1) After the Victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan

In 1945, after the victory of the War of Resistance, the Kuomintang took over all administrative institutions, factories, machinery, weapons, granaries, enterprises, bank assets, and railway equipment left behind by Japan in China. In theory, these were state assets, but in reality, this process turned into a large-scale looting operation by the Kuomintang bureaucracy and military system. This matter was especially serious in the Northeast, because the industrial base in the Northeast was the most complete; Japan left behind a large number of modern facilities such as arsenals, steel companies, railways, and machinery, with a huge volume of resources. The Kuomintang had no long-term ruling foundation in the Northeast, and discipline was even harder to restrain.

From 1945 to 1946, during the period when Soviet troops occupied the Northeast, they had already dismantled a large amount of Japanese heavy industrial equipment and transported it back to the Soviet Union, especially the Anshan Iron and Steel Works. After the Kuomintang took over, a large amount of equipment was also misappropriated or sold illegally, and production was severely damaged. Some high-ranking officers directly transported machinery to the south for private sale; equipment that could originally have been used for national defense production was ransacked within a few months. At that time, Shenyang and Changchu had a large amount of Japanese stockpiled materials: granaries, cloth, medicine, industrial parts, military supplies, and daily necessities. Kuomintang officials brought trucks and hauled them out by the truckload. Many materials were not registered and were handled internally. The public originally expected the distribution of materials but found the warehouses empty; prices skyrocketed, and the black market exploded. The Communist Party needed almost no propaganda in the cities; the masses automatically leaned toward them.

Harbin originally had a large number of Japanese military residences and enterprise dormitories. After the Kuomintang took over, the takeover officials moved directly into the high-end real estate. Japanese family furniture and appliances were publicly auctioned; some officials treated the residences as private luxury mansions for renovation, and news spread of high-ranking officials gathering to drink and enjoy a luxurious life. The Communist Party seized this opportunity to conduct political propaganda in the city: the Kuomintang was a "bureaucratic bourgeoisie," and the results were verified by reality. The Northeast railways left by Japan were also extremely complete; later, wheels were dismantled, steel rails were stolen, sleepers were sold, and locomotive parts were packed and transported away—entire trains disappeared. The result was chaos in railway transportation, problems in grain allocation, a decrease in military mobility, and out-of-control prices for people's livelihoods.

Takeover personnel also took over the largest coal mines in the Northeast, closing the pits to sell the machinery. Coal mines in places like Fushun and Benxi were originally strategic resources. The Kuomintang high-level appointed "Takeover Officials," who first scooped up cash and coal inventory, and then canceled workers' wages. Some pits even had to stop operations because the equipment was stolen clean; tens of thousands of workers lost their jobs, and the CCP took the opportunity to organize labor movements and gained a large amount of worker support. This series of events caused three most critical groups to lean toward the Communist Party simultaneously: city residents saw corruption and chaos; the working class suffered unemployment and extortion and were absorbed by the Communist Party; and intellectuals were pained by the Kuomintang's incompetence and began to support change. Meanwhile, the CCP grasped the rural and grassroots organizations, went deep into the countryside, provided land, and organized peasant associations. Although the land reform was intense, it indeed mobilized a large number of peasants. Peasants got land and began to be grateful and fight for the Communist Party. In contrast, the Kuomintang relied on landlords and the Baojia system, and its social foundation became smaller and smaller.

The Liaoshen Campaign caused the loss of the Northeast; the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) abandoned Jinzhou, and more than half of the 470,000 troops in the Northeast were lost. The Northeast was completely controlled by the CCP, and the NRA's strategic position became irreversible from then on. In the Huaihai Campaign, the NRA committed about 800,000 people and lost about 550,000. The most elite reorganized units were completely wiped out, and the Kuomintang no longer had combat capability in East China and the Central Plains. After the Pingjin Campaign, North China collapsed; Fu Zuoyi chose to surrender, and Beiping was taken over basically without a battle; the Kuomintang lost all strategic positions in the North. The United States originally hoped for Kuomintang-Communist cooperation, but later became disappointed with the Kuomintang's corruption and inefficiency. The NRA still suffered a crushing defeat even with American aid, leading the United States to give up supporting a total anti-communist war. By 1949, the United States basically decided no longer to intervene strongly in the civil war.

