PS 111 Taiwan Lecture
PS 111 Taiwan Lecture
PS 111 Taiwan Lecture
KMT NEO-CONFUCIANISM
- KMT’s revival of Confucian values in Taiwan resulted to: relatively loose control over society
and efficiency in promoting economic growth.
- KMT catered {new} conservative cultural policy out of traditional cultural elements.
- Chinese Nationalism, Political loyalty, and Chiang Kai-shek cult personality were
propagandized through state-controlled communications and education channel to combat
cosmopolitan liberalism and local political culture.
SUNISM
- KMT’S official ideology, the political philosophy of Doctor Sun Yat-sen in the early 20th
century.
- Sunism advocated for Chinese Nationalism, gradual evolution to democracy and state socialism
for the benefit of people’s livelihood.
-Sun, baptized as Christian and trained as medical doctor- admires western science & liberalism
but cherished cultural legacies of Chinese Confucianism.
Upon Sun’s death in 1925, KMT was internally divided by left-wing and right-wing forces both
claiming legitimate interpretation of Sunism.
- Right-wing was cultural traditionalists, who envisioned national unity under a tutelary state.
- Left-wing aimed at national liberation through a workers and peasant movement
- KMT made a pragmatic use of Sunism to justify its anti-communist crusade and domination of
native society.
- Nationalism therefore means submission to the US-imposed cold war world order (anti-
communist and liberal)
- The gradual move towards democracy meant electoral procedures could be indefinitely
postponed.
- Claim for people’s livelihood justified ownership and land reform, deciminating native class of
industrialists, managers & landlords.