I hope the Republic of China(=taiwan) government will recapture the mainland china and unify it again. It is too bad that the territory of the liberal and powerful democratic government of the Republic of China is such a small island. If China were a democratic government, it would not have fought the United States like this now.
2:36 claiming that the communists worked with the KMT to fend off the Japanese invasion is rather bold. Looks more like the CPC did virtually nothing to fight the Japanese, while the KMT took the brunt of Japanese attacks. What the CPC did, was taking territory in the North in '45 after it was emptied by the Japanese after they had nearly crushed the KMT in the south the previous year. You think that counts as "cooperation"?
@@katrinoy1 the population of china have a much stronger approval rating of their government than almost any country on earth. Simple reality is that there isnt such a thing as democracy under capitalism. Even if you have the ability to vote. Your interests are constantly being subverted by the influence of capital. Still a dictatorship. Just a class dictatorship
Something similar happened in Spain. After Francisco Franco died in 1974, he was succeeded by King Juan Carlos I. The first monarch in four decades, Carlos held dictatorial powers. Instead of tyranny, he initiated democratic reforms, unprompted. Carlos even stopped a coup which would've re-established dictatorial rule.
I believe the event that stopped the Remnants of the Francoists Coup is called the Carnation Revolution right? Where the Military backed Carlos and prevented Spain from falling back to Francoist Dictatorship or worse, Civil War and finally succeeding their transition to a Democracy.
A slight difference being Lee Teng Hui, a Taiwan native, was appointed as sort of a compromise with the Taiwanese people, rather than a restoration of a monarch who happened to not be a tyrant. He was about the most nativist (as opposed to Mainland Chinese) KMT candidate ever. He would also win the first democratic election, partly because he was in the "middle". Also, the "old guard" in the KMT wasn't anti-democratic purely because they wanted to enforce some ideologies either. There was a strong divide and violent conflict between Taiwanese natives and Mainlanders who retreated from the mainland with the KMT. They being Chinese nationalists, wanted to remain "Chinese", and being a minority in Taiwan, they knew the natives would turn the state towards to one with an independent identity with democratization. Seeing Lee as too nativist, they splintered off and form their own parties. Which would split votes with the KMT, leading to DPP getting the presidency in 2000
If I recall, didn't Franco put in motion the idea of a constitutional monarchy upon his death? So he was succeeded by King Carlos I but Carlos was obligated to bring in a democratic government as part of his return to power?
@@jerm70Not to add that they were also scared of a republican "revolution" if some forms of democracy weren't introduced. Secret polls taken by Suarez's government at the time showed that after 40 years of right wing dictatorship, which toppled a democratic republic, republican sentiment was high and a majority
Taiwanese here. First of all, tremendous video here. Salutations to the effort and talent shown in this video. I would like to add some points for people interested to look into further. 1. It is controversial in Taiwan to call 蔣經國 Mr. democracy for good reasons. Especially when one considers the role of US intelligence among the KMT elites. 2. Another perspective of democratization is that of ethical politics. It was the Taiwanese elites and populace who kept putting pressure on the ruling elite, which in turn gave 蔣經國 the idea that KMT would not survive without opening up the political opportunity structure. 3. Following up on point 2, more emphasis should be put on the role of 李登輝 and Taiwanese KMT elites. Cheers!
@@thomasbarca9297 well 蔣經國 is definitely different from his father’s generation (warlords who believes in violence and totality) and has true experiences from somewhere none China. He might not make the same answer to the question of how to modernize China but this doesn’t guarantee his answer would be a democratic or liberal one. Then again, this relative sophisticated and “softness” might even bring his doom easier were KMT maintained control of China.
@@thomasbarca9297 and yeah that’s where one realizes the story of KMT or the story of modern China really means very little for Taiwanese people. We just want to be left alone and live with dignity.
@@thomasbarca9297 unlikely. the kmt on the mainland were hugely corrupt to the point that the US more or less lost faith and did little to stop the communist. China would have become something similar to the korean and vietnam war if kmt remained, only ten times more devastating due to the size of the country.
I am not a historian, but I think some historical facts are missing, which might not support your conclusion. 1.) With all the martial law one could argue that Taiwan was de facto a authoritarian dictatorship, but there still were fake elections. So people in Taiwan were used to the process and it was still a matter of time that people would demand that their real votes would be counted and not the separately prepared fake ones. 2) The KMT came over with 1 mio people from the Chinese mainland when they retreated to Taiwan and put them all into government, but the system wasn’t sustainable at all. When they got older they had to dig into the local talent pool. Representatives from the Chinese provinces got old and died away, but the provinces weren’t able to re-elect new ones for obvious reasons. During the reign of Chiang Chingkuo, the majority of mid-level army leadership was Taiwan-born, so there was no way the old ruling class could maintain their power much longer. 3) The role of the Taiwanese population is downplayed. Protests were huge and the Taiwanese know how to protest, how to get support in a conservative society and how to form concrete demands. Many already had a test run in the 60s when the student protests in Taiwan were facing the harsh reality by just being invited into parliament and confronted with every boring detail of politics. (That was the way Taiwan suppressed the student movement in the 60s, by inviting them and confronting them with the reality of being a small country squeezed in between big powers. )
Sadly, some power players without military influences decided to weaponize "democracy" to take over the control. However due to the initial manipulation of "democracy: the game" at early stage which turned Taiwan into a democratic clown show today. It was "outsiders" vs " domestics", then it was "Chinese heritage vs Japanese overlord", then it is "anti-China" vs "pro-China".
What you said is so true. Chiang's regime also face issue of legitimacy, their government was founded on democratic principles back on the mainland. While Chiang put the 1 million mainlanders into government and rule Taiwan by iron fist, Chiang Khai Shek always legitimise it by saying this is necessary until they "re-conquer mainland". By 70s 80s it is clear there won't be a return to Nanking, their autocracy by then is unpopular with Taiwanese and second generation mainlander, the rest is history.
what a fascinating look at how Democracy came about in Taiwan! The thing that stood out most to me is the rise of the middle class's role in it. Could this be a lesson in how the erosion of a middle class could result in the loss of Democracy? I'm so glad I discovered your channel. I've been watching your videos for a few weeks now and it is amazing using the view of Liberal Democracy to examine geopolitics. Keep doing what you are doing. There is no channel like this. Whether it be topic and or production value! I can hardly believe you are under 50k subs.
I hope the Republic of China(=taiwan) government will recapture the mainland china and unify it again. It is too bad that the territory of the liberal and powerful democratic government of the Republic of China is such a small island. If China were a democratic government, it would not have fought the United States like this now.
@@badofi liberal and neoliberal economics is what lead to the expansion of the middle class and growth of prosperity across the developed and developing world, and neoliberal politics is what prevents populists eroding our civil rights like in Poland and Hungary
@@katrinoy1I think personally, taiwan can never recapturebthe mainland. But, we can always support this new thriving democracy. Dont lose hope because they cant recapture the mainland, understand how bad the PRC killed modern china and how taiwan reinvent itself into a thriving democracy.
liberal democracy is poison. just look at the riot in france, and the insurrection in US. when you tell the people they can believe in whatever they want, truth no longer matter, people don't care if Trump lose fair and sqaure, they will believe very emotionally and strongly believe that the election is stolen, you can't reason with that and all you are left with is chaos. the failure of liberal democracy to have the gut to face up that it is flawed and is danger will lead to it collapse. people who think CPC is doing a bad job in China really need to wake up. no country that is doing a "bad job" will see 100 of million of it citizen going overseas on vacation, and returning to the country at the end of their vacation. the west need to owe up to that fact that it ideolgical believes is not only wrong, it is dangerous. because this democracy narrative is undermining real good administration. which depend not on the number of votes, but the level of organisation. the failure to treat government as an administrative problem but to treat it as a political problem would lead to the regression of countries as politician blame each other than to organise around solving problems. if you want to protect "democracy" then you should start focusing on governance, not idealogy. idealogy cannot feed the people. what most people fail to realise is the reason CPC won the civil war on the mainland is simply because they could feed more people than KMT could, and why couldn't KMT? because the western government force KMT government to repay their WWII war debt, leading to hyperinflation, the salary given by KMT to it soldier can't even buy a loaf of bread, which is why over a million soldier deflected to CPC and CPC turn from being outnumbered 4 to 1 to overwhleming KMT 2 to 1. this is a very important lesson I hope you can all listen to, because it will have great impact on one country soon: Ukraine. DO NOT ALLOW YOUR WESTERN GOVERNMENT TO DRIVE UKRAINE TO BANKRUPTCY AFTER THE WAR. do not allow western government to repo Ukrainian asset after the war, because if you do that, the Ukrainian ppl will revolt like they did in China. don't fail and understand what really wins people over is their ability to survive... if your system end up becoming their doom, you force them to reject you. that's the hard truth. I pray for the Ukrainian people because I know, their greatest suffering won't end with the war, it going to get worst for them because of the economic structure of the west is exploitive... and that is so UNFAIR to them!
Back then, Chiang Ching-Kuo's KMT wanted to become Lee Kuan-Yew's PAP in Singapore. In other words, Chiang's KMT intended to mold Taiwan into a "smart dictatorship" similar to Singapore, where there's a democratic system but the PAP rules forever. KMT was so confident, that they thought KMT could rule indefinitely too, much like the PAP does.
As a Taiwanese person, I want to point out two disagreements I have: 1. KMT’s democratization is far from an planned, organized process. There are much more power struggle and inter party fights then this presents 2. Chiang Ching Kuo did not democratize Taiwan. He removed the martial law but his successor Li is responsible for democratize Taiwan. This is a good video but it misrepresents what happened. Chiang did not mastermind a path to democracy. He liberalized KMT and Taiwan. But it is Li who basically purged all authoritarian KMT leader from government and started real elections
It was DPP's Chen who really forced KMT to cooperate the change of the outdated KMT-RoC constitution with amendments to update according to present reality. It was almost a change of the country's name to Republic of Taiwan but the US refused to accept the change.
To be fair to CCK, he did allow the establishment of the DPP, although at that time other parties were still forbidden by "law". So there are indications, that he was for democratization. But yeah, the title of "Father of Taiwan's Democracy" goes clearly to LTH!
you mean cucks that sold out taiwan to amerimutts, you realize the country is now a silon state? it relies almost entirely on tsmc and select few industries, and the united states is also backstabing taiwan by siphoning workers from taiwan to develop their own intel and amd chips so they wouldn't need tsmc anymore.
not to mention amerimutts don't recognize that the south china sea belongs to the republic of china and taiwan. and wants to give it to the Philippines going back on their word, zero reason to work with the amerimutt golems.
Lee finished what Chiang Ching-kuo started. The '80s were where the opposition parties caught attention by fighting in the legislator, which was still full of KMT officials who couldn't be removed because they represented provinces on the mainland that the gov't was pretending to still rule. The fights seemed silly at the time, but they were representative of the struggle against the single-party system. Even having opposition parties was a new thing then. Pres. Lee pushed for presidential elections and later for the disbanding of the redundant provincial government.
One thing to note is the KMT during this period of democratization was far from unified or stable. Ching Kuo himself passed away and designated Teng Hui as his successor. Teng Hui himself certainly had no strong attachments to the party and even broke from it after the end of his presidency. Teng Hui during democratization had to constantly contend with anti-democratic elements within the party.
Your description reminds me a lot of the Spanish transition, and how both now King Emeritus Juan Carlos and Adolfo Suárez had to contend with the “old guard” and reactionary coup attempts, even with Franco buried and far along his decomposition process. Heck, the whole description of Taiwan’s transition reminds me of the Spanish one. For context, we the Portuguese are very interested in all of that, because we also got rid of a nearly 50-year-long dictatorship through an unusual process, a relatively bloodless military coup (there were civilian casualties, five people killed at the hands of cornered political policemen right in front of their HQ, which was under siege). Interestingly, General Spínola, the provisional leader designated - at gunpoint, but still, he effectively had a say in the matter - by the surrendering President of the Council (for all intents and purposes, the dictator), was an apparatchik (a very vocal one, having published a book advocating for federalization of the sprawling colonial empire just a month before, but absolutely a member of the defunct regime’s intelligentsia, having been the Governor of Portuguese Guinea until the preceding year). In our case, public pressure got the best of that provisional government (a military junta that had right below said leader a collection of factions, from the ranks of all the pro-democracy and communist captains that had just staged said coup), quickly forcing in a matter of days the immediate ceasefire in all colonial war fronts and a swift (nay, rushed) process of decolonization and repatriation. Interestingly, Marcello Caetano, said outgoing dictator, appeared mellower than Salazar, the deceased dictator who, much like Franco, ruled the country for the better part of their regime. His first few years were even called “Marcelist Spring”, but here, too, he had to contend with the “brigada do reumático” (lit. “rheumatoid brigade”, and I think you can guess why that nickname stuck), a group of high-ranking reactionary officials that blocked any attempts at further reform and would indeed prevent even floating the idea of a peaceful resolution to said colonial war. And, in fact, there were also still a few younger officials, who weren’t outright sacked after the coup, that could’ve and indeed tried to stage a counter-coup of their own. Fortunately, they didn’t have their way and here we are now.
Another thing worth noting is that Teng Hui was a deep Trojan Horse. My father knew him when they were both studying abroad at Cornell. Teng Hui was always pro-TI, even if he was smart enough to keep that discrete. My father HATED HIS GUTS when he found out Teng Hui had joined the KMT, thinking he was the worst sort of traitorous turncoat. But his attitude turned around 180 degrees after seeing what he had managed to do from the inside.
Lee was just an opportunist with few weaknesses. funny how his liberalizing image in public abided with his wife always walking behind him in public instead of holding hands together. what an figure of old Chinese tradition if you ask me
@@IsaacKuoLee rigged the 2000 election for Chen and was already rigging elections in the 1990’s in order to help the DPP gain power. He isn’t the father of democracy.
Lee was actually authoritarian in his rule changing the constitution in order to give the president more power. Combined with his systematic corruption and rigging of elections to help the DPP, he is not a positive figure in Taiwan’s democratic history. His undermining of the electoral system has continued through today as the system has not been improved and it’s easier than ever to cheat in elections now in Taiwan.