By 1949, North China, East China, and Central China were basically all controlled by the CCP; Nanjing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou fell one after another. The Kuomintang considered that Taiwan had the complete railways, electricity, and schools left from the Japanese colonial era, had the Taiwan Strait as a geographical barrier, had industrial and agricultural foundations, and plus the early Cold War strategic interest of the U.S. military in Taiwan, they saw Taiwan as the last fortress. During the large-scale move to Taiwan, the NRA transported Palace Museum artifacts from the mainland to Taiwan, transported a large amount of the Central Bank’s gold reserves to Taiwan, and hundreds of thousands of high-level officials and their families and troops moved to Taiwan; at the same time, a large number of scholars, technical personnel, and cultural figures accompanied them.

The Kuomintang's withdrawal to Taiwan did not happen suddenly; it was a process that gradually accelerated from 1948 to 1950. In 1948, the war situation worsened, and they began to transfer valuable materials to Taiwan and transport the Central Bank’s gold reserves to Taiwan; they transported Palace Museum artifacts and national treasure-level archives in batches from Nanjing; they pre-positioned some key scientific research institutions and universities, such as parts of the Academia Sinica, in Taipei. From 1948 to 1949, the NRA retreated steadily, and Taiwan was included as the last reserve land. Chiang Kai-shek judged that the mainland could no longer be held and prepared to transfer the entire regime to Taiwan. From January to June 1949, various ministries and commissions of the central government moved to Taiwan one after another; a large number of technical officials, intelligence personnel, and cultural personnel were arranged on ships; and generals and their families left Shanghai and Guangzhou in large numbers. Remnants of the NRA constantly retreated from Fujian, Guangdong, and Zhejiang to Penghu, Keelung, and Kaohsiung. In the second half of 1949, the administrative system of Taiwan Province became the de facto location of the central government. A large number of mainland soldiers, bureaucrats, teachers, police, and factory employees entered Taiwan; the NRA defense line was completely redeployed around the Taiwan Strait; and the intelligence systems, such as the Bureau of Investigation and Statistics, the Investigation Bureau, and the Garrison Command, fully landed in Taiwan. In June 1950, the Korean War broke out, and the U.S. Seventh Fleet moved into the Taiwan Strait, resulting in the CCP being unable to attack Taiwan by force. The Kuomintang regime unexpectedly gained international protection, and Taiwan turned from a refugee regime into a Cold War frontline ally. If there had been no Korean War, Taiwan might not have held out, and the Martial Law regime might not have survived for decades.

And Martial Law was because of a series of events that happened between 1945 and 1949. In 1945, the Kuomintang took over Taiwan, but performed extremely poorly, and public grievances accumulated rapidly. After Japan surrendered, Taiwan originally prepared to welcome the "motherland government," but in just a few months, Kuomintang officials were corrupt, the black market ran wild, prices exploded, the civil service system was unprofessional, NRA discipline was in chaos, and people’s livelihoods rapidly deteriorated; Taiwanese people's goodwill toward the mainland government collapsed.

On February 27, 1947, near the Taipei Circle, an inspector from the Monopoly Bureau discovered a Ms. Lin Jiang-mai selling private cigarettes. At that time, the inspector conducted a violent crackdown and injured her; the crowd angrily surrounded the inspector, and as a result, the inspector opened fire and killed a bystander. The next day, the public went to the Taiwan Broadcasting Company to protest, and as a result, another shooting occurred, and the crowd's emotions completely ignited. The incident escalated rapidly, and protests broke out in various places; people in cities across North, Central, and South Taiwan demanded the arrest of the shooters, the replacement of corrupt officials, and demanded autonomy and reform; students, lawyers, doctors, and merchants all participated. The call for autonomy soared, and the Taiwanese gentry established a settlement committee, proposing to open the Provincial Assembly, end military interference in administration, let Taiwanese people participate in governance, investigate corruption, and protect freedom of speech.

The Nationalist Government delayed and deceived, and then suppressed with force. The Chen Yi government appeared willing to negotiate, but at the same time sent secret telegrams requesting Nanjing to send troop reinforcements; intelligence units recorded lists of "insurgents" and viewed the Taiwanese elite as rebellious forces. Thus, the Nanjing central government decided in early March to quell Taiwan by military means. Chiang Kai-shek arrived at Keelung on March 8, and the 21st Division and three other units landed. After the army entered the city, they searched and arrested street by street, arrested suspects, and conducted executions or made them "disappear." And those who suffered were not just protesters, but also doctors, teachers, lawyers, students, business leaders, local gentry, journalists, and grassroots organizers. They were seen as potential leaders of organized rebellion, and the purpose of "clearing" them was to eliminate the local Taiwanese elite class so that the regime would no longer have challengers. The academic minimum estimate for the number of deaths is between 1,000 and 3,000, while Taiwanese scholars' estimates are between 10,000 and 20,000; contemporary analysis is higher but there is no official figure.

