Amid the clamor for "Taiwan independence," the DPP is a very eye-catching term.
Born in the mid-1980s, the party quickly grew to become the largest local party in the region, rivaling the Kuomintang, which had previously controlled the local political situation.
Looking back at the past, these taiwanese past events have fully demonstrated how the DPP rose to prominence and then gradually became the largest party in Taiwan.
After the two Chiang kai-shek eras
As we all know, since the Kuomintang retired to Taiwan in 1949, the power to control the whole island has been firmly in the hands of Chiang Kai-shek himself.
Before retiring to Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek made far-reaching preparations and cultivation in the fields of manpower, finance, and materials, and when he arrived in Taiwan, the first thing he did was to examine the original residents of the island and a large number of personnel who had accompanied the army to Taiwan.
The matter was entrusted to Chiang Ching-kuo himself.
On the one hand, it is true that this matter is highly valued and must be handed over to the most trusted people, the so-called "father and son soldiers"; On the other hand, it is also to let Chiang Ching-kuo go through the training first, in preparation for a good succession in the future.
It is said that in 1949 alone, tens of thousands of taiwanese residents were arrested and censored, and a large number of those who entered Taiwan with the army were also "cleared."
These moves, of course, were intended to consolidate power and further exacerbate the conflict between the Kuomintang and the residents of the main island of Taiwan.
Sure enough, after Chiang Kai-shek's death on April 5, 1975, Chiang Ching-kuo took over power without wind or waves.
In order to create a "filial piety" personality to inherit his father's aspirations, Chiang Ching-kuo first carried out a funeral in a big way, and nearly a hundred gendarme vehicles were used to open the road in just one spiritual transfer ceremony.
Next, he declared that he was extremely sad and "mourned his bones", not only did he have a beard to mourn, but he even falsely proposed to resign from his position as "chief executive".
Of course, his resignation was stopped by many people, and eventually Chiang Ching-kuo successfully ascended to the throne and held power until he died of illness, which was later called the "Two Chiang Era".
38 years of martial law
On the surface, the period when "Little Chiang" came to power was similar to that of "Old Chiang," and they all firmly grasped power and did not easily fake hands on others, firmly holding the control of the entire Island of Taiwan in their own hands.
But in fact, since the restoration of Taiwan in 1945, the Kuomintang has left the impression of "less than a pot of urine" in the perspective of local residents in Taiwan.
This kind of cognition gradually fermented later, and was constantly hyped up by "Taiwan independence" elements, becoming a catalyst for Taiwan's separatist tendencies.
The reason was that the Kuomintang was exercising economic control and political suppression of Taiwan, and Chen Yi, who had been demoted on behalf of the Kuomintang and had served as chief executive for a long time, openly put on the lips such remarks that "Taiwanese are not suitable for holding middle and high-level public offices."
Coupled with the corruption of the Kuomintang members and the abolition of military discipline, this eventually led to the "228" incident that broke out in 1947.
Since then, Taiwan has begun a 38-year period of martial law, enforcing a variety of strict regulations such as party bans, newspaper bans, and sea bans, and at the same time using military and police special controls on society.
Due to the adoption of the system of sitting together, situations such as killing good people and risking merit appear from time to time, and from time to time people will suddenly disappear, which later generations call Taiwan's "white terror" period.
Due to the above reasons, Taiwanese society has gradually formed a position gap between people from this province and people from other provinces, and it is not only difficult for the two sides to achieve identity between each other, but also gradually evolve into a mentality similar to that of "oppressor" and "oppressed".
It is precisely in this context that the DPP's predecessor, the "Non-Party Support Association," took advantage of the momentum to grow and grew, taking "democracy" and "Taiwan independence" as its demands, and attracted the support of a large number of Taiwanese people of Southern Fujian descent.
The Democratic Progressive Party was born
In 1978, Taiwan and the United States "severed diplomatic relations," and the non-party movement also took advantage of this to surface and stir up waves, gradually showing signs that the Kuomintang could not suppress it.