Note on the land reform in Taiwan: Land reform has been on KMT's mind well before they fled to Taiwan. The founder Sun Yat Sen was influenced by Georgism and Socialism, so there have been attempts at redistribution on the mainland, both before and after the war with Japan. But since power in the KMT relied heavily on landowners and capitalist, nothing substantial came out of their efforts on the mainland. When they got to Taiwan, most of the large landowners from Japan's colonial efforts had their land confiscated as public land, and the local landed gentry were not yet part of the KMT power apparatus and could be retroactively charged with 'collaboration with the Japanese' if they refused to cooperate, so things went way smoother.
The interesting thing about Taiwan is that an entirely similar story happened in South Korea. A Military Junta that was initially violent and anti-democratic that brought economic wealth to the nation and eventually began their own democratization and succeeded the greatest test a Democracy can receive, a peaceful successful first election.
South Korea's reform is mostly influenced by USA. You see it in the kind of government they follow along with the American influenced cuisines and sports popular in South Korea now.
Hey! Thanks for watching. If you're interested in learning more, this is the (very good) book we consulted for much of the research, and it talks about a number of other countries: amzn.to/3Ww2cQ2 (we do earn revenue from this) Also, this comment is for corrections and may be updated over time! 1. The DPP narrowly defeated an independent candidate in the 2000 election; the KMT candidate came in third. 2. While the KMT was officially established in mainland China in the early 20th century, party founder Dr. Sun Yat-Sen had already established a number of predecessor organizations under various names and in various places outside the Chinese mainland, the first of these being the Revive China Society in Hawaii in 1884.
Taiwan is not the only country with this story. Republic of Korea has a very similar story. The military dictatorship gradually released the power in the 1990s with pressure from student groups and unions. Korea, similar to Taiwan, is an economic success story during the time of dictatorship. The path of its economic growth is also very similar to Taiwan's, during the 1970s and 1980s. It would be even more interesting to look at both at the same time in terms of lessons learned, what's similar and what's different.
Taiwan and South Korea have an eerily similar modern history. Both were Japanese colonies that were then ran by military dictators. Both democratized peacefully and today are liberal democracies whom have had women presidents.
@@luiscarlospallaresascanio2374Russia is more rich than north Korea. You could say Russia is a dictatorship.. but idk dictatorship to me is places like Israel and north Korea
Important to mention that the land reform was only possible because a lot of it was took from large Japanese landowners, and Taiwanese who were considered collaborators with the Japanese
At least the original owners were Taiwanese who had been there for hundreds of years before the arrival of the KMT. With the KMT land reform, the lands were forcibly taken from the local population and given out to KMT invaders and collaborators, who previously had no legitimate claim whatsoever.
That's how land reform *should* work. FWIW, similar things happened in Korea and Japan. Land reform was absolutely crucial to reforming the peasantry for eventual rapid industrialization. A handful of selfish Taiwanese picked the wrong side, and are still butthurt about it. If you don't like it, you can always go to Yasukuni Shrine and cry all you want.
@@michaelyuan3382cool story bro, unfortunately international law and history, including peace treaties that ended WW2 and created the UN says they have every right to claim taiwan.
"I am moved to see a foreign TH-camr record the history of the development of Taiwan's democratization." When I came to Taiwan in 1994, Lee Deng-hui was the President of the R.O.C. (on Taiwan). I do recall that vote-buying was still prevalent, and the majority of the media was still state controlled. This did not disappear during the rule of the Minjindang's (DPP) Chen-Shui-bian (who would later be charged and jailed for corruption). The next president, Ma Ying-jiu was formerly a Guomindang (KMT) Minister of Justice, who had been removed from his position because he was attempting to prosecute high-level Guomindang (KMT) members for corruption - the so-called 'ill-gotten assets.' He was also the mayor of Taipei, which is seen as a crucial step to becoming president. I will not discuss the current president, since it goes beyond the range of this video. But, hey, what do I know? I still recall the time I was told by a Taiwanese woman that I could not understand politics of the R.O.C. "because I was a foreigner."
The KMT's early foundations in Georgism and the Land Value Tax are primarily responsible for the reduction in wealth inequality that occurred when Taiwan industrialized. I'd also argue that that very wealth equality indirectly made it easier for the KMT to willingly choose a move towards democracy. Implement the Land Value Tax in all countries now.
This video is very informative about Taiwan's conversion to Democracy, but I would like to give more context here about the KMT's history. Originally the Kuomintang was founded under China's founding father Dr Sun Yat-sen. The reason why Sun Yat-sen is titled China's founding father because he brought a new age for China that overthrew China's multi-millennium old Dynastic rule. What he and the Kuomintang had originally set out to do was to convert China into a Democratic Republic since the old dynastic system of China was failing the nation. Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang did manage to seize mainland China but however have failed multiple times to properly establish a stable functional republic. Unfortunately, Sun Yat-sen would pass away and power would be transferred to Chiang Kai-Shek. At this point, the Kuomintang had become an Authoritarian entity which prioritized reunifying China since after Sen Yat-sen's death the country had become divided by ideology and warlords. Fast forward to modern day, Taiwan's Democracy was the one Sun Yat-Sen had sought to establish long ago in the mainland.
SYS was founded by the Soviets. SYS did come to Taiwan before. He came to gain support from Taiwanese and Japanese for his revolution. That's before he finally switched to the Soviet side in 1920s. BTW. Dr. SYS treated Taiwan/Formosa as a foreign country before he died. He even mentioned about supporting Taiwan independence in 1924 after he teamed up with the Soviets.
@@bctvanw SYS was educated in America. He wanted to bring Western Ideas to China but he also wanted to bring out more social reform. I would not call him really leftist. I personally think he just wanted what was best for China.
@@WoAiTuMadre2698 Sun yat-sen's ideas were also somewhat more idiosyncratic than I think this implies. For instance, a lot of his conceptions of freedom/democracy were "freedom for the nation," not necessarily "freedom for the individual." Arguably the two ideological tenant that survived past Sun's lifetime in the KMT's ideology was the political tutelage and land reform, lol.
@@icouldntthinkofaname379 I mean like I said SYS wanted what was best for the nation. His ideas were nationalistic for China. Even than what he did propose would grant the Chinese people more freedoms since it did provide limitations to government power.
He was pretty much the same as Ho Chi Minh. A Left Nationalist who turned to Socialism as a way to get USSR support in opposing Imperialism & Colonialism.
Taiwan is one of those nations that I've always been interested in learning more about but haven't actually bothered to look further into, so this video was very insightful for me. It's a very unique place, even considering other nearby typically well-viewed democracies like Japan and South Korea. It's a lot more liberal than they are. Also, those graphics when you were talking about the Chinese Civil War were absolutely amazing. I couldn't get enough
Fun fact: Chiang Ching-kuo's adopted brother, Chiang Wei-Kuo, used to be a Panzer Command in Nazi's Germany's Wermacht. He actually participated the invasion of Austria in 1938. Also, Ching-kuo's wife was Belarusian and Stalin allowed him to return back to China after 12 years living in the USSR.
I'd say that the reason Taiwan and the KMT defy expectation is because expectations are based on fallacy. People believe that if you give a country democracy it will improve, but that isn't necessarily true, because democracy isn't inherently stable, in fact it may be inherently unstable. In order for stable democracy to grow you first need stability, and because democracy by itself does not provide that stability you need to start with something else to provide it. What you really need is a population that has forgotten about instability that has had time to get so used to and dependent on the systems of society itself that it will reject anyone trying to disrupt that stability for their own gain without even thinking about it. You need a society that has been stable for so long that people can grow up in stability and get an education and start having enough time and energy to start considering political philosophy. Because ultimately you cannot impose democracy, it needs to grow from the seed of knowledge and it needs stable soil within which to grow. This is why revolutions rarely create democracy and why imposing democracy on places like Iraq and Afghanistan hasn't worked, if we'd been willing to impose stability on those places for forty or fifty years so that the only people left who remembered what it was like before were irrelevant greybeards, we might have succeeded, though what we would have had to do to achieve that would probably not been worth it to us anyway, because we'd have had to do what the KMT did in Taiwan and we don't have the political will for that.
@@Hoodicaat yo cool that you think so. If you want a really interesting case study / unfolding situation in what I'm talking about here have a look at what's going on in Bangladesh right now. They've had a more or less stable but somewhat authoritarian and not particularly fair system since the 70's when they declared independence from Pakistan. They just had something like a revolution or very short civil war and their prime minister fled the country. It hasn't fallen into anarchy or gone down the crazy authoritarian route yet, it remains to be seen but the former ruling group has been more or less shut out of the forming interim government. While they have a long way to go we may be watching the rare formation of a stable democratic system right now. History of everything podcast has done a couple videos of what's going on there and the history of it all.
The Socialist Afghan government had the will to do that. But instead of collaborating with the Soviets to prop them up, we decided to help radicalize Muslims in the region to eventually create the Mujahideen that kicked out the Soviets and replace their secular government with Taliban rule.
Taiwan is unique because the story of the KMT is unique: A corrupt, dysfunctional dictatorship that fell to revolution, but actually got a second chance to do better, in a new place largely free from the baggage of its previous reign.
I am Taiwanese, and I have to tell everyone that Taiwan has gradually become liberalized since 1980. I was a elementary school student at the time, and I couldn’t understand why other countries would say that Taiwan was “undemocratic.” At that time, in elementary schools in Taiwan, every student was learning about "democratic elections" every day, and everyone could openly talk about elections and voting without any punishment
You can never trust powerful people to do the right thing, but you can (usually) trust them to do the right thing for themselves. An important lesson on how to harness man's destructive relationship with power to yield progress.
Though I mostly agree with you, there could be some genuinity from Mr. Chiang as he publicly declare that descendants of Chiang will never become presidents again.
As a Political Science student I gotta say this video is amazing. Not only covering the main aspects of the exceptional case of Taiwan but also mentioning the context and making it so simple to understand is incredible. Awesome work dude!
How much can the KMT's adoption of democracy be said to be just a natural embrace of the times and not a result of the inherently precarious geopolitical position Taiwan found itself in? Like they are literally a few miles away from a 1-billion strong dictatorship who hates them and their biggest ally is a democratic country that dislikes dictatorships... what kind of dictatorship would want to keep their power in that sort of situation?
As a party KMT has never initiated the change. They opposed change but was forced to do it with the pressure from the DPP. KMT's best stand is to maintain the status quo interpreted as 'no change until unification in undetermined future'. CCP-China is using KMT's stand to unify now or threat of invasion.
The U.S. had no qualms about supporting anti-communist dictatorships. To a well informed person, it would be a black mark on their reputation, but most people wouldn’t care
"dislikes dictatorship" biggest joke ever lmao how many right wing dictatorships have the US imposed on countries with a left leaning government in the cold war again? The US would happily let Taiwan be a dictatorship if it means Taiwan doesn't turn left
I love this topic, I love it so much that I'm currently writing my senior thesis about it. You do an excellent job presenting a lot of information in an easy to consume and understand video. Great work and thanks for posting sources so I can dig in 😁
Tbh this is what I used to believe the CCP was heading for. Gradual reforms to strengthen the party's hold, eventually leading to democratisation. Sadly it doesn't seem like that will be happening any time soon.
The book which served as the bulk of our research (linked in pinned comment if interested) discusses that as well. The authors have an interesting point which is that a big determining factor in the direction of a ruling party or autocrat is the signals it receives. There are two main varieties of signals - negative ones (which suggest the status quo is in trouble) and reassuring ones (which suggest reform would actually be productive). One very important type of signal is elections. They allow a ruling party, even if they are tightly regulated etc., to see how they're doing, how the people feel, how they'd fare post-transition. China lacks these. It's one reason Singapore, despite having a more competent ruling party and structure than China, is more likely to democratize successfully, sooner than China. Lots to think about! Hope you enjoyed, and give the book a look!
I hope the Republic of China(=taiwan) government will recapture the mainland china and unify it again. It is too bad that the territory of the liberal and powerful democratic government of the Republic of China is such a small island. If China were a democratic government, it would not have fought the United States like this now.
@@katrinoy1 I think PRChina will transition to Democracy when GDP per capita reaches parity with the West. If China per capita GDP reach parity with Taiwan at 35k. Half that of USA per capita GDP at 70k. Chinese total GDP economy would 2x size that of the USA.
5:50 Denmark did almost exactly the same as Taiwan, in the last half of the 19th century: Big land reforms in 1850. Support of development of private companies (andelsbevægelsen) owned by the farmers themselves, which lead to economic gains being widespread in the population. And similarly, the king decided to allow democracy in 1848, because opposing it would likely have lead to his defeat anyway, and this way he could retain some power. It took until 1882 for an opposing party to gain majority. To this day the Scandinavian (and Finland) countries pursue a policy of minimising inequality, while at the same time having very liberal laws for companies. That is in a nutshell why these countries are repeatedly on top of those "happiest country on earth" lists: High life satisfaction for the general public.
as someone aligned with pan-green camp this video seems good but somehow KMT biased. It wouldn't have hurt to talk more about conflict and resentment that native Taiwanese (benshengren) felt against the Chinese mainlanders (waishengren) and socioeconomic political system they created on island of Taiwan that left many people at the fringes of society. KMT were brutal despots responding to increased local and international pressure, it definitely wasn't goodwill, but to be fair you kinda mentioned that. Overall I appreciate your video on Taiwan.
Thanks for watching and we appreciate the thoughtful comment! We wouldn't characterize ourselves as pro-KMT in any way, not least because, as you note, we mention that they were not ideologically disposed towards democracy until at least the 1990s. To say the least, we *are* ideological democrats, and we would be as opposed as anyone in the pan-Green camp to their actions in the 20th century or their pro-PRC turn in the 21st. There are certainly aspects of the story that we weren't able to hit for the sake of time but are nonetheless important-perhaps we'll revisit them in a future video.
@@spectacles-dm I think you should have at least mention the Kaohsiung Incident, also how Lee Teng-hui supported the taiwanization movement and he was later expelled from the KMT.