At this point, the ethnic rift was officially formed, and the Taiwanese people's fear and hostility toward the mainland regime were written into collective memory. The local elite were eliminated, and Kuomintang political power completely controlled Taiwan, having a profound impact on Taiwan’s political ecology. From then on, there were no local political leaders for decades; all power was grasped by mainland bureaucrats, society lost its opposition force, and a long-term culture of social fear was formed. For decades, one sentence was passed down in families: "Do not talk about political matters." And between 1947 and 1948, Communist underground organizations began to penetrate Taiwan; the CCP secretly established organizations in Taiwan: student clubs, worker organizations, underground propaganda, and democratic movement groups. Although the scale was not large, it was enough to make the Kuomintang panic. On May 19, 1949, the Taiwan Provincial Garrison Command issued the Martial Law Decree. Until Chiang Ching-kuo announced the end of Martial Law on July 15, 1987, it lasted a total of 38 years.

2) Martial Law

The Martial Law Decree implemented on May 19, 1949, was not a temporary emergency measure, but a long-term ruling mechanism covering every aspect of Taiwanese society. Martial Law brought almost unlimited power to the military, intelligence systems, and the government, and also let Taiwan enter an era of superficial peace but internal repression. During Martial Law, the Constitution was frozen, military law took priority, and national security became the highest law. The Constitution was regarded as "suspended," military courts were able to try civilians, searches, arrests, and interrogations could be done without search warrants, and all assemblies, associations, publications, and speeches had to be applied for; the government could arrest people at any time in the name of "endangering national security." Under such a legal structure, "breaking the law" was no longer an objective standard, but the government's judgment of whether you were "dangerous." The government could do anything, while the people could not do anything that would be suspected. The Taiwan Garrison Command was the core institution of the Martial Law era, with more authority than the Executive Yuan. It controlled publication censorship, household registration and immigration management, surveillance, reconnaissance, and interrogation, thought control in universities and schools, and dual supervision of military and civilians, as well as the detection of underground organizations and the trial of political cases. According to some oral histories/memoirs and researcher records, the authorities at certain times adopted large-scale intelligence and monitoring means, including household surveillance, where the family's member composition, living situation, kinship, occupation, and political tendency all had to be registered.

Both universities and high schools had military training instructors, mostly stationed by the intelligence system, used to monitor student clubs, censor lectures and activities, record students' political tendencies, and report "suspicious remarks"; students and teachers distrusted each other. Factories, schools, and government units all had voluntary informants. Newspapers, books, plays, movies, and advertisements could not appear freely. Newspapers had a fixed quota, and no new newspapers were allowed; they had to be submitted for review every day before publication; even songs and advertising copy could be banned; overseas publications sent into Taiwan had to be dismantled and inspected; almost all public narratives could only exist according to the needs of the regime. Under Martial Law, there was a curfew at night, IDs were checked at intersections at any time, letters might be opened, and going abroad was almost impossible; politics could not be talked about in public places, and families only dared to discuss privately in low voices. During the Martial Law period, a Mandarin policy was promoted; speaking Taiwanese, Hakka, or Indigenous languages was prohibited in schools and public places. Local languages and local culture were in a state of marginal repression. History education emphasized: We are the Republic of China, and we will counter-attack the mainland. Taiwanese people's local memories, Japanese colonial experiences, and ethnic narratives were systematically suppressed. Martial Law caused Taiwan to form a party-state unified polity; only the Kuomintang and a few "vase" parties existed; central representatives of the people were almost never replaced for life, opposition parties were illegal, elections were highly manipulated, and the media was completely Kuomintang-ized. Political opponents were not debated, but arrested.

Several cases caused a great sensation at the time, such as the Lei Chen case. Lei Chen was the founder of Free China magazine and was a very moderate, rational liberal. He advocated for constitutional reform, anti-corruption, and letting Taiwan move toward true democracy. But under the Martial Law system, Free China was ordered to stop publication, and Lei Chen was arrested on the charge of being a "communist spy" and was eventually sentenced to 10 years. The National Taiwan University Mathematics Department case: Several students, teaching assistants, and professors in the NTU Math Department, simply because they discussed politics, read leftist books, and corresponded with each other, were investigated by intelligence agencies for "thinking too far left." In the end, several students were arrested, some professors were forced to leave Taiwan, and everyone in the department lived in fear for many years. Political cases during the Martial Law period were largely mixed with fictional spies and unjust cases involving each other. In 1890, the home of lawyer Lin Yi-hsiung suffered a mass murder during the day; his mother and twin daughters were killed, and the killer has not been caught to this day. On that day, Garrison Command personnel were "monitoring" the Lin residence but claimed they did not discover any suspicious persons; society generally believed this was an assassination by the state machine used as a warning. In 1981, Chen Wen-cheng returned to Taiwan from the United States to visit relatives and was interviewed by the Garrison Command for participating in the overseas Taiwanese democratic movement. The next day, his body was discovered on the NTU campus. The official version was suicide, but the evidence was full of loopholes.

