Human rights, a symbol for a new Taiwan

Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China (ROC) is a semi-recognised sovereign state with an independent government but limited recognition state in East Asia with only 11 UN member states recognising it by the time of writing.1 Even though the name China appears on the name of Taiwan, the Taiwanese residents today, especially the younger generation see themselves as ‘Taiwanese’ rather than ‘Chinese’ despite the ROC being a remnant of the Chinese Civil War from 1945 to 1949 where the ruling Nationalist party (KMT) lost and established a rival government to the Communists (CCP).2 To understand this phenomenon of Taiwanese identity shift, this blog will explore the two sites managed by the National Human Rights Museum established in 2018. This blog argues that the construction of human rights-themed museums builds onto the Taiwanese identity to showcase to the outside world that they are different from authoritarian Mainland China as an indirect form of protest against the ‘Chinese’ identity being forced upon Taiwanese residents. The blog will start by contextualising the argument through a brief account of the recent history of Taiwan. Next, the Green Island Memorial managed by the National Human Rights Museum will be analysed. Finally,  a concise comparison of the museum with the Japan-British exhibition will be used as a discussion of the theme of museums and exhibits.

Taiwan or Formosa is an island located off the coast of Fujian, China separated by the Taiwan Strait. From 1895 to 1945, as a result of the Qing defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan became a colony of the Japanese Empire, seeing industrialisation and exploitation of Taiwanese resources for the Japanese war effort.3 In 1945 at the onset of the surrender of the Japanese, Taiwan was to become under the administration of the ROC, which at the time controlled Mainland China as well. However, with the onslaught of the Chinese Civil War and the defeat of the KMT under Chaing Kai-shek at the hands of the CCP led by Mao Zedong, the KMT established their government in Taipei, with the goal of eventually reconquering the Mainland.4 Under KMT rule until 1989, forms of opposition or suspicion of being communist spies were a target for arrests and execution, and any form of Taiwanese separatism, speaking Taiwanese Hokkien or praising the Japanese were seen as treason and a breach of national security reinforced by Martial Law.5 This policy was in line with the KMT policy to instil a sense of Chinese identity in the Taiwanese population to eventually retake the Mainland, and to promote itself as the ‘true China’. Fast forward to 1987, Taiwan lifted Martial Law and free elections were held, causing Taiwan to flourish as a young democracy.6 This has allowed for a broader room of discussion for topics that used to be banned such as Taiwanese identity, democracy, human rights, and free speech. This democratising environment eventually culminated in the 2000 presidential election of Chen-Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which promote a Taiwanese identity distinct from the Chinese-centric KMT, hence marking a shift in Taiwan’s history.7 Since 2000, Taiwan has become an established democracy with the KMT and DPP constantly vying for power with some notable cases of brawling in the Legislative Yuan (Taiwan’s parliament). 

Under DPP administrations, the government has pushed for the introduction of liberal values that distanced itself from China. The promotion of human rights is a major policy for the Taiwanese government. The DPP administrations under Chen-Shui-bian (2000-2008) and Tsai Ing-wen (2016-2023) have pushed for a Taiwanese-centered identity which aimed to promote a Taiwan-centered society and de-Sinicise the education system.8 The establishment of the National Human Rights Museum in 2017 was a milestone in Taiwan’s quest to distance itself from an ever-aggressive China. According to the museum’s official website, it took over 15 years of donations from organisations and countless legislative obstacles to establish the museum managing two former sites used to imprison KMT political opponents to educate the public about the importance of freedom and reflecting on past mistakes. ( (https://www.nhrm.gov.tw/w/nhrm/Introduction )) This demonstrates how the Taiwanese government under the DPP tried to establish former spaces of oppression to promote new Taiwanese values. I believe this was done to counter the growing assertiveness of the Chinese government in claiming Taiwan for itself.