@@Tamamo-no-Bae that's not how it works. There's a reason why white Americans aren't called native Americans even though they have been in America longer than the han Chinese benshenren have been in Taiwan
I am glad to see your content improve your graphics are so amazing though honestly recent two videos are so much better and improved than your earlier videos 💕💕💕rooting for you bro
Another critical part of Chiang Ching-kuo, was his relationship with the people of Taiwan. Through his rule, he was able to force the ruling party to give up it's ridiculous dream of taking back the mainland - but instead focus on the development of Taiwan. Secondly, he saw that the only way to stability was to do away with the minority rule system of mainlanders in charge over the islanders. Finally he sought to end martial law, he knew that only he was able to force the KMT to giving up it's fist on power and he made sure that it was ended before he could no longer do so (he suffered from diabetes, and heart problems). He sowed the seeds of true representative democracy. The story of Chiang Ching-kuo and what he did for Taiwan and democracy strikes terror into authoritarian rule, in particular to the CCP.
It's honestly amazing, and a political avenue I (as a Communist, who most people think are all USSR/China/DPRK fans, which I clearly am not) would encourage in all nations.
as a taiwanese, thank you for answering the questions that are in my head for ages. our history books simply write it off as "a kindness from kmt", which even my 10 years old brain couldn't believe it. I bet there are lots of parties in the world transition to democracy successfully remain its power. can you make more videos about china's politics? since a lot of taiwanese or not taiwanese are so interested in the subject.
The title should be: "How an Ousted KMT Leader Built Democracy" That leader ousted from his own party by the loyal followers of the party dictator is Lee Teng-hui, the real person that built democracy in Taiwan.
@@李泓緯-h9pAlmost every dictator in history has claimed, one way or another, that they're a democracy, including Mao, Chiang, Chiang's son, and today's Xi. Saying is one thing, doing it is another. The latter (make it into law and execute the law) is what separates a dictator from a person that builds democracy. If that is what you mean by "legal details and implementation" in your reply, then, yes, Lee is not only the main architect of the democratization of Taiwan, but also the one who started the democratization process in Taiwan. This process was continued by Lee's successor Chen.
Hey, so glad you're interested in learning more! We've got a book linked in the pinned comment that we recommend. Most of the video's research is drawn from it, but it also discusses Japan and South Korea extensively!
I hope the Republic of China(=taiwan) government will recapture the mainland china and unify it again. It is too bad that the territory of the liberal and powerful democratic government of the Republic of China is such a small island. If China were a democratic government, it would not have fought the United States like this now.
The stage for democracy in Taiwan was set in 1895, rather unexpectedly. The founder of the Republic of China, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, laid out the ideas of democracy, welfare, and civic nationalism. Dr. Sun had a three step plan to achieve this, which was essentially a transition from military government to a democratic constitutional government. In 1947, the beginning of the end of the dictatorship was signed into law with a new civilian constitution. In 1950, local elections were held and contested by independent candidates, the China Democratic Socialist Party, as well as KMT candidates. The land redistribution mentioned in the video actually wasn’t a communist idea, it had been part of Sun Yat-Sen’s ideology from the start. The KMT had intended to create democracy all along, but they just did not have the circumstances to for much of the time. First, they had to deal with warlords, then they had to deal with the Japanese and the Communists. Had they held power on the mainland, they would have been able to do much the same, and probably earlier on. The KMT and the ROC were tragic heroes of this chapter of Chinese history.
as a citizen of nanking (former ROC capital no less) i see remnants of kmt everywhere. saddened we couldn’t keep what Sun laid out for us. now it’s a home i could never go back to
yeah, people forget the communists were once part of the kuomintang, both parties have, and continue to worship sun yat sen, sun already had socialist alignments, and planned to implement land reforms and social welfare, i cant help but feel that this video is somewhat biased against the kmt im probably biased as well, my grandfather was a soldier in the National Revolutionary Army (military branch of the kmt, effectively the chinese army) during the 2nd sino-japanese war, Republic of China Army during and after the civil war, and eventually became a kmt member
@@justit1074 my grandfather was in the ROC Navy and fought during the Civil War. He was also somehow involved in the Korean War, although it is not clear to what extent. He eventually started a family in Taiwan.
This is actually smart. Once you lost power in a dictatorship, you almost never recover. But if you lost power in a democracy, you can just easily gain it back in 5-10 years time.
That 2000 election deserves looking into on its own. It's easy to overlook that the KMT was still dominant and popular, but because of its safe grip it internally fractured and in the end had a huge dispute for its presidential nomination. In the end both candidates ended up running (one left the party) and split the vote. DPP got less than 40% of the vote and still won, and it was clear afterwards that they weren't ready to govern back then (Chien later got caught with major corruption charges).
Fabulous for you to be able to did the research and produced this video. Even I as a Taiwanese doesn't know that much for this sophisticated dynamics within the KMT's context of democratization.
Thank you for the insightful documentary! This was something I didn't expect, despotism using democracy as a means of remaining in power and staying relevant. And to be honest, it's something I can respect the KMT-regime for. Their confidence in being able to remain relevant after instating elections, and using that confidence to democratise Taiwan is a mentality I would encourage. It benefits both those who desire to remain in power, and massively increases the quality of life their citizens have.
An autocratic government is always a mixed bag, many dictators and emperors can be corrupted by power, while sometimes they can be some of the greatest rulers in history. With great power comes great responsibility, and requires a great understanding of that responsibility.
He is a complex character due to his complicated background. For example, he was educated and survived in Stalin's Soviet Russia. So, he warned communists were not trustworthy, but he ran goverment by using idea of communists. He survived the assassinatuon by the independence activists when he visited US.
I arrived in Taiwan in 1996 as an exchange student. There was so much going on then and I was young, so I didn't really appreciate it or understand it at the time. My roommate told me that earlier that year when the election happened that he and some friends went to the top of a mountain so they could see the missiles being lobbed into the sea by the Miainland to try to intimidate the electors. In 1997 our class of foreign students were invited to visit with Lee Teng-hui at the Presidential Palace. That was also the year that Feb 28 became a holiday to commemorate those who died in the 2-28 massacre in 1947. In 1998 I went back to work and I was in Taipei to see the election of (future president) Ma Ying-jeo as mayor. He defeated the incumbent, (future president), Chen Shuibian. Throughout the years, I have fond memories and friends from that time. That roommate who had watched the missiles dropping in the sea later became a legislator. Elections that were a novelty in a place that had martial law for so long, became incredibly vibrant. I appreciate more and more how significant it was that this island, that was touted by Mme Chiang Kai-shek in her fund raising tours as "Free China," was finally actually transitioning into a free country during my time there.
I am a Taiwanese who grew up during 1980s. It also puzzles me how this had come about. I think your story captures main factors correctly, it is a great job to do this in less than 15 minutes. Thanks！It is a real miracle perhaps, because these few persons in power, including Jiang, and his successor Lee, who won the first presidential election, made right decisions, and with some cunning, out-maneuvered those KMT old guard, the military.
Hope your channel blows up, algorithm bestows as it takes away, your channel deserves 200k minimum subs as your quality is amazing, must take a lot of work.
Thanks for your feedback! We thought that a little humor can help break up a video like this and make it easier to watch, but I think a few of them didn't land as well as we'd hoped. I still hope you enjoyed the video, and thanks for watching!
I hope the Republic of China(=taiwan) government will recapture the mainland china and unify it again. It is too bad that the territory of the liberal and powerful democratic government of the Republic of China is such a small island. If China were a democratic government, it would not have fought the United States like this now.
Step 1: have a lot of really important resources or be in a key geographic position. Step 2: align yourself with the United States' geopolitics Step 3: ??? Step 4: profit
To me it always read as a case where the dictators ego didn't get in the way so when it became clear their grip on power was slipping they where able to bail in a relatively safe manner. Stepping down in favor of a representative government has a better survival rate then most other options
Dictators normaly take and surpres because they are afraid but here they delivered and gave freedom because they where confident. A person who is not afraid does not oppresse. Thats the difference.
taiwan in general is a great example of how a country can thrive economically and democratic against all odds. Its a COUNTRY that is claimed by the at least second most powerful country on this world, isnt recognized by like 3/4 of the World and therefore has massive problem with trading, espeicially since its an island that is more or less required trade for many prodcuts to survive, but still its there, as an independet nation with a high standard of living and an amazing democracy despite all odds ^^
yeah true, i just looked it up years ago and saw a list that was probably from 1980-90 where a lot more countrys still recognized taiwan so i had that number vaguely in my long-term memory thanks for correcting me ^^. and honestly that just proves/reinforces the point i was trying to make ^^ @@gratain
Honestly Taiwan is basically it’s own country, and I pretty much see it that way. They literally have their own currency, government, elections, banks, military, airports, and passport.
I lived in Taiwan in the 1980s and 1990s. President Lee Teng-hui was a genius. By steering Taiwan towards democracy, he not only gave Taiwanese previously unimaginable rights and freedom, but he also guaranteed that Western democracies would continue to support Taiwan without reluctance.
The areas of control the KMT had were not even controlled by party members but former warlords that made an alliance with the KMT out of convince. The warlord in Xinjiang for example kept attacking communists and nationalists whenever it seemed like the Soviet Union or the Axis was winning WW2. The General in Yunnan, Long Yun, was constantly butting heads with Chiang, but he was nevertheless a warlord at heart. It was no wonder the KMT allied armies collapsed so quickly to the Communists when they had confusing orders, disagreements, and no real heart for the Kuomintang govt. To say that the Communists had enormous support of the peasants that lead them to win the war feels like an overstatement when it wasn’t just peasants that won, but disillusioned political and military leaders who felt alienated by the KMT and at a loss against the now formidably Japanese/Soviet equipped and militarily competent CCP armies. The KMT in mainland China didn’t collapse due to cronyism and corruption, it collapsed due to paranoia and mistrust within the military and govt structures of its territory. Years of assassinations by pro-KMT forces, even up to 1947 where a well renowned social democratic third party leader was killed by a reactionary KMT leader, war wariness, growing Communist support, all sowed the seeds of the KMT war effort in the Civil War. I know this video is just about the Taiwanese story of democracy and that the Civil War was only a small part of the video, but I just couldn’t help but add those facts in because it really helps explain how Taiwan’a system survived in the tiny island, versus the whole landmass of varying degrees of control of leadership allotted out of convenience not loyalty. I really appreciated seeing the helpful visuals in your videos and I think you do a good job in explaining the structures of a country’s political systems.
The Dictatorship ended in 1996. You also didn't mention about the white terror, the Taiwan genocide, america influence along with the kmt being genuinely unpopular. It ended to make sure there wasn't any prc influence on the island.
I think that most people would do that if they had to be dictator. You have to be incredibly narcissistic and probably very smart too to be able to deal with that kind of power. I'd like to see a story where a villain takes over the world and then almost immediately steps down because he realizes how stressful running everything actually is.
That's essentially the story for most countries in general. A lot of (Western) countries were formed by what we would call warlords today. These guys then realised administration and bureaucracy (read: taxes) is much easier than having to constantly expend blood to keep the peace and defend themselves.
Perhaps what happened in Taiwan could be used as points / ways to encourage some of the dictatorships and despot countries to move to democracy? its no secret that Democratic countries are largely more economically successful , Communist Party of China and their government is the only non-democracy (yes China is a dictatorship, not democracy) that comes close to the economic power of the United States, but at the cost of their stability being highly reliant on a good economy (else the Chinese will overthrow the CCP).
I'm curious as to whats up with ethnic Chinese making dictatorship successful compared to many other dictatorship we have seen. First we have Taiwan, then Singapore and now China being successful under a dictatorship.
This is the thing that kept breaking my brain about Taiwan -- that it almost seems like one minute they were being badly run by a corrupt dictatorship, the next minute they were running under a competent, fairly representative government...glad to finally hear how it happened.
lifting martial law ≠ democracy Remember, many authoritarian regimes in the world have never imposed martial law. The fact of the matter is that Taiwan was still an authoritarian state by every measure after the lifting of martial law in 1987.
As someone from the mainland. I have to say that this is an amazing video. It is straight to the point, very informative, and nicely organized. This video even gives me hope, that someday, the CCP may think to do the same… eventually.
@@typiclyjohny5114 no I don’t think so at least not immediately afterwards since the political atmosphere would be so different from Taiwans and political parties will spring up all over the country but I really hope that a new government/party would form that redeclares the country as the ROC and adopts a modified version of the ROC constitution until the country is fully stable and until the established Taiwanese parties make a return to the mainland to assist with democratization and reunification. One case scenario that I personally wish never happens is if the only the KMT returns to mainland and the current ruling party the DPP declares Taiwanese independence.
@@typiclyjohny5114 At this point the ideological differences are too large for Taiwanese and Chinese to reintegrate with each other. Even their language changed somewhat. They are gonna end up like US and UK.
Actually it was Lee Teng-hui from the KMT Party that democratized Taiwan through many sophisticated power struggles. And the ugly truth is, many KMT supporters hate him and see him as a traitor of KMT that the party could not take the full control of Taiwan anymore.
While the majority of this video is decently accurate, some of the information given are false or untrue. The KMT dynasty was much darker than the video's portrayed. Corruption, vote buying, killing and stealing land, and making oppositions disappear was the norm even during the coined "reinvention phase". On top of that, a good chunk of the reason why Taiwan lost US aid (and partially US diplomatic ties) was because those in power were stealing from it. Harry Truman went as far as calling Chiang a family of thieves. During Chiang Jr's time he still cracked down on democracy quite a bit. It was towards the end of his reign that he had a change of mind (and picked the pro-democracy Lee as his successor)
Sounds very similar to Francoist Spain. But more importantly this story highlights the fact that democracy can only really be strong where the middle class is strong. When the upper class gains too much power, corruption becomes rampant. When the poor become too powerful, they follow whoever will give them bread and circuses regardless of what human rights they violate.
Democracy and capitalism are interconnected. The longer a society is capitalist, the more complex the economic system becomes and the harder it becomes to replace elements of it. In feudal society where everyone is farmer, you can just gun down a portion of the farmers, but if you are an industrial society, killing specialized workers could unseat the whole system. Taxes are also important, capitalism produces a new class of wealthy taxpayers who if removed can’t contribute to government finances. The last factor is government spending. The more the government spends. The more taxes it needs. The more dependent on tax revenue the gov becomes the more power the taxpayer has.