From the 1970s to the 80s, the United States gradually shifted from supporting anti-communist authoritarianism to supporting global democratization. The Carter administration, human rights diplomacy, and the loosening of authoritarian systems in South Korea and the Philippines all influenced Taiwan. At the same time, education in Taiwanese society was popularized, the middle class expanded, and urbanization was completed. The economic takeoff brought a new social structure: university graduates appeared in large numbers, urban life let people come into contact with information, and the working class began to form union consciousness; an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with censorship appeared in the press. Martial Law attempted to maintain the social structure of the 1950s, but Taiwan in the 1970s and 80s was no longer that Taiwan. In the late 1970s, opposition forces that did not belong to the Kuomintang appeared in Taiwan, such as dissenting candidates in elections, political circles composed of lawyers, journalists, and professors, and local social movements including environmental protection, labor, language, and culture; the "dangwai" (outside-the-party) magazine Meilidao (Formosa) became the core of thought exchange. In 1979, Meilidao magazine held a World Human Rights Day event in Kaohsiung, publicly challenging the Kuomintang's one-party dictatorship. The event was originally a legally applied assembly, but it evolved into the most historically significant conflict of the Martial Law era. The event site was originally set in the open space in front of the Kaohsiung Zhongzheng Road Circle; the organizers announced the theme was "Striving for Democracy, Striving for Human Rights." On that afternoon, thousands of people rushed from various places in the south; labor movements, peasant movements, and student groups quietly joined. Almost all major leaders of Meilidao were present, including Huang Hsin-chieh, Shih Ming-teh, Yao Chia-wen, Kang Ning-hsiang, Chang Chun-hung, Chen Chu, and Lin Yi-hsiung. This was the first time such an open and large-scale opposition collective action appeared in Taiwan, and its significance was great. The government, however, had already made full preparations; at that time, a large police force blockaded the area around the meeting site, undercover agents lurked in the crowd, and the Garrison Command and intelligence units monitored all "dangwai" figures.

That night, Meilidao leaders began to give speeches to the crowd, and the crowd's emotions grew higher and higher. The police blockaded the loudspeaker equipment and forcibly demanded dispersal on the grounds of "affecting traffic" and "lack of permission." During the standoff between the two sides, the police released tear gas into the crowd and pushed forward with shields. As a result, the public fought back, throwing stones and signboards; a serious chaos broke out on the spot, and Kaohsiung streets saw a scene of mass resistance rare in the Martial Law era; dozens of people and police were injured. After the incident happened, the Kuomintang regime immediately characterized this demonstration as "violent rebellion" and "subversive activities instigated by the CCP." Starting from December 13, the Meilidao editorial office was raided, almost all "dangwai" leaders were arrested, and all those arrested were transferred to military courts; outsiders were unable to visit, and the trial process was not public. Military prosecutors charged the defendants with "inciting rebellion," "organizing violent revolution," and "attempting to subvert the government." International media, Western countries, and human rights organizations condemned Taiwan one after another; the U.S. Congress applied pressure, Amnesty International intervened, and the global academic community expressed support. The Kuomintang regime, on one hand, had to maintain an authoritarian image, and on the other hand, feared international sanctions and diplomatic isolation, falling into a dilemma. Ultimately, several defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment or heavy sentences: Shih Ming-teh got life, and others were sentenced to 12–14 years. Nonetheless, this trial pushed "democracy, freedom, and human rights" into the public discourse of Taiwanese society on a large scale for the first time. The Meilidao Incident made Taiwanese people realize for the first time that opposition was not a crime and that striving for democracy was possible. This conflict pushed Taiwan from "authoritarian stability" toward the "eve of democracy."

3) The Zhongli Incident and Meilidao: Loosening of the One-Party Rule

On November 19, 1977, Taoyuan County held a county magistrate election under the Martial Law system. That year, Hsu Hsin-liang, who left the party to run, had high prestige in the locality, making Taoyuan the focus of the whole country. But on the afternoon of election day, suspected vote-rigging broke out at the Zhongli Elementary School polling station, which also became the fuse for the entire incident. According to reports at the time and various subsequent investigations, the principal responsible for supervising the polling station was accused by the public on the spot of obstructing the voting process and even stuffing ballots. What made people even more dissatisfied was that after the prosecutor arrived, he took away the people who reported the fraud for investigation but did not remove the accused principal from office. In the eyes of the crowd on site, this was the judicial and administrative units shielding those in power, with no fairness at all. This way of handling things immediately aroused stronger dissatisfaction, and the incident thus escalated step by step.

