partisans, has increased manifold. Electoral turnout has steadily climbed, as people have become intensely interested in the electoral process and election results. Campaign rallies, complete with rousing speeches, have drawn huge turnouts, and campaign literature is eagerly sought out and read voraciously.
The KMT has also changed its nomination policies and processes. Originally all KMT candidates were designated by a higher echelon. Later, the evaluations made by local cadres were taken into consideration, but now the opinions of grassroots party members are solicited. Beginning with the 1983 elections, a kind of "quasi-primary" system was established to nominate party candidates.
The "explosion" of political participation has occasionally erupted into social unrest accompanied by violent demonstrations, such as the Chungli Incident (1977) and the Kaohsiung Incident (1979). These destabilizing events, however, did not deter the KMT from further broadening the scope of political participation.
Party vs. Government Role
While the KMT was still in control on the mainland, the guiding principle of the party-government relationship was "to rule the state with the party," meaning the party's position was above the government. In the 1950s and 1960s, the principle was "to guide politics by the party," as the party receded to the role of behind-the-scenes policy-making even though its dominant position over the government remained the same. Since the Tenth National Congress held in 1969, the KMT has changed the principle to "separation between party and the government," and since then the party has gradually become a policy coordinator rather than a policy maker.
Members from the government sector (14) and representative bodies (5) have become the majority in the CSC (31 in total), and members from the party sector (3) have become the minority. The institutionalization of a constitutional arrangement with a strong Executive Yuan (Cabinet) responsible to the Legislative Yuan has gradually taken shape.
Election regulations have also been drafted for every kind and level of elections. Some of these regulations (not laws) for local elections were drafted by the Taiwan Provincial Government and approved by the Taiwan Provincial Assembly. But the regulations governing central level elections in 1969, 1972, and 1975 were initiated by the party and drafted by the National Security Council (NSC), an extra-constitutional institution set up according to "Temporary Provisions, " and bypassed the legislature.
The Public Officials Election and Recall Law, which was promulgated in 1980 and revised in 1983, governs all elections; it was drafted by the Ministry of the Interior and enacted by the Legislative Yuan. In this case, the due process of enacting laws has been followed closely, respecting the position of the legislature.
The Labor Standards Law promulgated in 1984 is an even better case in point. During the protracted drafting, revising, and other legislative processes, the KMT legislators representing management and the KMT legislators representing labor argued vehemently for their points of view in the Legislative Yuan. In addition, the Ministry of the Interior championed the cause of labor, and the Ministries of Economic Affairs and Finance spoke for the interests of management. During the whole process, the party played the role of coordinator or mediator between the two sides. The final law was a result of compromise.
Interest Articulation
In the past, special interest groups were created, licensed, and subsidized by the KMT and the government. Gradually, their formation has become more spontaneous and their functions more autonomous. As economic development leads to further social change, new interest groups have mushroomed, such as those interested in consumer and environmental protection, and in the prevention of public hazards. Many existing groups, including Chambers of Commerce and the Lion's and Rotary Clubs, have become more assertive in articulating their interests.
These new and old interest groups have now become more active in their lobbying activities. As a result, the KMT and the government must provide additional channels for the articulation of these interests. The time is past when the KMT could claim to be the sole representative of diverse interests. In fact, the KMT has gradually been transformed from a corporatist system, in which major interest groups are incorporated into the system only to be controlled and mobilized to achieve the overall goals set by the party, to a pluralist system, in which the party becomes the representation and aggregation of diverse social interests. This transformation is in fact just beginning to take shape.
In response to pressure from rank and file union members, as exemplified by the 1986 elections in which two KMT candidates were defeated by "Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)" candidates, the KMT and the government have adopted many liberal policies toward labor unions. For example, the ban on strikes was lifted, the four-level indirect election system for choosing union officials was changed to direct elections, and the formation of new unions, unionization of workers, and merger of small and weak unions into larger and stronger unions have been encouraged to make the unions more self-sufficient.
The governmental agency in charge of labor affairs has been elevated from the Department of Labor Affairs under the Ministry of the Interior to the Council for Labor Affairs under the Executive Yuan in order to provide better service to labor. It will soon be elevated again to the Ministry of Labor Affairs. When all these changes are put into effect, labor unions will certainly become more independent and autonomous.
In response to a series of spontaneous student movements and protests that occurred recently at National Taiwan University, the KMT and the university authorities have adopted new policies toward student associations: the president of the United Student Association will be directly elected by all students; the Regulations on Training and Guidance (which regulates extracurricular activities) will be revised to ensure the rights of assembly and association for the teachers and students; articles in student magazines will be reviewed only by teachers and students can have original articles printed without revision; a Taiwan University Forum has been set up to allow students to deliver speeches on any issue without censorship; and, finally, the KMT party office at the university has moved off campus. With many of these liberal policies already enacted, the university campus has already become much more free and democratic.
Political Competitiveness
The KMT's policy toward opposition forces has gradually changed from repression to toleration, and it now has come to the threshold of legalizing the existence of opposition parties. During its mainland period, the KMT adopted policies of "no party outside the party" and "no faction within the party." The country was organized and functioned as a non-competitive party-state system, and it did not recognize the legal status of any other party until the war against Japan.