It is a good start, but it falls very short and doesn't even mention Lee Teng-hui who I think most Taiwanese would agree is the father of democracy. Chiang Ching-kuo died in 1988 after all, well before Taiwan became a democracy. Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law, and removed the limits towards having an opposition party, but the democratic reforms happened mostly under Lee Teng-hui. Lee Teng-hui was essentially also the reason why DPP won in 2000, as he purposely split the KMT vote between two candidates to give the DPP a chance.
True, by the time the dictator died in 1988, Taiwan was still very very very far from being liberal. Lifting martial law did practically nothing as far as real free speech and having a true opposition party is concerned. That's why you see a bunch of protests being cracked down on, demonstrations being cracked down on, and even self-immolation, demanding for a real democracy (as opposed to a fake democracy much like the one claimed by this other autocratic China, which didn't even impose martial law to begin with), even after the dictator died. Everybody says "we are a democracy" including communist China. Saying is one thing, what actually happens on the ground is another. That's the cold hard truth.
NOPE, the dictator did NOT built democracy. A lot of it is just KMT's positive propaganda about the dictator. The ground reality was that Taiwan was still authoritarian by any sensible meaning of the term, but it was less than it was under martial law. Catchy title by the way!
I haven’t finished the video, but I was taught that the communists were on the verge of defeat when Japan attacked, and used the Japanese invasion and ceasefire with the KMT to rebuild their strength while the KMT bled themselves dry on the Imperial Japanese Army. The end resumption of the civil was saw a revitalized CCP push an exhausted KMT out of the country. Is that not what happened?
No, the ccp was on the verge of collapse after the long march. By the point of Japanese invasion they had recovered by then. U got some information confused
I hope that Taiwan will one day be fully recognised not just by the public, but also by various governments around the world, with no claim to mainland China and with mainland China with no claim to it (After all, the only document that suggests either should have such claims, is already nearly 80 years old. Who lives and who dies in war shouldn't be decided by such old documents).
Is Democracy Suitable for Every Form of Society? In modern democratic societies, people can rule through elections. However, an interesting thing arises: ruling a society is extremely difficult. Wise people are the minority in our society, and when they make decisions that differ from the majority, they often don’t win. Believe me, this situation is not rare at all; instead, it is extremely common. Ironically, democratic societies are much more powerful than others. Interesting, isn’t it? So why is that? Well, I was confused too, but that's because I ignored the influence of the media. You can impact or stabilize public opinion easily, and if you are really good at using the media, you can even control people's minds. So actually, the election isn't a game of civilians but a game of media and its ability to control public opinion. On the positive side, it can stabilize society really well because people can feel a sense of participation. On the negative side, a strong inciter might come and disrupt the balance of society, such as Adolf Hitler (but I don't think that will happen again in modern democratic societies because other media owners can stop him easily). So generally, democracy works very well in the Western world, but is it suitable for non-Western societies? Well, stabilizing public opinion requires enough social resources, but developing societies clearly don't have enough of them. Instead, they don't even have enough resources for their people. How could you ask them for social resources to waste on stabilizing public opinion? It’s unfair to ask them to change their system to democracy. They'll naturally turn into democratic societies when they have enough social resources. Just wait and be patient. just to remind you nomatter what kind of systems, they are all tools of the minority to control the society, you sould never underestimate the power of media, trust me democracy isn't a game for civilians, but for media, competing each others on controlling public opinion, you might say "No I can make my own decision with out the intervention of media" may I ask you, how do we make our decision ? Do we make our decision without any information? well clearly not, we can only make our judgement by the information that we got, but where are our informations of politics mostly came from? well, media ! so trust me you won't have any civil rights to participate the politics no matter what kind of system is your country using, because they are all tools of minority to rule the society. futhermore you can't deny that those political informations that you got are mostly from media, can you ? and if that's true then you are making your decisions based on the information that media gave you(at least mostly). and another interesting fact : people are tended to follow the the people around them, even they have different feeling, they will still question themselves and and try to persuade themselves unconsciously, so if people heard some things that are different from their own experience, they will tend to persuade themselves that they are the exeption, it proves that people's political opinion actually came from media, and our conclusion also shows that democracy is not really a game for civilians, instead it's a game of media a competition of controlling public opinion.
KMT rule on Taiwan did not start in 1949, but in September 1945 when the Republic of China got the previously Japan-controlled island of Formosa (Taiwan). 1949 was when the tide of the civil war was firmly on the communist side. So on one hand the government of the Republic of China and many elites had been evacuating to the island of Taiwan, on another hand, Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China. Strictly speaking, there is no country formally called 'Taiwan', formally it is still the Republic of China which controlls the island of Taiwan AND a very tiny part of 'mainland' China in the form of Kinmen isles (Fujian province). The side consequence of it is Beijing's "one China policy", that is, one can recognize either the People's Republic of China or the Republic of China as China, not both (most countries tend to recognize PRC - for obvious reasons - that's why the name "the Republic of China" is almost never seen outside of it). Moreover, the Chinese seat at the UN was chaired by the Republic of China until 1971 when the representative of PRC replaced it. Now, in theory with most people born on the mainland dead by now and the local identity increasingly dominating, they could amend the constitution and change to "the Republic of Taiwan" as a separate entity from China and apply for membership in the UN as a new country, but that would trigger potentially violent reaction from PRC. Alas, for now, at least on paper, we have two 'Chinese' governments and states.
Wow, the productio quality is insane! Good job, I was really surprised when I realised that your channel has only about 6k subscribers. You deserve way more. Subbed
Good coverage, but please don’t forget that KMT ruled with martial law, white terror, killed in the prison, thousands and thousands of Taiwanese local intellectuals, and has to this day, not acknowledged any wrongdoing or taken any responsibilities
As a person living in SG, I cannot help but think if this could have been the fate of the Singaporean political system if the ruling PAP party were more politically liberal-minded like Taiwan's KMT. Sure, the KMT thought that via democratisation, it will aid them in controlling Taiwan and/or help stabilise the social situation. However, unlike SG's ruling PAP, when the popular democratic vote turned against them, the KMT did not jealously resort to "special operations" to suppress, incarcerate, and quash dissent and opposition politicians. Instead, they embrace it as true democrats should, accepting the people's will. And that is what makes the KMT, in my eyes, much more altruistic, admirable, and honourable than SG's ruling PAP. Imagine if the KMT had crushed the authoritarian CCP scum and enacted such policies in the Chinese mainland. China, not just Taiwan, would have been a shining beacon of liberal democracy, rivaling that of the United States.
i really like this comment, bcuz as a past singaporean i sort of feel the same way however it is worth noting that the KMT succeeded in their position of taiwan needing to fight for itself; to compare it to a country like china which needed to desperately stay together, or a country like singapore which was stuck in one of the most politically hectic regions of asia, the centre of southeast asia, i'm not sure how democracy could have succeeded this is not taking away from my own hypocrisy as i am living in a very democratic nation now, but it is worth considering
@@The_Jazziest_Coffee The reason for that comment was that I thought that both SG and Taiwan faced parallel challenges and difficulties in both their infancies. SG and Taiwan had internal turmoil, although the former had racial and religious violence, while it was public dissatisfaction in Taiwan. Both faced and still do, larger and stronger neighbouring countries. And both started off poor and underdeveloped. Also, I dont think it was a coincidence that SG held military exercises with Taiwan and Israel back in the old days. I suspect that SG was trying to glean whatever crucial lessons it could from them to aid in its own survival.
@@Machiavelrous yep, your points are completely valid. still wish singapore would be more democratic, since they are quite questionable and there is a lot of room (and i mean A LOT) for improvement otherwise
But then the united stats isn't actually very democratic in the way that people expect democracies to work and if the KMT crushed the CCP while in China, I doubt it'd transition so relatively smoothly into such a liberal democracy. As it is right now, Taiwan with all its problems is still a shining beacon of liberal democracy in asia with its citizens having access to incredible amounts of political freedom rivaling some of the very liberal european countries.
This is like those rare but well documented times that a dictator, monarch or ruler has exceptional skills and good intentions for their people or country. The greatest rulers throughout history were often quite loved by their people, Caesar, those Kings and Queens titled 'Great', Napoleon etc.
Something similar happened in Mexico during the same time. Mexico was officially a democratic country, with presidential elections being held every six years. However PRI, the dominant political party at that time, had been ruling the country ever since the end of the Mexican Revolution (around 1920). It was obvious that the party was keeping itself in power with corruption and by arresting or murdering the opposition. However, in the year 2000, PAN, the main opposition party at the time, won the presidential elections, becoming the first party to win the elections over the PRI. Those elections are considered the first truly democratic elections held in Mexico, and they were held with PRI still in full power of the nation. The reasons were similar. The party had lost most of the support from the citizens, and it wouldn't take long before the international community stopped supporting the openly corrupt and abusive government of the PRI. Althought, unlike what happened in Taiwan, the PRI never recovered the support or the power it used to have in the past, and its considered to be in decay ever since. The 90's was probably the decade when this type of governments stopped being tolerated by the international community, and oppresive rulers were forced to find a new more relaxed way of keeping themselves and their allies in power.
Well, the truth is that it was because of a very critical event that forced the dictator Chiang to change his stance. That event was the assassination of a writer and an American citizen living in the US, who had been a long time critic of Chiang. It turned out that the assassination was not ordered by Chiang himself, but by one of his sons. But it didn’t matter. After the assassination, the US government was quite upset and somehow forced Chiang to take action to change the political system and environment in Taiwan. So that was the true reason why Chiang was willing to give up his power, and also not transferring the power to his sons.
As an American who lived in Taipei in 1986 and taught English, I remember a lot of that mood of the people. I lived with a family that was very good at pleasing both sides of the political spectrum.
Chiang Ching-kuo's whole life seems bizarrely contradictory, with him swinging back and forth between different ideologies. From Trotskyism to embracing his father's right-wing autocracy to accepting liberal democracy. All the while never admitting that he'd changed at all.
I mean, his whole life from childhood to death was just learning and taking ideas from contrasting ideologies somehow making it work. His father was strict about him learning Chinese Classics, but sent him to the USSR for education where he and Deng Xiaoping, his counterpart after both assumed leadership of their countries, were classmates. His family was all about preserving Chinese culture and heritage, but he ended up marrying a White woman. It's been said that CCK's "flexibility" is what set the stage for Taiwan's democratization; the ability to tolerate and listen to dissent.
Love this video, Taiwan has always been a fascinating country, particular considering its sorta just…acceptance of the end of dictatorship
Thank you! Glad you liked it :)
I hope the Republic of China(=taiwan) government will recapture the mainland china and unify it again.
It is too bad that the territory of the liberal and powerful democratic government of the Republic of China is such a small island.
If China were a democratic government, it would not have fought the United States like this now.
2:36 claiming that the communists worked with the KMT to fend off the Japanese invasion is rather bold. Looks more like the CPC did virtually nothing to fight the Japanese, while the KMT took the brunt of Japanese attacks.
What the CPC did, was taking territory in the North in '45 after it was emptied by the Japanese after they had nearly crushed the KMT in the south the previous year.
You think that counts as "cooperation"?
@@katrinoy1 the population of china have a much stronger approval rating of their government than almost any country on earth.
Simple reality is that there isnt such a thing as democracy under capitalism. Even if you have the ability to vote. Your interests are constantly being subverted by the influence of capital. Still a dictatorship. Just a class dictatorship
@@katrinoy1 The Mainland _is_ democratic. It's the United States being the aggressor wtf.
Something similar happened in Spain. After Francisco Franco died in 1974, he was succeeded by King Juan Carlos I. The first monarch in four decades, Carlos held dictatorial powers. Instead of tyranny, he initiated democratic reforms, unprompted. Carlos even stopped a coup which would've re-established dictatorial rule.
I believe the event that stopped the Remnants of the Francoists Coup is called the Carnation Revolution right? Where the Military backed Carlos and prevented Spain from falling back to Francoist Dictatorship or worse, Civil War and finally succeeding their transition to a Democracy.
A slight difference being Lee Teng Hui, a Taiwan native, was appointed as sort of a compromise with the Taiwanese people, rather than a restoration of a monarch who happened to not be a tyrant. He was about the most nativist (as opposed to Mainland Chinese) KMT candidate ever. He would also win the first democratic election, partly because he was in the "middle".
Also, the "old guard" in the KMT wasn't anti-democratic purely because they wanted to enforce some ideologies either. There was a strong divide and violent conflict between Taiwanese natives and Mainlanders who retreated from the mainland with the KMT. They being Chinese nationalists, wanted to remain "Chinese", and being a minority in Taiwan, they knew the natives would turn the state towards to one with an independent identity with democratization. Seeing Lee as too nativist, they splintered off and form their own parties. Which would split votes with the KMT, leading to DPP getting the presidency in 2000
If I recall, didn't Franco put in motion the idea of a constitutional monarchy upon his death? So he was succeeded by King Carlos I but Carlos was obligated to bring in a democratic government as part of his return to power?
@@cyqry A constitutional monarchy doesn't have to be Democratic. It just has to be bound by a constitution.
@@jerm70Not to add that they were also scared of a republican "revolution" if some forms of democracy weren't introduced. Secret polls taken by Suarez's government at the time showed that after 40 years of right wing dictatorship, which toppled a democratic republic, republican sentiment was high and a majority
Taiwanese here. First of all, tremendous video here. Salutations to the effort and talent shown in this video. I would like to add some points for people interested to look into further.
1. It is controversial in Taiwan to call 蔣經國 Mr. democracy for good reasons. Especially when one considers the role of US intelligence among the KMT elites.
2. Another perspective of democratization is that of ethical politics. It was the Taiwanese elites and populace who kept putting pressure on the ruling elite, which in turn gave 蔣經國 the idea that KMT would not survive without opening up the political opportunity structure.
3. Following up on point 2, more emphasis should be put on the role of 李登輝 and Taiwanese KMT elites.
Cheers!
I feel this is what China could of been if the KMT continued running the mainland. But I feel Taiwan needs to become independent though
@@thomasbarca9297 well 蔣經國 is definitely different from his father’s generation (warlords who believes in violence and totality) and has true experiences from somewhere none China. He might not make the same answer to the question of how to modernize China but this doesn’t guarantee his answer would be a democratic or liberal one. Then again, this relative sophisticated and “softness” might even bring his doom easier were KMT maintained control of China.