News spread rapidly in Zhongli, and more and more residents rushed to the polling station to demand clarification of the fraud. The police and the crowd had pushing and shoving matches and conflicts, and order began to go out of control. Late in the afternoon, some people began to throw stones at the polling station, and substantial violent behavior appeared for the first time. As the conflict expanded, the protest action spread all the way to the Zhongli Police Sub-bureau. By evening, thousands of people had surrounded the sub-bureau so tightly that water couldn't leak out. For Taiwan during the Martial Law period, this scale of election protest was very rare. The crowd demanded that the police explain the election dispute and investigate the behavior of relevant officials; some people threw stones at the sub-bureau and destroyed police cars on the spot, making the overall atmosphere even more tense. The police successively fired tear gas, trying to disperse the crowd, but there was no way to restore order at all. After seven o'clock at night, gunshots were heard at the scene. According to later investigations, at least three people were hit, of whom two died: National Central University student Jiang Wen-kuo and nineteen-year-old Zhongli youth Zhang Zhi-ping; another boy was seriously injured. The shooting incident caused the situation to go completely out of control and also became the key turning point in the development of this protest. Data from many years later showed that who gave the order to fire, who pulled the trigger, and how the responsibility was assigned always remained controversial and were included as a focus of transitional justice investigations.

After the shooting, the crowd's emotions deteriorated sharply. Many historical records show that the police force of the Zhongli Sub-bureau evacuated on a large scale at a certain point at night. Afterward, the sub-bureau building was damaged and set on fire. The fire lasted for more than two hours, burning down the main sub-bureau building, police dormitories, and nearby facilities. Under Martial Law control, most official reports at the time categorized the incident as "mob rioting." But subsequent academic research generally believes this was not simple destructive behavior, but the explosion of long-accumulated structural problems: election injustice, failure of legal procedures, the breakdown of trust between officials and the public, and a long-repressed backlash under authoritarian rule. After the incident subsided, to alleviate public grievances, the government decided to recount the votes in Taoyuan County. Hsu Hsin-liang ultimately won. This was seen by many studies as a forced concession by the state machine under pressure. The Zhongli Incident is thus often regarded as an important prelude to Taiwan's democratization: it was the first large-scale mass protest to break out due to election fraud after the war, and it also let society see the legitimacy crisis faced by the so-called "limited elections."

After the fact, scholars generally regard the Zhongli Incident as a precursor to the later Meilidao Incident and the street movements of the 1980s. It showed: Taiwanese society no longer passively accepted a one-dimensional authoritarian order, but began to question and challenge the abuse of state power. In the spring of 1980, the eight major "dangwai" leaders of Meilidao were tried in military court. This was a political trial under high international attention; American media, Congress, and human rights organizations were all involved. Although they were ultimately sentenced, the counter-effect was very obvious: the "dangwai" force was "legitimized," and the public for the first time clearly saw the core figures of the democratic movement; Taiwanese society regarded these people as "symbols of democracy," and authoritarian suppression instead cultivated the next generation of democratic leaders.

During the Meilidao trial, the home of Lin Yi-hsiung suffered a mass murder during the day; his mother and twin daughters were stabbed to death. At that time, the Lin residence was being "monitored" by the Garrison Command, yet it completely failed to prevent the murder. The case has not been solved to this day, and society generally believes it was political intimidation by the intelligence system. The impact of this incident was huge; the fear of authoritarianism in Taiwanese society reached its peak, and for the "dangwai" group, political reform had to succeed, otherwise someone would always suffer. Between 1981 and 1982 thereafter, political incidents such as the Chen Wen-cheng murder continued to accumulate. Among them, Chen Wen-cheng was a student studying in the U.S., as mentioned above; he returned to Taiwan from the U.S. at that time, was interviewed by the Garrison Command, and died on the NTU campus the next day. The official version claimed suicide, but it was full of loopholes. In the same period, there were also incidents of writers or dissenters disappearing or dying, causing society to further lose trust in the intelligence system. The legitimacy of the authoritarian government began to decline continuously from then on.