The Green Island Human Rights Park was a former prison used to imprison political opponents during the Martial Law era and is now a museum site under the administration of the National Human Rights Museum. Located in Taitung prefecture on the east coast of the island, this 32 acre site used to be a former prison that housed activists who challenged the government.9 By turning the site into a museum that commemorated the victims of the KMT regime, it demonstrates a power shift. Under the DPP administration, the KMT past, especially the era under Martial Law was seen as a period where innocent Taiwanese were imprisoned because of promoting free speech created a new discourse that the KMT and China were foreign invaders of Taiwan and were not native to the land. This shows how the DPP is attempting to construct a discourse of Taiwanese identity that aims to distance itself from China in light of the heightened tensions across the Taiwan Strait. As China is increasing its crackdown on human rights and individual freedoms, Taiwan sees itself as the bastion of freedom against the communist regime across the Straits. By coming to terms with the past human rights abuses and promoting a sense of Taiwanese identity, this museum exhibit aims to educate the public that human rights is an important aspect of post-Martial Law Taiwan. By directly turning a former site of political oppression into a site that educates the public on values of democracy, it demonstrates that the government under the DPP is attempting to create a discourse that the past KMT-centered government is responsible for numerous atrocities and that the Taiwanese identity is central to a new discourse. This showcases how the DPP aims to construct that the new Taiwan was born under the abandonment of the China-centric approach by the KMT, solidifying the political narrative. With museums, it is an effective measure to promote to the public as it uses summarised and condensed narratives on how particular political progress is achieved.

In comparison to the Japan-British Exhibition of 1910, the transformation of the Green Island Museum draws parallels. The Japan-British Exhibition of 1910 aimed to promote Japan’s imperialism and justify having an empire over territories like Taiwan and Korea whereas the Taiwan one aimed to promote human rights as part of national identity construction.10 Similar to how the Japanese wanted to project their empire to the West, the Taiwanese aimed to use the human rights museums to promote that they are in line with the West in democracy against the authoritarian China much like how the Japanese did 100 years ago. In short, although there is a 100 year gap between my elective reading and the example used in this elective reading, fitting in with Western values often signify a sign of civilisation, in which colonised populations hope to achieve and become a part of it.

 

  1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-67978185 [↩]
  2. https://tw.news.yahoo.com/%E6%B0%91%E8%AA%BF-76-7-%E8%87%AA%E8%AA%8D%E6%98%AF%E5%8F%B0%E7%81%A3%E4%BA%BA-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E8%AA%8D%E5%90%8C%E5%B7%B2%E7%B6%93%E5%80%8B%E4%BD%8D%E6%95%B8-044006112.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMa3tYOVvzOCVYWYQfcdY3JVR-V-tDwjxGpcmLNCusfFh3acFRPJnKI5hcA0YdS4FewkhElwHzleI0hXC2-GpoAqhJot16047_x8OV8yv60InDnCCx9klHRCio-zR7lo2ARrRFLe1ectntl9KfRXnPIDxrR2mlNEwNAhxYR8jAVQ [↩]
  3. Dawley, Evan Becoming Taiwanese: Ethnogenesis in a Colonial City 1880s-1950s  [↩]
  4. Manthorpe, Jonathan, Taiwan: Forbidden nation  [↩]
  5. TIEN, HUNG-MAO, and CHYUAN-JENG SHIAU. “Taiwan’s Democratization: A Summary.” World Affairs, vol. 155, no. 2, 1992, pp. 58–61. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20672340. Accessed 4 Feb. 2024. [↩]
  6. TIEN, H.-M., & SHIAU, C.-J. (1992). Taiwan’s Democratization: A Summary. World Affairs, 155(2), 58–61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20672340 [↩]
  7. CHANG, BI-YU. “From Taiwanisation to De-Sinification: Culture Construction in Taiwan since the 1990s.” China Perspectives, no. 56, 2004, pp. 34–44. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24051939. Accessed 4 Feb. 2024. [↩]
  8. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/12/29/taiwan-questions-the-role-of-chinese-literature-and-history-in-education_6384023_4.html [↩]
  9. https://www.nhrm.gov.tw/w/nhrm/GI_History [↩]
  10. Hotta-Lister, A. The Japan-British Exhibition of 1910: Gateway to the Island Empire of the East. 1 edition. Richmond: Routledge, 1999. [↩]
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