In the 1950s and 1960s, except for the two minor "friendly" parties, the formation of new parties was banned by the imposition of martial law. Subsequently, there was virtually no organized opposition or competition in the various local elections. Electoral competition was limited between the KMT candidates and a handful of independent non-partisan candidates. In 1960, however, a few liberal mainlander intellectuals involved with the journal Free China tried to unite with these independent Taiwanese local politicians in an attempt to form the China Democratic Party. But the organizers, Lei Chen and Fu Cheng, were arrested, Free China was suspended, and the China Democratic Party was aborted.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a new generation of young Taiwanese politicians who had grown up and received their education under KMT rule entered politics. The Tangwai (meaning "outside the party") emerged in the 1972 elections, and won an unexpected victory in the 1977 election. In recent elections they have received about 25 percent of the votes.
The opposition forces have grown up through electoral competition, and the KMT, by holding various elections and gradually expanding political participation from local to national level, has tolerated the growth of these opposition forces. The Tangwai has even been allowed to publish magazines and books which were very critical of KMT policies. On September 28, 1986, people associated with the Tangwai finally formed the "Democratic Progressive Party" ("DPP"), a genuine opposition political party. Instead of banning the "DPP" and arresting opposition leaders, the KMT has speeded up political reforms, including legalizing the formation of new par ties, and has held regular meetings with "DPP" leaders to facilitate communication. The non-competitive party-state system has finally changed into a competitive party system.
Some political scientists say that there is a necessary discontinuity between a non-competitive one-party system and the rise of a competitive party system. To the contrary, Taiwan has in fact moved fairly smoothly toward a competitive party system, and in the process it has steered a middle way between two models well-known by political scientists: (1) the "technocratic model," which is characterized by a low level of political participation, high levels of stability and economic growth, and increasing income inequality; and (2) the "populist model," which is characterized by a high level of political participation, increasing economic equality, a low rate of economic growth, and instability. As a result, political scientists need to generate some new hypotheses to explain Taiwan's case.
One possible hypothesis goes as follows: Technocrats, being pragmatic in mentality and oriented toward efficiency, cannot repress participation and tolerate inequality for long. In contrast with ideology-oriented party cadres and security-conscious generals, technocrats are development-oriented. Because their main concern (and responsibility) is the economy, questions of stability, equality, and participation interest them only in so far as these affect the economy. They favor peaceful and gradual steps toward democratizing and liberalizing the political system because the economy grows best in a free and open society. But they are against drastic and swift political changes because the economy will be rocked if social stability is greatly disturbed.
The technocrats in Taiwan have come to believe that stability is best maintained through socio-economic equality and expanded political participation. They also believe that a widening gap between rich and poor, combined with restrictions on political participation, will build up tensions and pressures which may be even more destabilizing. Thus, in order to avoid the vicious circle of a "participation explosion" and "implosion," the technocrats favor gradual and controlled expansion of political participation.
While some political scientists assume there is an inherent incompatibility between growth and equality, and between stability and participation, this is not necessarily the case. Land reform, implemented in Taiwan in the 1950s, increased socio-economic equality, which in turn greatly enhanced agricultural development. In fact, growth, equality, stability, and participation are all important goals of development. The technocrats, if they want to achieve successful development, must find a dynamic point of balance among these goals and not choose one at the expense of the other.
As for the question of political competitiveness, the KMT elites have gradually come to accept it as not only inevitable but also desirable. As Taiwan's society has become more complex—and diverse interests and groups have mushroomed-conflict, negotiation, and compromise have gradually become accepted values. In fact, after the 1980 election, the KMT has gradually become a party primarily concerned with electoral victory like an ordinary democratic party.
Although the result of any election, even if the "DPP" won, would not change the power structure in Taiwan, the KMT leaders have always felt that the party must win the majority of votes in every election in order to maintain its legitimacy to rule. But as the Tangwai forces grew, the KMT gradually changed its view of itself; it began to act more like a competitor than a dominator in various elections.
The Tangwai, now the "DPP," has strong communal consciousness and local sentiment, thereby posing a real problem of integration. It appears as though the KMT leadership thought it better to channel the activities of the opposition forces toward electoral and parliamentary competition than to force them in the direction of street protests and demonstrations. As a result, the KMT has changed the emphasis on participation from its "educative" function to its "integrative" function. The KMT may also have thought that by giving the opposition a legal status its activities could be regulated by consensus-backed legal procedures, and that the liberalizing and democratizing reforms could in the long run lead to a more stable political system.
Concerning the underlying causes of democratization and liberalization, one current hypothesis holds that although political development is either constrained or spurred by socio-economic development, it is also either initiated by the ruling elite or the result of pressure from the counter-elite. But in Taiwan's case the two possibilities have occurred simultaneously. They have been both initiated by the KMT and pushed by the "DPP" leaders, although the initiation of recent political reforms originated primarily within the KMT elite.
The positive environment for greater expansion of participation and competition has come from a unity among the technocrats, Taiwanese politicians with voter support, and young academics, especially social and natural scientists. Furthermore, the timely decisions and personal influence of the late President Chiang Ching-kuo were instrumental in ironing out differences within the party as well as putting down opposition from party conservatives. Generally speaking, the political reforms have been anticipatory. That is, KMT leaders recognized that demands for political participation were bound to arise anyway, and that it therefore would be wise to take the lead in expanding it themselves to prevent the harm that might be brought about by a less predictable explosion of public participation.
The Republic of China on Taiwan presents the first case where a modern, non-competitive, one-party state is moving successfully to transform itself into a democratic and competitive party system. This process deserves more attention from Western scholars, who have paid relatively little attention to Taiwan beyond studying socio-economic issues. More importantly, it deserves the close attention of all people in other societies struggling to become more democratic.