Factotum

Last Saturday (5th April) Ma Ying-jeou, the newly elected Taiwanese President, was in Taoyuen for the anniversary of the death of Generalissimo Chaing Kai-shek. Chaing Kai-shek was Taiwan's un-elected president of the ROC (Republic of China). Well, not so un-elected, as although the ROC had a democratic constitution it was a one-party state made up almost totally of non-Taiwanese Chinese mainlanders who voted themselves for the Generissimo keeping him in power. 

I wonder how we would feel about seeing the German Chancellor standing in a car-park in Berlin crying over the bunker of Hitler? Or the cambodian president crying over the demise of the Khmer Rouge? It would be shocking, wouldn't it? So why was Ma Ying-jeou crying about the death of Chiang Kai-shek? Was he happy or sad? Well, unfortunately, he was sad. It seems a little like crocodile tears, though, as the two people weren't related or even close friends. As much as someone loves John Lennon, I am sure they wouldn't burst into into tears if they visited Strawberry Fields in Liverpool or the Dakota Building in New York. And Lennon was a good man. Am i saying that Chiang Kai-shek was bad? Well, he fought the Chinese Communists and sought to unite China away from the influence of fuedal warlords. He wanted to bring democratic rule under the Kuomingtang revolution. He modernised the legal system, reformed the banking system, built highways and railways, improved public health and promoted moral and personal Confucian values. That's good isn't it?

Not entirely. As already mentioned, the democratic rule of the KMT was only allowed to reach as far as members of the KMT, who claimed that as the KMT and the Communists had never signed a peace treaty and so were still offically at war, martial law was in place which also ruled out the formation of opposition parties. He jailed many people who supported either the Communists or Taiwan independence. He banned the use of Taiwanese, thus repressing local culture. In the esrly 1900's, whilst exiled in Shanghai, he culivated ties with the Shanghai criminal underworld, especially with Du Yuesheng and the Green Gang. And maybe most horrifically of all was the 2/28 incident in 1947, in which an estimated 30,000 Taiwanese people were executed and murdered by the KMT and from which began the era known as 'the white terror' where the KMT suppressed politcal dissidents and any discussion of the 2/28 incident. During the 'white terror' period from 1947 until 1985 around 140,000 Taiwanese were imprisoned or executed for opposing hte KMT.

So why would someone cry over the death (30 years ago) of the man who ruled Taiwan, without ever being elected by the Taiwanese people and who brought so much terror and fear to a place where he was actually a foreigner? Wait a mminute...isn't Ma Ying-jeou a foreigner too?! Let's hope history doesn't repeat itself!    


photo from: yahoo tw