The "Formosa Formosa Incident" at the end of 1979 was regarded as the climax of the non-party movement, and many well-known figures such as Shi Mingde, Huang Xinjie, Lin Yixiong, Annette Lu, Yao Jiawen, Chen Ju and others were involved, and many people were imprisoned for this.
The leader, Shi Mingde, was sentenced to life imprisonment, and his actual imprisonment lasted more than 26 years, and he also promised himself "Mandela of Taiwan".
Annette Lu, one of the elders of the Dpp known as "Emerald," was originally a member of the Kuomintang, and later came into close contact with overseas "Taiwan independence" forces during her study in the United States, thus becoming the starting point for her turn to "Taiwan independence."
The magazine Formosa Boulevard and its spin-offs became an opportunity for non-party figures and forces of their various factions to gradually move closer to each other and integrate, culminating in the 1985 "Extra-Party Support Association".
Since the Kuomintang explicitly prohibits the formation of political parties, this organization is still operating in secret, but in fact it has begun to take shape as a political party.
In the Taipei City Council election that same year, the support committee nominated 11 people to run, and all of them were elected, which in itself reflects how weak the KMT was at that time.
On September 28, 1986, a total of 132 members of the Non-Party Support Committee met at the Dunmu Hall of the Grand Hotel in Taipei to discuss the preparation of a new party.
In the end, they decided to adopt the name of the "Democratic Progressive Party" advocated by Hsieh Chang-ting and You Qing, and the DPP was formally established.
Chiang Ching-kuo's acquiescence
In the process of the formal establishment of the DPP, what has attracted the most extensive attention from all sides is naturally the attitude of Chiang Ching-kuo, who is in charge of great power.
If the Kuomintang has always stipulated, it is clear that this kind of private party formation is not allowed, and may also be banned by actual action.
More unexpectedly, Chiang Ching-kuo reacted rather calmly, basically expressing a kind of acquiescence and acquiescence.
Why did Chiang Ching-kuo do this?
As the old saying goes, "Cover the coffin and make up your mind", and after Chiang Ching-kuo's death in 1988, he can finally make a more comprehensive evaluation of his life.
Some people believe that Chiang Ching-kuo should be directly responsible for the "white terror" period that has lasted for many years in Taiwan; Some people also believe that he single-handedly promoted the democratization process in Taiwan, ended the party ban, and was frugal and amiable, and his personal morality was not bad.
The reason why such a bipolar evaluation appears can be answered by its practical Remarks by Chiang Ching-kuo.com.
Before and after the founding of the Democratic Progressive Party, Chiang Ching-kuo once said that "the times are changing, the tide is changing, and the environment is also changing."
Martin, the commissioner of U.S. News and World Report, once described Chiang Ching-kuo as a loyal and hard-working man with no big official frame, but at the same time, "he completely despised what we call democratic rights."
One of the main reasons why Chiang Ching-shek acquiesced to the DPP's challenge to the rules was that at that time, the contradictions between the indigenous people of Taiwan Province and foreigners had risen to a new height through years of fermentation and continuous advocacy by non-party figures.
On the other hand, Chiang Ching-kuo also did not dare to completely ignore the expectations of the United States, and he had to cater to the United States' call for "democratization."
From a pragmatic point of view, the aftermath of the "Formosa Boulevard Incident" has not yet calmed down, and the KMT has been discredited by the extermination of Lin Yixiong, and the follow-up cases of Chen Wencheng and Liu Yiliang have occurred one after another.
Once the DPP is given another heavy hand, the pressure from all sides will only increase.
The case of Lin Yixiong's extermination is commonly known as the "Lin Zhai Blood Case", and Lin Yixiong is one of the planners and leaders of the "Formosa Boulevard Incident".