@@thomasbarca9297 and yeah that’s where one realizes the story of KMT or the story of modern China really means very little for Taiwanese people. We just want to be left alone and live with dignity.
@@thomasbarca9297 unlikely. the kmt on the mainland were hugely corrupt to the point that the US more or less lost faith and did little to stop the communist. China would have become something similar to the korean and vietnam war if kmt remained, only ten times more devastating due to the size of the country.
@@diegobrianlin5597lee Tung Hui, or Iwasato masao, identifies more as a Japanese 😂😂😂 guy was a total clown and a Japanese right-wing shill
I am not a historian, but I think some historical facts are missing, which might not support your conclusion.
1.) With all the martial law one could argue that Taiwan was de facto a authoritarian dictatorship, but there still were fake elections. So people in Taiwan were used to the process and it was still a matter of time that people would demand that their real votes would be counted and not the separately prepared fake ones.
2) The KMT came over with 1 mio people from the Chinese mainland when they retreated to Taiwan and put them all into government, but the system wasn’t sustainable at all. When they got older they had to dig into the local talent pool. Representatives from the Chinese provinces got old and died away, but the provinces weren’t able to re-elect new ones for obvious reasons. During the reign of Chiang Chingkuo, the majority of mid-level army leadership was Taiwan-born, so there was no way the old ruling class could maintain their power much longer.
3) The role of the Taiwanese population is downplayed. Protests were huge and the Taiwanese know how to protest, how to get support in a conservative society and how to form concrete demands. Many already had a test run in the 60s when the student protests in Taiwan were facing the harsh reality by just being invited into parliament and confronted with every boring detail of politics. (That was the way Taiwan suppressed the student movement in the 60s, by inviting them and confronting them with the reality of being a small country squeezed in between big powers. )
Sadly, some power players without military influences decided to weaponize "democracy" to take over the control. However due to the initial manipulation of "democracy: the game" at early stage which turned Taiwan into a democratic clown show today. It was "outsiders" vs " domestics", then it was "Chinese heritage vs Japanese overlord", then it is "anti-China" vs "pro-China".
Exactly
"by just being invited into parliament and confronted with every boring detail of politics"
damn i feel that
Most of this is covered. Only the student protests was indirectly explained: middle class plus easily squashed resistance.
What you said is so true. Chiang's regime also face issue of legitimacy, their government was founded on democratic principles back on the mainland. While Chiang put the 1 million mainlanders into government and rule Taiwan by iron fist, Chiang Khai Shek always legitimise it by saying this is necessary until they "re-conquer mainland". By 70s 80s it is clear there won't be a return to Nanking, their autocracy by then is unpopular with Taiwanese and second generation mainlander, the rest is history.
what a fascinating look at how Democracy came about in Taiwan! The thing that stood out most to me is the rise of the middle class's role in it. Could this be a lesson in how the erosion of a middle class could result in the loss of Democracy?
I'm so glad I discovered your channel. I've been watching your videos for a few weeks now and it is amazing using the view of Liberal Democracy to examine geopolitics.
Keep doing what you are doing. There is no channel like this. Whether it be topic and or production value! I can hardly believe you are under 50k subs.
Wow, what amazingly kind words. Thank you so much. So glad you appreciate the democracy angle, and so glad to have you along!!
I hope the Republic of China(=taiwan) government will recapture the mainland china and unify it again.
It is too bad that the territory of the liberal and powerful democratic government of the Republic of China is such a small island.
If China were a democratic government, it would not have fought the United States like this now.
@@badofi liberal and neoliberal economics is what lead to the expansion of the middle class and growth of prosperity across the developed and developing world, and neoliberal politics is what prevents populists eroding our civil rights like in Poland and Hungary
@@katrinoy1I think personally, taiwan can never recapturebthe mainland. But, we can always support this new thriving democracy. Dont lose hope because they cant recapture the mainland, understand how bad the PRC killed modern china and how taiwan reinvent itself into a thriving democracy.
liberal democracy is poison. just look at the riot in france, and the insurrection in US. when you tell the people they can believe in whatever they want, truth no longer matter, people don't care if Trump lose fair and sqaure, they will believe very emotionally and strongly believe that the election is stolen, you can't reason with that and all you are left with is chaos. the failure of liberal democracy to have the gut to face up that it is flawed and is danger will lead to it collapse.
people who think CPC is doing a bad job in China really need to wake up. no country that is doing a "bad job" will see 100 of million of it citizen going overseas on vacation, and returning to the country at the end of their vacation. the west need to owe up to that fact that it ideolgical believes is not only wrong, it is dangerous. because this democracy narrative is undermining real good administration. which depend not on the number of votes, but the level of organisation. the failure to treat government as an administrative problem but to treat it as a political problem would lead to the regression of countries as politician blame each other than to organise around solving problems.
if you want to protect "democracy" then you should start focusing on governance, not idealogy. idealogy cannot feed the people. what most people fail to realise is the reason CPC won the civil war on the mainland is simply because they could feed more people than KMT could, and why couldn't KMT? because the western government force KMT government to repay their WWII war debt, leading to hyperinflation, the salary given by KMT to it soldier can't even buy a loaf of bread, which is why over a million soldier deflected to CPC and CPC turn from being outnumbered 4 to 1 to overwhleming KMT 2 to 1. this is a very important lesson I hope you can all listen to, because it will have great impact on one country soon: Ukraine. DO NOT ALLOW YOUR WESTERN GOVERNMENT TO DRIVE UKRAINE TO BANKRUPTCY AFTER THE WAR. do not allow western government to repo Ukrainian asset after the war, because if you do that, the Ukrainian ppl will revolt like they did in China. don't fail and understand what really wins people over is their ability to survive... if your system end up becoming their doom, you force them to reject you.
that's the hard truth. I pray for the Ukrainian people because I know, their greatest suffering won't end with the war, it going to get worst for them because of the economic structure of the west is exploitive... and that is so UNFAIR to them!
Back then, Chiang Ching-Kuo's KMT wanted to become Lee Kuan-Yew's PAP in Singapore. In other words, Chiang's KMT intended to mold Taiwan into a "smart dictatorship" similar to Singapore, where there's a democratic system but the PAP rules forever. KMT was so confident, that they thought KMT could rule indefinitely too, much like the PAP does.
Do you think the CCP also tried Lee Kuan-Yew's PAP Singapore model what is your opinion on their performance?
@@carlrodalegrado4104 CCP can't copy Lee Kuan-Yew's because Singapore is a tiny country.
@@nntflow7058 well at least they were inspired by it
@@carlrodalegrado4104 They do have some influence from Lee Kwan Yew.
Now KMT is in opposition while the PAP is still in power.
As a Taiwanese person, I want to point out two disagreements I have:
1. KMT’s democratization is far from an planned, organized process. There are much more power struggle and inter party fights then this presents
2. Chiang Ching Kuo did not democratize Taiwan. He removed the martial law but his successor Li is responsible for democratize Taiwan.
This is a good video but it misrepresents what happened. Chiang did not mastermind a path to democracy. He liberalized KMT and Taiwan. But it is Li who basically purged all authoritarian KMT leader from government and started real elections
It was DPP's Chen who really forced KMT to cooperate the change of the outdated KMT-RoC constitution with amendments to update according to present reality. It was almost a change of the country's name to Republic of Taiwan but the US refused to accept the change.
To be fair to CCK, he did allow the establishment of the DPP, although at that time other parties were still forbidden by "law". So there are indications, that he was for democratization.
But yeah, the title of "Father of Taiwan's Democracy" goes clearly to LTH!
you mean cucks that sold out taiwan to amerimutts,
you realize the country is now a silon state? it relies almost entirely on tsmc and select few industries, and the united states is also backstabing taiwan by siphoning workers from taiwan to develop their own intel and amd chips so they wouldn't need tsmc anymore.
not to mention amerimutts don't recognize that the south china sea belongs to the republic of china and taiwan. and wants to give it to the Philippines going back on their word, zero reason to work with the amerimutt golems.
Lee finished what Chiang Ching-kuo started. The '80s were where the opposition parties caught attention by fighting in the legislator, which was still full of KMT officials who couldn't be removed because they represented provinces on the mainland that the gov't was pretending to still rule. The fights seemed silly at the time, but they were representative of the struggle against the single-party system. Even having opposition parties was a new thing then. Pres. Lee pushed for presidential elections and later for the disbanding of the redundant provincial government.
One thing to note is the KMT during this period of democratization was far from unified or stable. Ching Kuo himself passed away and designated Teng Hui as his successor. Teng Hui himself certainly had no strong attachments to the party and even broke from it after the end of his presidency. Teng Hui during democratization had to constantly contend with anti-democratic elements within the party.
Your description reminds me a lot of the Spanish transition, and how both now King Emeritus Juan Carlos and Adolfo Suárez had to contend with the “old guard” and reactionary coup attempts, even with Franco buried and far along his decomposition process. Heck, the whole description of Taiwan’s transition reminds me of the Spanish one.
For context, we the Portuguese are very interested in all of that, because we also got rid of a nearly 50-year-long dictatorship through an unusual process, a relatively bloodless military coup (there were civilian casualties, five people killed at the hands of cornered political policemen right in front of their HQ, which was under siege). Interestingly, General Spínola, the provisional leader designated - at gunpoint, but still, he effectively had a say in the matter - by the surrendering President of the Council (for all intents and purposes, the dictator), was an apparatchik (a very vocal one, having published a book advocating for federalization of the sprawling colonial empire just a month before, but absolutely a member of the defunct regime’s intelligentsia, having been the Governor of Portuguese Guinea until the preceding year).
In our case, public pressure got the best of that provisional government (a military junta that had right below said leader a collection of factions, from the ranks of all the pro-democracy and communist captains that had just staged said coup), quickly forcing in a matter of days the immediate ceasefire in all colonial war fronts and a swift (nay, rushed) process of decolonization and repatriation.
Interestingly, Marcello Caetano, said outgoing dictator, appeared mellower than Salazar, the deceased dictator who, much like Franco, ruled the country for the better part of their regime. His first few years were even called “Marcelist Spring”, but here, too, he had to contend with the “brigada do reumático” (lit. “rheumatoid brigade”, and I think you can guess why that nickname stuck), a group of high-ranking reactionary officials that blocked any attempts at further reform and would indeed prevent even floating the idea of a peaceful resolution to said colonial war. And, in fact, there were also still a few younger officials, who weren’t outright sacked after the coup, that could’ve and indeed tried to stage a counter-coup of their own. Fortunately, they didn’t have their way and here we are now.
Another thing worth noting is that Teng Hui was a deep Trojan Horse. My father knew him when they were both studying abroad at Cornell. Teng Hui was always pro-TI, even if he was smart enough to keep that discrete.
My father HATED HIS GUTS when he found out Teng Hui had joined the KMT, thinking he was the worst sort of traitorous turncoat. But his attitude turned around 180 degrees after seeing what he had managed to do from the inside.
Lee was just an opportunist with few weaknesses. funny how his liberalizing image in public abided with his wife always walking behind him in public instead of holding hands together. what an figure of old Chinese tradition if you ask me
@@IsaacKuoLee rigged the 2000 election for Chen and was already rigging elections in the 1990’s in order to help the DPP gain power. He isn’t the father of democracy.
Lee was actually authoritarian in his rule changing the constitution in order to give the president more power. Combined with his systematic corruption and rigging of elections to help the DPP, he is not a positive figure in Taiwan’s democratic history. His undermining of the electoral system has continued through today as the system has not been improved and it’s easier than ever to cheat in elections now in Taiwan.
Note on the land reform in Taiwan:
Land reform has been on KMT's mind well before they fled to Taiwan. The founder Sun Yat Sen was influenced by Georgism and Socialism, so there have been attempts at redistribution on the mainland, both before and after the war with Japan. But since power in the KMT relied heavily on landowners and capitalist, nothing substantial came out of their efforts on the mainland.
When they got to Taiwan, most of the large landowners from Japan's colonial efforts had their land confiscated as public land, and the local landed gentry were not yet part of the KMT power apparatus and could be retroactively charged with 'collaboration with the Japanese' if they refused to cooperate, so things went way smoother.
The interesting thing about Taiwan is that an entirely similar story happened in South Korea. A Military Junta that was initially violent and anti-democratic that brought economic wealth to the nation and eventually began their own democratization and succeeded the greatest test a Democracy can receive, a peaceful successful first election.
Yes will billions from USA- everything is possible :D
South Korea's reform is mostly influenced by USA. You see it in the kind of government they follow along with the American influenced cuisines and sports popular in South Korea now.
You stole his next video
@Horus-j3fDestiny to starve for dear leader lmao.
@@m1l3s27😂
How Taiwanese ended a Chinese military Dictator's dream in their island is such an inspiration to many if not all.
Hey! Thanks for watching. If you're interested in learning more, this is the (very good) book we consulted for much of the research, and it talks about a number of other countries: amzn.to/3Ww2cQ2 (we do earn revenue from this)
Also, this comment is for corrections and may be updated over time!
1. The DPP narrowly defeated an independent candidate in the 2000 election; the KMT candidate came in third.
2. While the KMT was officially established in mainland China in the early 20th century, party founder Dr. Sun Yat-Sen had already established a number of predecessor organizations under various names and in various places outside the Chinese mainland, the first of these being the Revive China Society in Hawaii in 1884.
Surely you mean in 1884?
@@henrikagestedt7835 lmao fuck. yes. thank you
These aren't the only mistakes you make in the video.
KMT took charge in 1945 at the end of WWII, not 1949
The ability to adapt is an underrated aspect of the strongest governments.
Taiwan is not the only country with this story. Republic of Korea has a very similar story. The military dictatorship gradually released the power in the 1990s with pressure from student groups and unions. Korea, similar to Taiwan, is an economic success story during the time of dictatorship. The path of its economic growth is also very similar to Taiwan's, during the 1970s and 1980s. It would be even more interesting to look at both at the same time in terms of lessons learned, what's similar and what's different.
and Singapore
Are you denying the narrative of democracy=rich, dictatorship=poverty?
Taiwan and South Korea have an eerily similar modern history. Both were Japanese colonies that were then ran by military dictators. Both democratized peacefully and today are liberal democracies whom have had women presidents.