"Dangwai" figures began to establish long-term press conferences, lawyer groups, magazine groups, and campaign teams. Although Meilidao magazine was raided and banned, it left a huge intellectual influence. New magazines began to appear, such as Deep Plowing, Penglai Island, The Eighties, and Modern Women; they became the base for opposition thoughts. In 1984, the Chinese-American writer Henry Liu (Jiangnan) was assassinated in the U.S. by a gang under the command of the Taiwan Military Intelligence Bureau because he criticized the Chiang Ching-kuo regime. This was one of the most serious international scandals of the authoritarian system. After the U.S. FBI solved the case, the White House was furious and sent people to Taiwan to apply pressure; Chiang Ching-kuo had to handle the intelligence system. After this time, the Taiwan intelligence system was reorganized; Chiang Ching-kuo realized that authoritarianism was no longer stable, and the reformists within the party strengthened their voices; the international community understood that Taiwan's authoritarianism had come to an end.

4) Chiang Ching-kuo Promoted Democratization

Chiang Ching-kuo was born in 1910 in Xikou, Fenghua, the son of Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Fumei; his stepmother was later Soong Mei-ling. In 1925, he went to the Soviet Union to study and entered Moscow Sun Yat-sen University, which was a school for training Chinese revolutionary cadres in the Soviet Union; he received a Marxist-Leninist education and underwent strict political training. After the Kuomintang-Communist split, the Soviet Union "held" Chiang Ching-kuo to change his political position. During these ten years, he experienced ideological reform, forced labor, a life of poverty, and Soviet monitoring; he saw the operation of violent totalitarianism with his own eyes; these experiences shaped his deep understanding of intelligence systems, his belief in organizational iron fists, his high sensitivity to power, and his distrust of political idealism. Later, he married a Russian, Faina, in the Soviet Union; their marriage was simple and stable, and later Faina followed him to Taiwan, having an extremely low-profile personality. During the War of Resistance, Chiang Ching-kuo became Chiang Kai-shek's confidant; in the 1940s, he served as a commissioner and director in Jiangxi and Zhejiang, gradually taking control of the intelligence system, military discipline, and local administration. Especially the iron-fisted rule of the New Life Movement in Jiangxi made his reputation polarized. During the civil war, his power rose further. He was in charge of the personnel of the Bureau of Investigation and Statistics and was responsible for purging traitors, maintaining stability, and anti-communist propaganda. By 1949, when he moved to Taiwan with the Kuomintang, he was already the quasi-successor candidate.

From the 1950s to the 1960s, he successively took control of the Intelligence Bureau, the Investigation Bureau, the Garrison Command, and the Military Police system. He was not the only person responsible, but he was part of the top-level decision-making. The structure of terror rule in Taiwan—"arresting people without explanation, interrogation by torture, and military trials"—were all closely related to his high-pressure intelligence strategy. But at the same time, he was also an important driver during the period of economic development. He had a set of typical Soviet-style cadre management methods, but used them in Taiwan's industrialization, vigorously introducing technical bureaucrats, supporting the Ten Major Construction Projects, strengthening infrastructure such as highways, electricity, and water conservancy, promoting export-oriented industrialization, and severely cracking down on corruption. His political iron fist was combined with the technical bureaucratic system, which instead let Taiwan grow rapidly. He cracked down on black-gold factions but at the same time consolidated the party-state system, monopolized the media, did not re-elect central representative organs, suppressed the "dangwai," and maintained Martial Law. His relationship with Chiang Kai-shek also went from successor to actual decision-maker. In 1972, he became the Premier of the Executive Yuan, and in 1978, he became President. At this point, he formally grasped the highest power in Taiwan. And the decisions made by Chiang Ching-kuo in his later years completely changed Taiwan's history.

The 1979 Meilidao Incident made him realize that Taiwanese society had already modernized, the urban middle class had awakened, and further pressure would trigger a greater crisis. And the 1984 Jiangnan case, where Taiwan intelligence units assassinated the American writer Henry Liu, triggered a strong backlash from the United States and also led to the national security system being forced to reform. In order to let the regime continue to survive after there was no more Chiang family, and to avoid the Kuomintang being overthrown after his death, he decided to release social pressure, control the speed of transition, rebuild the legitimacy of the rule, introduce local and social forces, and at the same time improve the international image under external pressure. These motives drove him toward an end point he himself might not have thought of: institutionalized democracy. On September 28, 1986, "dangwai" figures held an open meeting at the Grand Hotel in Taipei. Although Taiwan was still in a state of Martial Law at that time and the ban on political parties had not yet been lifted, this occasion was not a secret gathering but was conducted in the form of a normal political assembly; a large amount of media was invited to be present, and intelligence personnel observed in the vicinity. The entire event was stable and orderly from beginning to end, with no conflict or interference.