At that time, he was arrested and imprisoned, but the widowed mother You Amei and twin daughters in the family were killed, and the eldest daughter escaped with six knives in her body.
The case is widely believed to have been written by Kuomintang conservatives, and although Chiang Ching-kuo has repeatedly denied it, no department has really investigated the case clearly and given a convincing statement.
Although acquiescence was acquiescence, the stricter law had not yet been lifted at that time, and the KMT authorities were still reluctant to recognize the DPP: in some media news, the new party needed to be mentioned, often written as "Democratic X Party" or "X into the Party".
Officially took the stage
Even though it failed to gain formal recognition from the KMT, the DPP formed an eighteen-member group and held its first party congress on November 10 of the same year to discuss the determination of the party constitution and party program, and to appoint Jiang Pengjian, a lawyer who had defended the Formosa Boulevard incident, as its first party chairman.
The Democratic Progressive Party, which was formed by the integration of various groups in the non-party movement, has now truly intervened in Taiwan's political arena as a political party, competing for seats among "legislators" and "npc deputies," while continuing to call on the KMT to lift martial law.
The following year, Chiang Ching-kuo announced the lifting of martial law and the lifting of the ban on the party, and the DPP's support rate continued to rise.
In 1988, Chiang Ching-kuo died of an acute illness, and Lee Teng-hui, who was then "vice president" that evening, took the oath of office and took the position of the new "president."
In the eyes of later generations, Lee Teng-hui has an evaluation of "blue-skinned, green-boned, two-faced man."
The so-called blue refers to the pan-blue camp headed by the Kuomintang, and green is the pan-green camp headed by the Democratic Progressive Party.
Blue and green are used to refer to these two major political alliances and factions.
With Lee Teng-hui in charge of great power, a large number of "Taiwan independence" elements who were exiled overseas during the martial law period began to return to Taiwan one after another, and many of them joined hands with the DPP or simply joined the DPP one after another and ran as DPP members.
Chen Shui-bian, Annette Lu and others also frequently active during this period, becoming new political stars.
Chen Shui-bian took the defense of the "Formosa Boulevard Incident" as an opportunity to enter the political arena, and was good at using his status as a farmer to incite regional antagonisms and profit from it to achieve his goals.
After being elected as a "member of parliament" and a "legislator" for many years, he won the first seat of mayor of Taipei in 1994 as a candidate for the Democratic Progressive Party.
Annette Lu, on the other hand, quickly ran away under the pretext of "medical parole" since she was imprisoned in the "Formosa Form incident," and spared no effort to hype up "Taiwan's accession to the United Nations" and advocate "independence and sovereignty" when she returned to Taiwan for the second time.
In order to increase the influence of this initiative, Annette Lu led the creation of public opinion on the island, rented advertisements in the United States, seized the attention of various UN commemorative days, and even planned a farce of "crowdfunding" and donating money to seek recognition by the United Nations.
These two people were later bound by the DPP for a long time, calling them "water lotus matches", which were once used to compete with the "Lian Song match" launched by the KUOMINTang.
2000 "Rotation of political parties"
Although the early DPP also attracted a large amount of support because of its strong separatist color and atmosphere of resistance, it also gave birth to the feeling that Taiwan society was not optimistic about its ability to govern.
In order to vote for the throne, the DPP gradually transformed itself into a warm-hearted person, ostensibly diluting the radical color, but in fact still doing all kinds of small separatist moves.
In 1995, after "Taiwan Mandela" Shi Mingde became chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, he actively advocated joint reconciliation and defusing long-standing confrontations in order to dispel the doubts of the outside world about the DPP's "ruling power."
Xu Xinliang, who became chairman in 1996, once put forward the idea of "boldly moving westward", which marked that there were different ideas about its own line within the DPP at that time.
In 1996, when the Taiwan region held its first "direct election," the DPP put forward the "Taiwan independence" spiritual leader Peng Mingmin to run for election, but due to multiple internal and external reasons, he was inferior to the KMT candidate Lee Teng-hui. Nevertheless, the DPP's local power should not be underestimated.