@@KenGold666Singapore is the exact opposite of a democracy
@@luiscarlospallaresascanio2374Russia is more rich than north Korea. You could say Russia is a dictatorship.. but idk dictatorship to me is places like Israel and north Korea
Important to mention that the land reform was only possible because a lot of it was took from large Japanese landowners, and Taiwanese who were considered collaborators with the Japanese
Thanks for info. I was wondering where gov-in-exile took money for compensations.
At least the original owners were Taiwanese who had been there for hundreds of years before the arrival of the KMT. With the KMT land reform, the lands were forcibly taken from the local population and given out to KMT invaders and collaborators, who previously had no legitimate claim whatsoever.
That's how land reform *should* work. FWIW, similar things happened in Korea and Japan. Land reform was absolutely crucial to reforming the peasantry for eventual rapid industrialization. A handful of selfish Taiwanese picked the wrong side, and are still butthurt about it. If you don't like it, you can always go to Yasukuni Shrine and cry all you want.
@@michaelyuan3382cool story bro, unfortunately international law and history, including peace treaties that ended WW2 and created the UN says they have every right to claim taiwan.
It also helped that the KMT took much of the national reserves when they evacuated the mainland.
很感動看到有外國TH-camr紀錄台灣的民主發展歷史
What a pleasure to see there are somebody out of film the history how Taiwan’s democracy derived
"I am moved to see a foreign TH-camr record the history of the development of Taiwan's democratization."
When I came to Taiwan in 1994, Lee Deng-hui was the President of the R.O.C. (on Taiwan). I do recall that vote-buying was still prevalent, and the majority of the media was still state controlled. This did not disappear during the rule of the Minjindang's (DPP) Chen-Shui-bian (who would later be charged and jailed for corruption). The next president, Ma Ying-jiu was formerly a Guomindang (KMT) Minister of Justice, who had been removed from his position because he was attempting to prosecute high-level Guomindang (KMT) members for corruption - the so-called 'ill-gotten assets.' He was also the mayor of Taipei, which is seen as a crucial step to becoming president. I will not discuss the current president, since it goes beyond the range of this video. But, hey, what do I know? I still recall the time I was told by a Taiwanese woman that I could not understand politics of the R.O.C. "because I was a foreigner."
The KMT's early foundations in Georgism and the Land Value Tax are primarily responsible for the reduction in wealth inequality that occurred when Taiwan industrialized. I'd also argue that that very wealth equality indirectly made it easier for the KMT to willingly choose a move towards democracy. Implement the Land Value Tax in all countries now.
I have a lot of respect for Taiwan, there's no country in the world like it, truly an aspirational nation
That would be because, it’s government. Not a country
@@BruhTNT4258 what exactly is a country then? Is it not an area ruled by its own sovereign government?
@@asdawasda It's whatever the CCP wants when they stamp their feet and get mad that people call Taiwan a country.
@@BruhTNT4258found the chinese
@@asdawasdacall it a place.
This video is very informative about Taiwan's conversion to Democracy, but I would like to give more context here about the KMT's history. Originally the Kuomintang was founded under China's founding father Dr Sun Yat-sen. The reason why Sun Yat-sen is titled China's founding father because he brought a new age for China that overthrew China's multi-millennium old Dynastic rule. What he and the Kuomintang had originally set out to do was to convert China into a Democratic Republic since the old dynastic system of China was failing the nation. Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang did manage to seize mainland China but however have failed multiple times to properly establish a stable functional republic. Unfortunately, Sun Yat-sen would pass away and power would be transferred to Chiang Kai-Shek. At this point, the Kuomintang had become an Authoritarian entity which prioritized reunifying China since after Sen Yat-sen's death the country had become divided by ideology and warlords. Fast forward to modern day, Taiwan's Democracy was the one Sun Yat-Sen had sought to establish long ago in the mainland.
SYS was founded by the Soviets.
SYS did come to Taiwan before. He came to gain support from Taiwanese and Japanese for his revolution. That's before he finally switched to the Soviet side in 1920s.
BTW. Dr. SYS treated Taiwan/Formosa as a foreign country before he died. He even mentioned about supporting Taiwan independence in 1924 after he teamed up with the Soviets.
@@bctvanw SYS was educated in America. He wanted to bring Western Ideas to China but he also wanted to bring out more social reform. I would not call him really leftist. I personally think he just wanted what was best for China.
@@WoAiTuMadre2698 Sun yat-sen's ideas were also somewhat more idiosyncratic than I think this implies. For instance, a lot of his conceptions of freedom/democracy were "freedom for the nation," not necessarily "freedom for the individual." Arguably the two ideological tenant that survived past Sun's lifetime in the KMT's ideology was the political tutelage and land reform, lol.
@@icouldntthinkofaname379 I mean like I said SYS wanted what was best for the nation. His ideas were nationalistic for China. Even than what he did propose would grant the Chinese people more freedoms since it did provide limitations to government power.
He was pretty much the same as Ho Chi Minh. A Left Nationalist who turned to Socialism as a way to get USSR support in opposing Imperialism & Colonialism.
Taiwan is one of those nations that I've always been interested in learning more about but haven't actually bothered to look further into, so this video was very insightful for me. It's a very unique place, even considering other nearby typically well-viewed democracies like Japan and South Korea. It's a lot more liberal than they are.
Also, those graphics when you were talking about the Chinese Civil War were absolutely amazing. I couldn't get enough
Fun fact: Chiang Ching-kuo's adopted brother, Chiang Wei-Kuo, used to be a Panzer Command in Nazi's Germany's Wermacht. He actually participated the invasion of Austria in 1938. Also, Ching-kuo's wife was Belarusian and Stalin allowed him to return back to China after 12 years living in the USSR.
I'd say that the reason Taiwan and the KMT defy expectation is because expectations are based on fallacy. People believe that if you give a country democracy it will improve, but that isn't necessarily true, because democracy isn't inherently stable, in fact it may be inherently unstable. In order for stable democracy to grow you first need stability, and because democracy by itself does not provide that stability you need to start with something else to provide it. What you really need is a population that has forgotten about instability that has had time to get so used to and dependent on the systems of society itself that it will reject anyone trying to disrupt that stability for their own gain without even thinking about it. You need a society that has been stable for so long that people can grow up in stability and get an education and start having enough time and energy to start considering political philosophy. Because ultimately you cannot impose democracy, it needs to grow from the seed of knowledge and it needs stable soil within which to grow. This is why revolutions rarely create democracy and why imposing democracy on places like Iraq and Afghanistan hasn't worked, if we'd been willing to impose stability on those places for forty or fifty years so that the only people left who remembered what it was like before were irrelevant greybeards, we might have succeeded, though what we would have had to do to achieve that would probably not been worth it to us anyway, because we'd have had to do what the KMT did in Taiwan and we don't have the political will for that.
wow that is actually pretty logical
@@Hoodicaat yo cool that you think so. If you want a really interesting case study / unfolding situation in what I'm talking about here have a look at what's going on in Bangladesh right now. They've had a more or less stable but somewhat authoritarian and not particularly fair system since the 70's when they declared independence from Pakistan. They just had something like a revolution or very short civil war and their prime minister fled the country. It hasn't fallen into anarchy or gone down the crazy authoritarian route yet, it remains to be seen but the former ruling group has been more or less shut out of the forming interim government. While they have a long way to go we may be watching the rare formation of a stable democratic system right now. History of everything podcast has done a couple videos of what's going on there and the history of it all.
The Socialist Afghan government had the will to do that. But instead of collaborating with the Soviets to prop them up, we decided to help radicalize Muslims in the region to eventually create the Mujahideen that kicked out the Soviets and replace their secular government with Taliban rule.
Taiwan is unique because the story of the KMT is unique: A corrupt, dysfunctional dictatorship that fell to revolution, but actually got a second chance to do better, in a new place largely free from the baggage of its previous reign.
I am Taiwanese, and I have to tell everyone that Taiwan has gradually become liberalized since 1980. I was a elementary school student at the time, and I couldn’t understand why other countries would say that Taiwan was “undemocratic.”
At that time, in elementary schools in Taiwan, every student was learning about "democratic elections" every day, and everyone could openly talk about elections and voting without any punishment
I hope young Taiwanese value their democracy and protect it.
You can never trust powerful people to do the right thing, but you can (usually) trust them to do the right thing for themselves. An important lesson on how to harness man's destructive relationship with power to yield progress.
Though I mostly agree with you, there could be some genuinity from Mr. Chiang as he publicly declare that descendants of Chiang will never become presidents again.
As a Political Science student I gotta say this video is amazing. Not only covering the main aspects of the exceptional case of Taiwan but also mentioning the context and making it so simple to understand is incredible. Awesome work dude!
How much can the KMT's adoption of democracy be said to be just a natural embrace of the times and not a result of the inherently precarious geopolitical position Taiwan found itself in? Like they are literally a few miles away from a 1-billion strong dictatorship who hates them and their biggest ally is a democratic country that dislikes dictatorships... what kind of dictatorship would want to keep their power in that sort of situation?
As a party KMT has never initiated the change. They opposed change but was forced to do it with the pressure from the DPP. KMT's best stand is to maintain the status quo interpreted as 'no change until unification in undetermined future'. CCP-China is using KMT's stand to unify now or threat of invasion.
The U.S. had no qualms about supporting anti-communist dictatorships. To a well informed person, it would be a black mark on their reputation, but most people wouldn’t care
"dislikes dictatorship" biggest joke ever lmao how many right wing dictatorships have the US imposed on countries with a left leaning government in the cold war again? The US would happily let Taiwan be a dictatorship if it means Taiwan doesn't turn left
I love this topic, I love it so much that I'm currently writing my senior thesis about it. You do an excellent job presenting a lot of information in an easy to consume and understand video. Great work and thanks for posting sources so I can dig in 😁
I have nothing against the Chinese people, despite their racism. But I despise the CCP with all my heart. Taiwan must be protectet at all cost
Your guys' consistency & quality is inspiring. Always stoked seeing another of your vids in my feed!
Thanks Johnny!!
Tbh this is what I used to believe the CCP was heading for. Gradual reforms to strengthen the party's hold, eventually leading to democratisation. Sadly it doesn't seem like that will be happening any time soon.
The book which served as the bulk of our research (linked in pinned comment if interested) discusses that as well. The authors have an interesting point which is that a big determining factor in the direction of a ruling party or autocrat is the signals it receives.
There are two main varieties of signals - negative ones (which suggest the status quo is in trouble) and reassuring ones (which suggest reform would actually be productive).
One very important type of signal is elections. They allow a ruling party, even if they are tightly regulated etc., to see how they're doing, how the people feel, how they'd fare post-transition.
China lacks these. It's one reason Singapore, despite having a more competent ruling party and structure than China, is more likely to democratize successfully, sooner than China.
Lots to think about! Hope you enjoyed, and give the book a look!
I hope the Republic of China(=taiwan) government will recapture the mainland china and unify it again.
It is too bad that the territory of the liberal and powerful democratic government of the Republic of China is such a small island.
If China were a democratic government, it would not have fought the United States like this now.
@@katrinoy1 I think PRChina will transition to Democracy when GDP per capita reaches parity with the West.
If China per capita GDP reach parity with Taiwan at 35k. Half that of USA per capita GDP at 70k.
Chinese total GDP economy would 2x size that of the USA.
@@leihtory7423 hah naive.
@@Harthornexactly . Does the person know china is in bad economic state . How would the gdp be twice of that USA?
5:50 Denmark did almost exactly the same as Taiwan, in the last half of the 19th century: Big land reforms in 1850. Support of development of private companies (andelsbevægelsen) owned by the farmers themselves, which lead to economic gains being widespread in the population.
And similarly, the king decided to allow democracy in 1848, because opposing it would likely have lead to his defeat anyway, and this way he could retain some power. It took until 1882 for an opposing party to gain majority.
To this day the Scandinavian (and Finland) countries pursue a policy of minimising inequality, while at the same time having very liberal laws for companies.
That is in a nutshell why these countries are repeatedly on top of those "happiest country on earth" lists: High life satisfaction for the general public.
as someone aligned with pan-green camp this video seems good but somehow KMT biased. It wouldn't have hurt to talk more about conflict and resentment that native Taiwanese (benshengren) felt against the Chinese mainlanders (waishengren) and socioeconomic political system they created on island of Taiwan that left many people at the fringes of society. KMT were brutal despots responding to increased local and international pressure, it definitely wasn't goodwill, but to be fair you kinda mentioned that. Overall I appreciate your video on Taiwan.
Thanks for watching and we appreciate the thoughtful comment! We wouldn't characterize ourselves as pro-KMT in any way, not least because, as you note, we mention that they were not ideologically disposed towards democracy until at least the 1990s. To say the least, we *are* ideological democrats, and we would be as opposed as anyone in the pan-Green camp to their actions in the 20th century or their pro-PRC turn in the 21st. There are certainly aspects of the story that we weren't able to hit for the sake of time but are nonetheless important-perhaps we'll revisit them in a future video.
@@spectacles-dm I think you should have at least mention the Kaohsiung Incident, also how Lee Teng-hui supported the taiwanization movement and he was later expelled from the KMT.
It's quite misleading to call benshengren as "natives" that title should only be reserved for the aborigines
@@revolusirevolusi-jw7tn If you lived on Taiwan for centuries, you are pretty much native. Maybe not aboriginal but that is different.
@@Tamamo-no-Bae that's not how it works. There's a reason why white Americans aren't called native Americans even though they have been in America longer than the han Chinese benshenren have been in Taiwan
Loved the video. Production quality is great, can't wait to see more!
I am glad to see your content improve your graphics are so amazing though honestly recent two videos are so much better and improved than your earlier videos 💕💕💕rooting for you bro
Another critical part of Chiang Ching-kuo, was his relationship with the people of Taiwan.
Through his rule, he was able to force the ruling party to give up it's ridiculous dream of taking back the mainland - but instead focus on the development of Taiwan.
Secondly, he saw that the only way to stability was to do away with the minority rule system of mainlanders in charge over the islanders.
Finally he sought to end martial law, he knew that only he was able to force the KMT to giving up it's fist on power and he made sure that it was ended before he could no longer do so (he suffered from diabetes, and heart problems).