When the convention began, it was presided over by a senior "dangwai" people's representative, who explained to the attendees the purpose of the day: hoping to formally establish a political party with a charter and organizational structure on the basis of the existing "dangwai" movement. This explanation was conducted in the manner of normal meeting procedures, with a solemn but calm atmosphere. Next, they entered the explanation and passage of the draft party program. The party program had been discussed through multiple meetings before the convention; its content revolved around principles such as democratic constitutionalism, protection of human rights, political reform, ending the long-term mobilization system, and promoting local autonomy. On the day of the convention, it mainly involved reading the text, giving a brief explanation, and confirming the passage by a show of hands. This procedure was completed very quickly, without any controversy or long discussions.

After the party program passed, the convention turned to the draft party charter. The party charter stipulated the organizational structure of the political party, including membership qualifications, the system of national and local party headquarters, the operation of committees, and financial and disciplinary norms. The draft had similarly been completed before the convention; the procedure on the day was mainly based on reading, explanation, and unanimous passage, and no obstacles or amendment disputes were encountered. Attendees generally put the focus on the formal establishment of the political party rather than detailed debates on the charter. After passing the party program and the party charter, the convention entered the most core agenda: establishing the "Democratic Progressive Party Preparatory Committee" and electing the members of the preparatory committee. The meeting elected a set of preparatory committee members, with Huang Hsin-chieh, an experienced "dangwai" leader who had support from all sides, serving as the chairman of the preparatory committee. This decision had a high degree of consensus among the attendees and also reflected the trust within the "dangwai" movement at the time toward Huang Hsin-chieh. Immediately, Huang Hsin-chieh, in his capacity as the chairman of the preparatory committee, announced at the convention that "The Democratic Progressive Party is formally established." This announcement process was simple and direct, without exaggerated rituals or specially designed proclamations, but it marked a critical moment in the history of Taiwan’s political structure. Attendees responded with applause, and the atmosphere was solemn and restrained, without fanaticism or external tension.

After the announcement of establishment, the preparatory committee explained to the media and attendees the next tasks, including the organization of local party headquarters, the method of member recruitment, the planning for the future operation of central party affairs, and the possible amendment procedures for the party program and party charter in the future. These explanations were mainly based on the direction of principles; detailed work was expected to unfold in the months following the establishment convention. The latter part of the activity was conducted by the media for interviews. Reporters asked about the political significance of the establishment, the possible reaction of the government, and the direction of future elections and organizational layout. "Dangwai" figures answered under a roughly consistent tone, emphasizing the importance of democratic reform and open operation. The meeting ultimately ended smoothly. There were no dispersals, interferences, power cuts, or arrests on that day, and no chaos occurred. Although intelligence personnel recorded in the vicinity, they never intervened. The form and procedures of the convention completely complied with the model of a statutory political meeting, only that the party ban was still in effect at that time, so the act of establishment was technically still illegal. The actual attitude of the government was to acquiesce to this act continuing.

5) Lifting of Martial Law

On October 25, 1971, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 2758, recognizing the government of the People’s Republic of China as the "only legitimate representative of China in the United Nations" and deciding to expel the "representatives of Chiang Kai-shek" from the UN system. The text of the resolution itself did not discuss Taiwan’s international legal status, nor did it rule on "who Taiwan belongs to"; what it solved was the problem of representation, not the problem of sovereignty. But in institutional results, the Republic of China lost all seats in the UN from then on and was excluded from the UN system. This result was not an isolated incident, but a product of the overlay of multiple structural changes. In the 1950s and 1960s, as the wave of decolonization progressed, a large number of newly independent Asian and African countries joined the UN. The member structure of the UN gradually turned from originally having the post-war Allied countries as the core to having third-world countries as the majority. Among these new member states, a considerable portion chose to recognize the Beijing government and did not accept Taiwan's claim of "representing all of China." Under this voting structure, the Republic of China gradually fell into a minority position. Changes in the Cold War pattern also accelerated this shift. In the late 1960s, the United States was deeply stuck in the quagmire of the Vietnam War, Sino-Soviet relations worsened, and the United States began to re-evaluate its Asian strategy. Against this background, the United States tried to restrain the Soviet Union through contact with Beijing. In July 1971, Kissinger used a visit to Pakistan as cover to travel secretly to Beijing via Islamabad and talk with Zhou Enlai. This action was strictly kept secret from the U.S. State Department system, the Taiwan authorities, and most allies at the time, marking the substantive ice-breaking of Sino-U.S. relations.

