4 ms·

"Democracy Wall" writers in this transition period referred to the example of Taiwan as a basis for criticizing the Communist Party regime in China. So China h

"Democracy Wall" writers in this transition period referred to the example of Taiwan as a basis for criticizing the Communist Party regime in China. So China had no choice but to loosen economic regulation and tacitly reject orthodox Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist doctrine to catch up to Taiwan. I agree with the original article's limited claims about market reforms, but since you seem to reference more than economic reform: China only made the market reforms, and politically, Taiwan was still at the time, an authoritarian, one-party Leninist state. Many Chinese Communists were former members of the Kuomintang and their similarities weren't just superficial; they both learned their bag of tricks--propaganda, how to organize their party-state-military structure, how to suppress dissent, how to control the larger population--from the Soviets. To this very day, Taiwan still has political military officers stationed at all public high schools and colleges (though thankfully their role has changed a lot). If Taiwan was showing China anything, it was that they could keep around the party and the authoritarianism and open up their markets at the same time. As you are well-aware, martial law wasn't lifted until 1987 and Taiwan wasn't even really anything you could even nominally call democracy until the 90s. So basically 1) Taiwan was still Leninist and 2) I don't get what the Democracy Wall writers are inspired by when Taiwan wasn't a democracy then. Ironically, one foundation for economic prosperity in Taiwan was the land reform the Kuomintang copied--although they would not admit it--from the Communists and implemented after they occupied Taiwan after World War II. They forced all the big landlords at gunpoint to trade in their land for largely worthless stock in state-owned companies. Prior to that, much of the population were landless tenant farmers. The possibilities for entrepreneurship change quite a bit when you go from being a tenant farmer to a small time farmer with your own land.

tokenadult 17y ago
You are correct that 1) Taiwan was a dictatorship at the time China made its economic transformation (I lived there at the time) and 2) Taiwan's land reform was forced on the landlords. But I have studied the history of the Taiwan land reform from several sources, and it wasn't based on a model copied from the Communist Party of China. As you wrote, "The possibilities for entrepreneurship change quite a bit when you go from being a tenant farmer to a small time farmer with your own land." That end result is quite a bit different from what happened in China. Responding to pg above, the political control that the KMT had in the late 1970s is why Taiwan, even more than Hong Kong, was a model for China's loosening of control on the economy while keeping control of politics. But even in the late 1970s, while Taiwan was literally a Leninist dictatorship under the KMT, it was already a much freer place with much more rule of law than China was until much later (or has ever been in my lifetime?). And that is what inspired Democracy Wall writers as early as the 1970s, not only Taiwan's prosperity. Taiwan did make a transition into full multiparty democracy during the 1990s (and I saw several elections while I lived there around the turn of the last century), and that is a transformation the Communist Party of China still fears and resists. But maybe that will be the result of peaceful evolution of the political-economic system of China soon, on the model of most neighboring countries.
- jimmybot 17y ago
  Fair enough--I should have said inspired by rather than wholesale copied. I do see a remarkable parallel there between the KMT having lost one country due in part to extreme economic disparity, redistributes wealth to maintain control in a second; and the later economic disparity you eloquently describe between China and Taiwan that inspires the reverse.

tokenadult 17y ago

You are correct that 1) Taiwan was a dictatorship at the time China made its economic transformation (I lived there at the time) and 2) Taiwan's land reform was forced on the landlords. But I have studied the history of the Taiwan land reform from several sources, and it wasn't based on a model copied from the Communist Party of China. As you wrote, "The possibilities for entrepreneurship change quite a bit when you go from being a tenant farmer to a small time farmer with your own land." That end result is quite a bit different from what happened in China. Responding to pg above, the political control that the KMT had in the late 1970s is why Taiwan, even more than Hong Kong, was a model for China's loosening of control on the economy while keeping control of politics. But even in the late 1970s, while Taiwan was literally a Leninist dictatorship under the KMT, it was already a much freer place with much more rule of law than China was until much later (or has ever been in my lifetime?). And that is what inspired Democracy Wall writers as early as the 1970s, not only Taiwan's prosperity. Taiwan did make a transition into full multiparty democracy during the 1990s (and I saw several elections while I lived there around the turn of the last century), and that is a transformation the Communist Party of China still fears and resists. But maybe that will be the result of peaceful evolution of the political-economic system of China soon, on the model of most neighboring countries.

jimmybot 17y ago
Fair enough--I should have said inspired by rather than wholesale copied. I do see a remarkable parallel there between the KMT having lost one country due in part to extreme economic disparity, redistributes wealth to maintain control in a second; and the later economic disparity you eloquently describe between China and Taiwan that inspires the reverse.