He sowed the seeds of true representative democracy.
The story of Chiang Ching-kuo and what he did for Taiwan and democracy strikes terror into authoritarian rule, in particular to the CCP.
It's honestly amazing, and a political avenue I (as a Communist, who most people think are all USSR/China/DPRK fans, which I clearly am not) would encourage in all nations.
as a taiwanese, thank you for answering the questions that are in my head for ages.
our history books simply write it off as "a kindness from kmt",
which even my 10 years old brain couldn't believe it.
I bet there are lots of parties in the world transition to democracy successfully remain its power.
can you make more videos about china's politics?
since a lot of taiwanese or not taiwanese are so interested in the subject.
Wow, this was far higher quality than I expected for a video with a few thousand views, I see big growth potential here
The title should be:
"How an Ousted KMT Leader Built Democracy"
That leader ousted from his own party by the loyal followers of the party dictator is Lee Teng-hui, the real person that built democracy in Taiwan.
Lee Teng-hui also contributed, but mainly in legal details and implementation.
@@李泓緯-h9pAlmost every dictator in history has claimed, one way or another, that they're a democracy, including Mao, Chiang, Chiang's son, and today's Xi. Saying is one thing, doing it is another. The latter (make it into law and execute the law) is what separates a dictator from a person that builds democracy.
If that is what you mean by "legal details and implementation" in your reply, then, yes, Lee is not only the main architect of the democratization of Taiwan, but also the one who started the democratization process in Taiwan. This process was continued by Lee's successor Chen.
10:29 What's the name of the background music? It sounds very familiar to me.
Can anyone recommend books on this? I'm really curious about the transition from dictatorship to democracy
Hey, so glad you're interested in learning more! We've got a book linked in the pinned comment that we recommend. Most of the video's research is drawn from it, but it also discusses Japan and South Korea extensively!
@@spectacles-dm Thank youu!!
I hope the Republic of China(=taiwan) government will recapture the mainland china and unify it again.
It is too bad that the territory of the liberal and powerful democratic government of the Republic of China is such a small island.
If China were a democratic government, it would not have fought the United States like this now.
If you are interested in the early years of the ROC after WWII, I recommend "Accidental State" by Hsiao-Ting Ling.
@@katrinoy1 In what ways does the People's Republic of China fight the US that you think wouldn't happen if they were a democracy?
The stage for democracy in Taiwan was set in 1895, rather unexpectedly. The founder of the Republic of China, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, laid out the ideas of democracy, welfare, and civic nationalism. Dr. Sun had a three step plan to achieve this, which was essentially a transition from military government to a democratic constitutional government. In 1947, the beginning of the end of the dictatorship was signed into law with a new civilian constitution. In 1950, local elections were held and contested by independent candidates, the China Democratic Socialist Party, as well as KMT candidates. The land redistribution mentioned in the video actually wasn’t a communist idea, it had been part of Sun Yat-Sen’s ideology from the start. The KMT had intended to create democracy all along, but they just did not have the circumstances to for much of the time. First, they had to deal with warlords, then they had to deal with the Japanese and the Communists. Had they held power on the mainland, they would have been able to do much the same, and probably earlier on. The KMT and the ROC were tragic heroes of this chapter of Chinese history.
as a citizen of nanking (former ROC capital no less) i see remnants of kmt everywhere. saddened we couldn’t keep what Sun laid out for us. now it’s a home i could never go back to
@@bocchium our beautiful homeland has been looted and ransacked by the communist bandits.
@@bocchium chinese dissident?
yeah, people forget the communists were once part of the kuomintang, both parties have, and continue to worship sun yat sen, sun already had socialist alignments, and planned to implement land reforms and social welfare, i cant help but feel that this video is somewhat biased against the kmt
im probably biased as well, my grandfather was a soldier in the National Revolutionary Army (military branch of the kmt, effectively the chinese army) during the 2nd sino-japanese war, Republic of China Army during and after the civil war, and eventually became a kmt member
@@justit1074 my grandfather was in the ROC Navy and fought during the Civil War. He was also somehow involved in the Korean War, although it is not clear to what extent. He eventually started a family in Taiwan.
This is actually smart. Once you lost power in a dictatorship, you almost never recover. But if you lost power in a democracy, you can just easily gain it back in 5-10 years time.
Insane how high the production quality is for a channel this size. Bravo 👏
That 2000 election deserves looking into on its own. It's easy to overlook that the KMT was still dominant and popular, but because of its safe grip it internally fractured and in the end had a huge dispute for its presidential nomination. In the end both candidates ended up running (one left the party) and split the vote.
DPP got less than 40% of the vote and still won, and it was clear afterwards that they weren't ready to govern back then (Chien later got caught with major corruption charges).
Fabulous for you to be able to did the research and produced this video. Even I as a Taiwanese doesn't know that much for this sophisticated dynamics within the KMT's context of democratization.
Wasn't the KMT sun yatsen's creation? Originally republican, and then became authoritarian after his death because of the civil war?
That's right yeah.
Sun Yatsen was supporting facism at his old age before his death. Chiang Kai Shek basically continuing Sun Yatsen's ideology.
Thank you for the insightful documentary!
This was something I didn't expect, despotism using democracy as a means of remaining in power and staying relevant. And to be honest, it's something I can respect the KMT-regime for. Their confidence in being able to remain relevant after instating elections, and using that confidence to democratise Taiwan is a mentality I would encourage. It benefits both those who desire to remain in power, and massively increases the quality of life their citizens have.
Thank you for watching and sharing your thoughts! Agreed!!
An autocratic government is always a mixed bag, many dictators and emperors can be corrupted by power, while sometimes they can be some of the greatest rulers in history. With great power comes great responsibility, and requires a great understanding of that responsibility.
As C S Lewis wrote, I support democracy not because I reject the fall of man, but because I believe in it.
He is a complex character due to his complicated background. For example, he was educated and survived in Stalin's Soviet Russia. So, he warned communists were not trustworthy, but he ran goverment by using idea of communists. He survived the assassinatuon by the independence activists when he visited US.
I arrived in Taiwan in 1996 as an exchange student. There was so much going on then and I was young, so I didn't really appreciate it or understand it at the time. My roommate told me that earlier that year when the election happened that he and some friends went to the top of a mountain so they could see the missiles being lobbed into the sea by the Miainland to try to intimidate the electors. In 1997 our class of foreign students were invited to visit with Lee Teng-hui at the Presidential Palace. That was also the year that Feb 28 became a holiday to commemorate those who died in the 2-28 massacre in 1947. In 1998 I went back to work and I was in Taipei to see the election of (future president) Ma Ying-jeo as mayor. He defeated the incumbent, (future president), Chen Shuibian.
Throughout the years, I have fond memories and friends from that time. That roommate who had watched the missiles dropping in the sea later became a legislator. Elections that were a novelty in a place that had martial law for so long, became incredibly vibrant. I appreciate more and more how significant it was that this island, that was touted by Mme Chiang Kai-shek in her fund raising tours as "Free China," was finally actually transitioning into a free country during my time there.
Thanks for sharing real life information because I want to know history through real life.
I am a Taiwanese who grew up during 1980s. It also puzzles me how this had come about. I think your story captures main factors correctly, it is a great job to do this in less than 15 minutes. Thanks！It is a real miracle perhaps, because these few persons in power, including Jiang, and his successor Lee, who won the first presidential election, made right decisions, and with some cunning, out-maneuvered those KMT old guard, the military.
People like to think that CCP vs KMT was just good guys vs bad guys but when the KMT went to Taiwan they harmed a lot of people.
Nah. Blue good, red bad
True. Up until the 1980s both sides were pretty bad nowadays both prc and ccp are less brutal
@@gladteer873pick up a book it would help u
Read the book “Wild Swan” to have some idea about politics in China and their destruction.
@@tran-vm3uu uh huh?? So what’s the point ur tryna make.
Hope your channel blows up, algorithm bestows as it takes away, your channel deserves 200k minimum subs as your quality is amazing, must take a lot of work.
China's economic rise in the last decades is based on the similarities system like in Singapore and Taiwan's economic rise in the 70' 80's.
Great Video as always. Nice visuals and I remain a huge fan of the progress bar that slowly reveals the name of the chapters of the video
Excellent, detailed and accurate video. Our democracy isn't free, so we will defend them against China with our lives.
Great content! You should add more information for non-Taiwanese viewers in the pictures you show (like 8:59 when that is Pelosi in the middle)
Great content, but I felt the jokes and pop culture clips didn't really mesh with the substance of the video.
Thanks for your feedback! We thought that a little humor can help break up a video like this and make it easier to watch, but I think a few of them didn't land as well as we'd hoped.
I still hope you enjoyed the video, and thanks for watching!
@@JohnSmith-mc2zz That’s Woody Harrelson in the movie _Zombieland_ 😉
I hope the Republic of China(=taiwan) government will recapture the mainland china and unify it again.
It is too bad that the territory of the liberal and powerful democratic government of the Republic of China is such a small island.
If China were a democratic government, it would not have fought the United States like this now.
Step 1: have a lot of really important resources or be in a key geographic position.
Step 2: align yourself with the United States' geopolitics
Step 3: ???
Step 4: profit
Step 3: Neo-liberalism and McCarthy-ism
Great video!
Thank you!
To me it always read as a case where the dictators ego didn't get in the way so when it became clear their grip on power was slipping they where able to bail in a relatively safe manner. Stepping down in favor of a representative government has a better survival rate then most other options
This channel boutta blow up
🤞🤞🤞🤞
Dictators normaly take and surpres because they are afraid but here they delivered and gave freedom because they where confident. A person who is not afraid does not oppresse. Thats the difference.
taiwan in general is a great example of how a country can thrive economically and democratic against all odds.
Its a COUNTRY that is claimed by the at least second most powerful country on this world, isnt recognized by like 3/4 of the World and therefore has massive problem with trading, espeicially since its an island that is more or less required trade for many prodcuts to survive, but still its there, as an independet nation with a high standard of living and an amazing democracy despite all odds ^^
Taiwan is only recognized by 10+ countries in the world…. Taiwan would be very happy to be recognized by 1/4 of countries!
yeah true, i just looked it up years ago and saw a list that was probably from 1980-90 where a lot more countrys still recognized taiwan so i had that number vaguely in my long-term memory
thanks for correcting me ^^. and honestly that just proves/reinforces the point i was trying to make ^^
@@gratain
@@funfungerman8401 Instead of recognizing Taiwan, they recognize the Republic of China, ROC, another China.
Honestly Taiwan is basically it’s own country, and I pretty much see it that way. They literally have their own currency, government, elections, banks, military, airports, and passport.
And despite the lack of recognition, Taiwan’s passport strength is miles ahead of China’s.
I lived in Taiwan in the 1980s and 1990s. President Lee Teng-hui was a genius. By steering Taiwan towards democracy, he not only gave Taiwanese previously unimaginable rights and freedom, but he also guaranteed that Western democracies would continue to support Taiwan without reluctance.
The areas of control the KMT had were not even controlled by party members but former warlords that made an alliance with the KMT out of convince. The warlord in Xinjiang for example kept attacking communists and nationalists whenever it seemed like the Soviet Union or the Axis was winning WW2. The General in Yunnan, Long Yun, was constantly butting heads with Chiang, but he was nevertheless a warlord at heart. It was no wonder the KMT allied armies collapsed so quickly to the Communists when they had confusing orders, disagreements, and no real heart for the Kuomintang govt. To say that the Communists had enormous support of the peasants that lead them to win the war feels like an overstatement when it wasn’t just peasants that won, but disillusioned political and military leaders who felt alienated by the KMT and at a loss against the now formidably Japanese/Soviet equipped and militarily competent CCP armies. The KMT in mainland China didn’t collapse due to cronyism and corruption, it collapsed due to paranoia and mistrust within the military and govt structures of its territory. Years of assassinations by pro-KMT forces, even up to 1947 where a well renowned social democratic third party leader was killed by a reactionary KMT leader, war wariness, growing Communist support, all sowed the seeds of the KMT war effort in the Civil War. I know this video is just about the Taiwanese story of democracy and that the Civil War was only a small part of the video, but I just couldn’t help but add those facts in because it really helps explain how Taiwan’a system survived in the tiny island, versus the whole landmass of varying degrees of control of leadership allotted out of convenience not loyalty. I really appreciated seeing the helpful visuals in your videos and I think you do a good job in explaining the structures of a country’s political systems.
Hey I recognize you i like your content :)
The Dictatorship ended in 1996. You also didn't mention about the white terror, the Taiwan genocide, america influence along with the kmt being genuinely unpopular. It ended to make sure there wasn't any prc influence on the island.
I think that most people would do that if they had to be dictator. You have to be incredibly narcissistic and probably very smart too to be able to deal with that kind of power.
I'd like to see a story where a villain takes over the world and then almost immediately steps down because he realizes how stressful running everything actually is.
That's essentially the story for most countries in general. A lot of (Western) countries were formed by what we would call warlords today. These guys then realised administration and bureaucracy (read: taxes) is much easier than having to constantly expend blood to keep the peace and defend themselves.
Perhaps what happened in Taiwan could be used as points / ways to encourage some of the dictatorships and despot countries to move to democracy? its no secret that Democratic countries are largely more economically successful , Communist Party of China and their government is the only non-democracy (yes China is a dictatorship, not democracy) that comes close to the economic power of the United States, but at the cost of their stability being highly reliant on a good economy (else the Chinese will overthrow the CCP).
I'm curious as to whats up with ethnic Chinese making dictatorship successful compared to many other dictatorship we have seen. First we have Taiwan, then Singapore and now China being successful under a dictatorship.
Do you want to live in that successful China?
Please research :“Formosa Betrayed ”、“Formosa magazine 美麗島事件”、“White terror of Taiwan ”、“Taiwan's blacklist”、“林宅血案”、“施明德事件”。
This is the thing that kept breaking my brain about Taiwan -- that it almost seems like one minute they were being badly run by a corrupt dictatorship, the next minute they were running under a competent, fairly representative government...glad to finally hear how it happened.
lifting martial law ≠ democracy
Remember, many authoritarian regimes in the world have never imposed martial law.