In February 1972, Nixon formally visited China, met with Mao Zedong, and issued the Shanghai Communiqué. In the communiqué, the U.S. "acknowledged" the Chinese side’s position that "there is only one China and Taiwan is a part of China," but deliberately avoided using "recognize," thereby retaining strategic ambiguity in diplomacy. The U.S. side expressed it as "not challenging this position," while the Beijing side accepted the U.S. side's arrangement to maintain unofficial relations with Taiwan in the short term. At the same time, the Republic of China government rejected "dual representation" or the compromise plan of "only representing Taiwan," insisting on the position of "representing all of China." In Chiang Kai-shek's political logic, once the "China representation" was given up, it was equivalent to denying the fundamental legitimacy of the regime. Therefore, rather than accepting a downgrade in status, it was better to withdraw entirely. This choice institutionally cut off the possibility of Taiwan continuing to stay within the UN system.

By the late 1970s, this narrative system encountered a real structural disintegration. Losing the UN seat in 1971, and the United States establishing diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China and breaking diplomatic relations with the Republic of China in 1979, caused the three pillars originally supporting Taiwan's official narrative—"representing China," "the historical mission of counter-attacking the mainland," and "the international community will ultimately support us"—to collapse one after another. The state still existed, but the question of "who do we represent and on what basis do we represent" appeared within society in an unavoidable form for the first time. This change weakened the international legitimacy foundation of the mainland ruling group. The local Taiwanese society began to raise new questions: If you no longer represent China, then on what basis do you represent Taiwanese society itself? The source of ruling legitimacy began to turn from the "legitimate government of China" to "whether it responds to the local society."

Meanwhile, the U.S. policy environment toward Taiwan also underwent a shift. In the 1950s–1960s, the main criterion for the U.S. to judge allies was whether they were anti-communist; as long as the position was consistent, military dictatorships, long-term Martial Law, and systematic suppression were often selectively ignored. Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, and South Vietnam were all under this logic. But in the 1970s, the United States experienced the shock of the Vietnam War failure, the Watergate scandal, and the civil rights movement; the domestic political culture changed, vigilance against the abuse of power rose, and human rights gradually became a diplomatic language that could be used institutionally. During the Carter administration, human rights were explicitly included in the institutional framework of U.S. foreign policy. The State Department began to periodically issue human rights reports for various countries, and the Congress required the executive branch to accept oversight of allies' human rights practices. This change was not a moral awakening, but a result of the transformation of political culture and governance logic. For Taiwan, this meant that U.S. support was no longer unconditional: suppression behavior would generate diplomatic costs, and the problem of political prisoners would enter the bilateral agenda.

The 1979 Meilidao Incident aroused the attention of American media, members of Congress, and human rights organizations, which was almost unimaginable in the 1950s. The Chiang Ching-kuo government gradually realized: the United States would no longer provide a total endorsement for high-pressure rule, and continuous suppression would only further compress the international space. The human rights issue would not disappear on its own but became a long-term constraint. Before this, the social structure of Taiwan had already undergone profound changes. Starting from the 1960s, Taiwan turned to export-oriented industrialization, introduced foreign capital, and developed processing and manufacturing, with the Kaohsiung Export Processing Zone as a representative. The state dominated the allocation of land, finance, and labor, kept labor costs low, and strictly controlled unions, exchanging political stability for economic growth. This model was efficient in the short term but changed the social structure in the long term. The agricultural society transitioned toward an industrial society, and the young population entered the cities in large numbers; the influence of clans and local gentry declined. Factories, science parks, and urban office systems shifted interpersonal relations from blood and geography toward professional and social networks. People began to rely mainly on wages and skills to live, rather than political loyalty or state distribution.

The middle class expanded accordingly, including engineers, civil servants, teachers, technical personnel, and white-collar groups. They did not rely on black-box politics to survive, did not need a revolution, but also found it hard to accept total control. What they demanded was the predictability of rules, professional dignity, and space for speech. Educational expansion further strengthened this trend. The number of universities increased, and a large number of students went to the U.S. and Europe, coming into contact with elections, civil society, and freedom of speech. Even if they did not directly oppose the regime, they knew clearly: the world did not have to operate only in this way. Between 1980 and 1987, political loosening had already unfolded in fact. Political prisoners had sentences reduced or were released, the intelligence system no longer conducted total arrests, and opposition magazines were no longer all banned. The establishment of the DPP in 1986 without being banned marked a substantive loosening of the institutional boundary. On July 15, 1987, the government of the Republic of China formally announced the abolition of the Martial Law decree that had been implemented since 1949 and had lasted for 38 years—this was one of the longest-lasting Martial Laws in Asia at the time. After Martial Law was lifted, new newspapers appeared legally, different political positions were able to be expressed publicly, and the government no longer monopolized the power of explaining reality. At this point, authoritarian rule lost final control over the social narrative.