The Martial Law was imposed in Taiwan in 1949 along with the Wartime Temporary Provisions and at the same time the Constitution was suspended (Hsiao and Hsiao, 2001: 4). Along came prohibition formation of new political parties, and it gave the secret police, which had wide-ranging powers to arrest anyone voicing criticism of government policy (International Committee for Human Rights in Taiwan, 1987: 3). Accordingly, the process of liberalization was long over due.
The main aspiration of the Kuomintang (KMT) officials of enacting the Martial Law was that they wanted Taiwan to become bastion for the future recovery of mainland People’s Republic of China (Chao and Myers, 2000: 387). If the communist regime would ever lose support and collapse, the Republic of China (ROC) party would restore its governance over the mainland of China. Consequently, the immediate concern of the new government was to prevent communist subversion and Taiwanese nationalism from undermining ROC governance over the Taiwan province (ibid). In order to achieve these goals, the ROC government and ruling KMT suspended any activities that might have weakened their authority by adjourning civil liberties, e.g. equality between the political sphere and social sphere, right to life corrupted by the Martial Law, freedom of speech banned and right to assembly banned (Suomen Vartioliikkeitten Liitto ry, 2008: 61). This they did as early as 19th May 1949, when Taiwan’s governor, Chen Cheng, imposed the Martial Law and began establishing the legal and bureaucratic criticism or threat to public order in case of sedition (Chao and Myers, 2000: 387-388). Under the law and adjudicate individuals would be charged by a military court, and if found guilty either imprison or ...
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...rk do reconstruct the context of the state of exception. During the Martial Law the state of exception was employed indirectly into the Taiwanese social sphere through the foreign policy that created a fragmentation of the political sphere and the social sphere. This undermined the Taiwanese society by shifting the social sphere into the zone of exception. Similar with the National Security Law, except it affected directly the civilians by limiting their rights by translating them into the zone of the exception where they were regarded neither juridically nor politically. As a result, this situation could be understood, as Diamond (2011: 21) posits, that democracy is lost as the level of freedom is in decline due to the bad governance as it does not grant full-fledged civil rights instead keeps civilians in the sphere of exception in case of the public resistance.
The Political Turmoil of China From 1911 to 1927 There were many reasons why China slipped into political instability or turmoil between 1911 and 19287. There reasons include the questionable leadership of Yuan Shih Kai, the presence of the warlords, the One of the reasons was that questionable leadership of Yuan Shih Kai. When Yuan took over control from Sun Yat Sen as the President, he tried to revert to the monarchical system of rule. From 1912 until 1915, he ruled as a military dictator with the support of the army. His rule was already blemished with resistance and that demonstrated that the people did not quite accept him as the leader of China.
Kelman, Herbert C., Hamilton, V. Lee. “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience”. Writing & Reading for ACP Composition. Ed. Thomas E. Leahey and Christine R. Farris. New York: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2009. 266-277. Print.
Ever since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the legitimacy of the revolution of which it was built upon has perennially been in question. For example, in a 1999 issue of the International Herald Tribune, a prestigious scholar claimed that all of China’s tragedies are ‘sustained by a mistaken belief in the correctness of the 1949 revolution’ and that the future progress of China depends on the recognition that the revolution was a failure. However, the CCP government was certainly not perfect and its most significant failures were its political failures such as the Anti-rightist movement and the Cultural Revolution and also economic failures such as the great leap forward. Millions of peoples were falsely accused and persecuted during the political movements of the Mao period as the CCP focused on class struggle instead of economic development during the period and tens of Millions of peoples died due to starvation as there were widespread food shortages during the great leap forward movement.
Everyday people in China are suffering from their government. From being wrongly accused to being executed for petty crimes. In a country where you cannot speak your opinions, talk poorly about government officials, speak about Chinese communist failures, or even browse the internet freely. China has kept its citizens in the void. One example is the great firewall of china, which sensors most social media and other sites. This essay will go into some individual stories of the Chinese government's unfair social injustices towards its people.
Walder, Andrew G. The Beijing Red Guard Movement: Fractured Rebellion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
Rae Yang’s Memoir “Spider Eaters” is a poignant personal story of a girl growing up amidst the political upheaval during the establishment of People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong’s Communist leadership. Yang describes the fascinating journey of her life from her early years as the daughter of Chinese diplomats in Switzerland to a student in an elite middle school then a fanatic Red-guard and eventually a laborer in a pig farm. Her experiences through the revolution serve as an eye-opener and lead to her eventual disillusionment of the Communist revolution in China. There are many factors that contributed to her growing discontent with communism such as the anti-rightist movement which was an effort to rule out any criticism against the government, corruption and violence of the party leaders who abused their power and continued to exploit the peasants, the false claim of proletariat dictatorship used merely to eradicate bourgeoisie and further the interests of party members.
The spread of Communism and its ideals significantly increased during the final stages of the Chinese Civil War which intensified after the Second World War and resulted in a victory to the Communists in October 1949. At this time, the majority of the provinces in China were led by either the GMD or the CCP. However, the civilians in the GMD-ruled cities were suffering rapid inflation, strikes, violence and riots which led to a collapse of public order. Adding to this instability, corruption was rife within the Nationalist party’s lead...
China’s ruling party at the time was the Kuomintang (KMT). They had toppled the Qing emperor, but they were unable to truly unite the country. In 1923, the KMT and the CCP briefly allied to defeat the warlords in Northern China, but this was not an alliance that we meant to last; the KMT leader Chia...
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78, no. 1, pp. 137-146. 5 (3), 27-45, http://www.politicalperspectives.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Sino-US-relations1.pdf 9. Wang, Hui, “U.S.-China: Bonds and Tensions”, RAND Corporation, 257-288, n.d., http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1300/MR1300.ch12.pdf 10. Yuan, Jing- Dong, “Sino-US Military Relations Since Tiananmen: Restoration, Progress, and Pitfalls”, Spring 2003, http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/articles/03spring/yuan.pdf 11. Yan, Xuetong. "
people on to the side of the CCP. The CCP’s victory was also down to
Steinberg, David I., and Donald N. Clark. "Review of The Kwangju Uprising: Shadows over the Regime in South Korea." The Journal of Asian Studies 47.3 (1988): 662-63. Print.
Zhao, S., (2003), ‘Political Liberalization without Democratization: Pan Wei’s proposal for political reform’ Journal of Contemporary China, 12(35): 333–355.
The 1911 Revolution kicked out the Qing Dynasty and broke the barriers to different developments in China. However, the 1911 Revolution has only provided a framework of a republic and made changes in some particular aspects related to immediate problems and difficulties in society. Hence, the relationship between the revolution and the subsequent development of China was very weak. On one hand, I do not agree with the latter part of the statement that the 1911 Revolution brought new problems to China. The conflicts and problems that China suffered in the early/ mid 1910s were mainly due to the weakness of the military force, conflicting political organizations and disorder in society. On the other hand, I agree with the first part of the statement that the 1911 Revolution did not bring peace to China afterwards. In the following paragraphs, I am going to focus on explaining the reasons of emerging new problems in China and also illustrate my points on the factors of the 1911 Revolution which could not bring in peace to China related to the conditions of the country.