The fact of the matter is that Taiwan was still an authoritarian state by every measure after the lifting of martial law in 1987.
As someone from the mainland. I have to say that this is an amazing video. It is straight to the point, very informative, and nicely organized. This video even gives me hope, that someday, the CCP may think to do the same… eventually.
Unlikely. Chinese people are too weak to fight the CCP.
They wont
since Taiwan is still the ROC, do you think if the PRC falls the Taipei Gouvernment will return to the mainland?
@@typiclyjohny5114 no I don’t think so at least not immediately afterwards since the political atmosphere would be so different from Taiwans and political parties will spring up all over the country but I really hope that a new government/party would form that redeclares the country as the ROC and adopts a modified version of the ROC constitution until the country is fully stable and until the established Taiwanese parties make a return to the mainland to assist with democratization and reunification. One case scenario that I personally wish never happens is if the only the KMT returns to mainland and the current ruling party the DPP declares Taiwanese independence.
@@typiclyjohny5114 At this point the ideological differences are too large for Taiwanese and Chinese to reintegrate with each other. Even their language changed somewhat.
They are gonna end up like US and UK.
Actually it was Lee Teng-hui from the KMT Party that democratized Taiwan through many sophisticated power struggles. And the ugly truth is, many KMT supporters hate him and see him as a traitor of KMT that the party could not take the full control of Taiwan anymore.
Shhhhh we've got an American narrative to sell here! Dont let historical facts get in the way of our democratic dictators like Batista or Yeltsin.
While the majority of this video is decently accurate, some of the information given are false or untrue. The KMT dynasty was much darker than the video's portrayed. Corruption, vote buying, killing and stealing land, and making oppositions disappear was the norm even during the coined "reinvention phase". On top of that, a good chunk of the reason why Taiwan lost US aid (and partially US diplomatic ties) was because those in power were stealing from it. Harry Truman went as far as calling Chiang a family of thieves.
During Chiang Jr's time he still cracked down on democracy quite a bit. It was towards the end of his reign that he had a change of mind (and picked the pro-democracy Lee as his successor)
Thank you. Someone in the comments that actually understands the bad stuff KMT did.
@@huaplays6 ok, now is still to talk about CCP oppression that's still happening now instead of some stuff from the past
@@G.A.C_Preserve None of it is happening is my answer. I invite you to come over here and check for yourself.
@@huaplays6 Explain the Uyghur massacre committed by the CCP
@@Diamondking599 It's a made up narrative. Give me any "source" you got your "evidence" from and I'll prove to you why it's fake.
Sounds very similar to Francoist Spain. But more importantly this story highlights the fact that democracy can only really be strong where the middle class is strong. When the upper class gains too much power, corruption becomes rampant. When the poor become too powerful, they follow whoever will give them bread and circuses regardless of what human rights they violate.
Insanely interesting, this should have millions of views.
Democracy and capitalism are interconnected. The longer a society is capitalist, the more complex the economic system becomes and the harder it becomes to replace elements of it. In feudal society where everyone is farmer, you can just gun down a portion of the farmers, but if you are an industrial society, killing specialized workers could unseat the whole system.
Taxes are also important, capitalism produces a new class of wealthy taxpayers who if removed can’t contribute to government finances.
The last factor is government spending. The more the government spends. The more taxes it needs. The more dependent on tax revenue the gov becomes the more power the taxpayer has.
Great video
Thanks!
It is a good start, but it falls very short and doesn't even mention Lee Teng-hui who I think most Taiwanese would agree is the father of democracy. Chiang Ching-kuo died in 1988 after all, well before Taiwan became a democracy. Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law, and removed the limits towards having an opposition party, but the democratic reforms happened mostly under Lee Teng-hui. Lee Teng-hui was essentially also the reason why DPP won in 2000, as he purposely split the KMT vote between two candidates to give the DPP a chance.
True, by the time the dictator died in 1988, Taiwan was still very very very far from being liberal. Lifting martial law did practically nothing as far as real free speech and having a true opposition party is concerned. That's why you see a bunch of protests being cracked down on, demonstrations being cracked down on, and even self-immolation, demanding for a real democracy (as opposed to a fake democracy much like the one claimed by this other autocratic China, which didn't even impose martial law to begin with), even after the dictator died.
Everybody says "we are a democracy" including communist China. Saying is one thing, what actually happens on the ground is another. That's the cold hard truth.
NOPE, the dictator did NOT built democracy. A lot of it is just KMT's positive propaganda about the dictator.
The ground reality was that Taiwan was still authoritarian by any sensible meaning of the term, but it was less than it was under martial law.
Catchy title by the way!
I haven’t finished the video, but I was taught that the communists were on the verge of defeat when Japan attacked, and used the Japanese invasion and ceasefire with the KMT to rebuild their strength while the KMT bled themselves dry on the Imperial Japanese Army. The end resumption of the civil was saw a revitalized CCP push an exhausted KMT out of the country. Is that not what happened?
No, the ccp was on the verge of collapse after the long march. By the point of Japanese invasion they had recovered by then. U got some information confused
I hope that Taiwan will one day be fully recognised not just by the public, but also by various governments around the world, with no claim to mainland China and with mainland China with no claim to it (After all, the only document that suggests either should have such claims, is already nearly 80 years old. Who lives and who dies in war shouldn't be decided by such old documents).
Is Democracy Suitable for Every Form of Society?
In modern democratic societies, people can rule through elections. However, an interesting thing arises: ruling a society is extremely difficult. Wise people are the minority in our society, and when they make decisions that differ from the majority, they often don’t win. Believe me, this situation is not rare at all; instead, it is extremely common. Ironically, democratic societies are much more powerful than others. Interesting, isn’t it? So why is that?
Well, I was confused too, but that's because I ignored the influence of the media. You can impact or stabilize public opinion easily, and if you are really good at using the media, you can even control people's minds. So actually, the election isn't a game of civilians but a game of media and its ability to control public opinion. On the positive side, it can stabilize society really well because people can feel a sense of participation. On the negative side, a strong inciter might come and disrupt the balance of society, such as Adolf Hitler (but I don't think that will happen again in modern democratic societies because other media owners can stop him easily).
So generally, democracy works very well in the Western world, but is it suitable for non-Western societies? Well, stabilizing public opinion requires enough social resources, but developing societies clearly don't have enough of them. Instead, they don't even have enough resources for their people. How could you ask them for social resources to waste on stabilizing public opinion? It’s unfair to ask them to change their system to democracy. They'll naturally turn into democratic societies when they have enough social resources. Just wait and be patient.
just to remind you nomatter what kind of systems, they are all tools of the minority to control the society, you sould never underestimate the power of media, trust me democracy isn't a game for civilians, but for media, competing each others on controlling public opinion, you might say "No I can make my own decision with out the intervention of media" may I ask you, how do we make our decision ? Do we make our decision without any information? well clearly not, we can only make our judgement by the information that we got, but where are our informations of politics mostly came from? well, media !
so trust me you won't have any civil rights to participate the politics no matter what kind of system is your country using, because they are all tools of minority to rule the society.
futhermore you can't deny that those political informations that you got are mostly from media, can you ? and if that's true then you are making your decisions based on the information that media gave you(at least mostly). and another interesting fact : people are tended to follow the the people around them, even they have different feeling, they will still question themselves and and try to persuade themselves unconsciously, so if people heard some things that are different from their own experience, they will tend to persuade themselves that they are the exeption, it proves that people's political opinion actually came from media, and our conclusion also shows that democracy is not really a game for civilians, instead it's a game of media a competition of controlling public opinion.
Hit the nail
What an interesting story! Thanks for sharing.
KMT rule on Taiwan did not start in 1949, but in September 1945 when the Republic of China got the previously Japan-controlled island of Formosa (Taiwan). 1949 was when the tide of the civil war was firmly on the communist side. So on one hand the government of the Republic of China and many elites had been evacuating to the island of Taiwan, on another hand, Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China. Strictly speaking, there is no country formally called 'Taiwan', formally it is still the Republic of China which controlls the island of Taiwan AND a very tiny part of 'mainland' China in the form of Kinmen isles (Fujian province). The side consequence of it is Beijing's "one China policy", that is, one can recognize either the People's Republic of China or the Republic of China as China, not both (most countries tend to recognize PRC - for obvious reasons - that's why the name "the Republic of China" is almost never seen outside of it). Moreover, the Chinese seat at the UN was chaired by the Republic of China until 1971 when the representative of PRC replaced it. Now, in theory with most people born on the mainland dead by now and the local identity increasingly dominating, they could amend the constitution and change to "the Republic of Taiwan" as a separate entity from China and apply for membership in the UN as a new country, but that would trigger potentially violent reaction from PRC. Alas, for now, at least on paper, we have two 'Chinese' governments and states.
Wow, the productio quality is insane! Good job, I was really surprised when I realised that your channel has only about 6k subscribers. You deserve way more. Subbed
Sometimes all it takes for a great change to occur is somebody to realize and admit that benefitting everybody also benefits themselves
WE WANT DEMOCRACY.
sure.
Wait actually?
Yeah
Good coverage, but please don’t forget that KMT ruled with martial law, white terror, killed in the prison, thousands and thousands of Taiwanese local intellectuals, and has to this day, not acknowledged any wrongdoing or taken any responsibilities
As a person living in SG, I cannot help but think if this could have been the fate of the Singaporean political system if the ruling PAP party were more politically liberal-minded like Taiwan's KMT. Sure, the KMT thought that via democratisation, it will aid them in controlling Taiwan and/or help stabilise the social situation. However, unlike SG's ruling PAP, when the popular democratic vote turned against them, the KMT did not jealously resort to "special operations" to suppress, incarcerate, and quash dissent and opposition politicians. Instead, they embrace it as true democrats should, accepting the people's will. And that is what makes the KMT, in my eyes, much more altruistic, admirable, and honourable than SG's ruling PAP. Imagine if the KMT had crushed the authoritarian CCP scum and enacted such policies in the Chinese mainland. China, not just Taiwan, would have been a shining beacon of liberal democracy, rivaling that of the United States.
i really like this comment, bcuz as a past singaporean i sort of feel the same way
however it is worth noting that the KMT succeeded in their position of taiwan needing to fight for itself; to compare it to a country like china which needed to desperately stay together, or a country like singapore which was stuck in one of the most politically hectic regions of asia, the centre of southeast asia, i'm not sure how democracy could have succeeded
this is not taking away from my own hypocrisy as i am living in a very democratic nation now, but it is worth considering
@@The_Jazziest_Coffee The reason for that comment was that I thought that both SG and Taiwan faced parallel challenges and difficulties in both their infancies. SG and Taiwan had internal turmoil, although the former had racial and religious violence, while it was public dissatisfaction in Taiwan. Both faced and still do, larger and stronger neighbouring countries. And both started off poor and underdeveloped. Also, I dont think it was a coincidence that SG held military exercises with Taiwan and Israel back in the old days. I suspect that SG was trying to glean whatever crucial lessons it could from them to aid in its own survival.
@@Machiavelrous yep, your points are completely valid. still wish singapore would be more democratic, since they are quite questionable and there is a lot of room (and i mean A LOT) for improvement otherwise
But then the united stats isn't actually very democratic in the way that people expect democracies to work and if the KMT crushed the CCP while in China, I doubt it'd transition so relatively smoothly into such a liberal democracy.
As it is right now, Taiwan with all its problems is still a shining beacon of liberal democracy in asia with its citizens having access to incredible amounts of political freedom rivaling some of the very liberal european countries.
@@NanashiCAST again, lots of truth here
This is like those rare but well documented times that a dictator, monarch or ruler has exceptional skills and good intentions for their people or country. The greatest rulers throughout history were often quite loved by their people, Caesar, those Kings and Queens titled 'Great', Napoleon etc.
Something similar happened in Mexico during the same time. Mexico was officially a democratic country, with presidential elections being held every six years. However PRI, the dominant political party at that time, had been ruling the country ever since the end of the Mexican Revolution (around 1920). It was obvious that the party was keeping itself in power with corruption and by arresting or murdering the opposition. However, in the year 2000, PAN, the main opposition party at the time, won the presidential elections, becoming the first party to win the elections over the PRI. Those elections are considered the first truly democratic elections held in Mexico, and they were held with PRI still in full power of the nation.
The reasons were similar. The party had lost most of the support from the citizens, and it wouldn't take long before the international community stopped supporting the openly corrupt and abusive government of the PRI. Althought, unlike what happened in Taiwan, the PRI never recovered the support or the power it used to have in the past, and its considered to be in decay ever since.
The 90's was probably the decade when this type of governments stopped being tolerated by the international community, and oppresive rulers were forced to find a new more relaxed way of keeping themselves and their allies in power.
I’ve seen others make the comparison too.
Also the opposition had to fight and win an extremely controversial and disputed second term after first taking power
Well, the truth is that it was because of a very critical event that forced the dictator Chiang to change his stance. That event was the assassination of a writer and an American citizen living in the US, who had been a long time critic of Chiang. It turned out that the assassination was not ordered by Chiang himself, but by one of his sons. But it didn’t matter. After the assassination, the US government was quite upset and somehow forced Chiang to take action to change the political system and environment in Taiwan.
So that was the true reason why Chiang was willing to give up his power, and also not transferring the power to his sons.
He was also scared because his neighboring dictatorship like Korea were being toppled so he democratized to prevent that happening to him
There is zero chance this mf isn't a psyop
As an American who lived in Taipei in 1986 and taught English, I remember a lot of that mood of the people. I lived with a family that was very good at pleasing both sides of the political spectrum.
another amazing video, thank you!
Chiang Ching-kuo's whole life seems bizarrely contradictory, with him swinging back and forth between different ideologies. From Trotskyism to embracing his father's right-wing autocracy to accepting liberal democracy. All the while never admitting that he'd changed at all.
I mean, his whole life from childhood to death was just learning and taking ideas from contrasting ideologies somehow making it work. His father was strict about him learning Chinese Classics, but sent him to the USSR for education where he and Deng Xiaoping, his counterpart after both assumed leadership of their countries, were classmates. His family was all about preserving Chinese culture and heritage, but he ended up marrying a White woman. It's been said that CCK's "flexibility" is what set the stage for Taiwan's democratization; the ability to tolerate and listen to dissent.