In the Taiwan county mayoral election the following year, the DPP won the "right to govern" in 12 counties and cities in the entire Taiwan region, and for the first time surpassed the KMT in terms of seats and the ruling population, which also became an opportunity for the DPP to take shape in its election line of "encircling the central authorities with localities."
In 1998, after Taipei Mayor Chen Shui-bian, who was widely regarded by the outside world and was expected to be re-elected, lost to Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang, the four major factions within the DPP operated an open television debate, and finally compromised "bold westward expansion" and "strong and gradual" into a consensus of "strong westward expansion."
Since then, the DPP has drastically revised its basic strategy for the 2000 elections, using the "Resolution on Taiwan's Future" to promote Taiwan as a democratic "country."
Coinciding with the kmt's soong chu-yu's collapse in support due to the Xing-che case, coupled with the DPP's manipulation and Lee Yuan-che's "believe in the power of reform" propaganda support, Chen Shui-bian finally won the election with a gap of 2.5%.
Since then, the DPP has successfully defeated the KMT 14 years after its founding, achieved its first "party rotation" in 2000, and stepped forward to become the "ruling party".
The Democratic Progressive Party in recent years
Since then, the DPP has been regarded as the largest localist political party in Taiwan, and it has become the norm in Taiwan's political arena to compete with the KMT and to attack each other and for you to sing and appear on the stage.
From 2000 to 2008, the DPP was the "ruling party", and from 2008 to 2016, Ma Ying-jeou came to power, the KMT returned to the "ruling party", and then the DPP Tsai Ing-wen came to power.
It is not difficult to sort out the origin of the DPP's birth and find that although it is the same party, its source actually comes from "non-party personages" who have their own views, so it is not uncommon for the DPP to have many factions within it, and it is not uncommon for them to attack each other and pull their hind legs.
In the early days of its founding, the DPP was divided into factions such as the "Formosa Boulevard System" and the "New Trend Department" based on banner publications.
After years of dissipation of power and changes in the situation, the "new department", "British system", "orthodox congress", "Soviet system", etc., some factions still have "nesting dolls", and the struggle between them has become more and more intense.
As early as 2010, Shi Mingde, who was the chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, exposed the material, claiming that Chen Shui-bian, Su Zhenchang, Xie Changting, and others were all "grabbing rake boys", meaning that the "group of defense lawyers in Formosa Formosa Boulevard" was actually an undercover agent of the Kuomintang, with the goal of eradicating dissidents, which can be called "infernal affairs in the political arena".
This year, Chen Shui-bian also "fired" at The Democratic Progressive Party's nomination of Taipei candidate Chen Shizhong, saying that he had failed to resist the epidemic prevention operation and "marched into the Taipei City Government on his feet."
However, Chen Shui-bian quickly explained through his office, claiming that Chen Shizhong would be the second DPP mayor after him.
In addition, such as the Chen Shui-bian malpractice case and the succession of "resignations" from the top level of the DPP have also made people's overall impression of the DPP low.
Hong Kong's "Ta Kung Pao" recently commented on the situation in Taiwan, commenting that "the devil has disappeared and the masses are dancing in a disorderly manner," holding that the DPP is trying every means to "save Bian Bian" and does not hesitate to wash away Chen Shui-bian's stain of "official aircraft fees" through the revision of the law, which is a serious damage to the legal system.
The recent establishment of a "digital development department" in Taiwan has once again caused controversy because of its move to raise a network army and invest as much as NT$21.7 billion.
Some people believe that the DPP itself advocated the so-called "100 percent freedom of speech" when it was in the opposition, and now it is willing to waste taxpayers' money in order to suppress dissenters.
Some people also think that this money is completely useless, and it is better to use it to improve labor insurance and health insurance.
The clamor reflects the fact that the legitimacy of the budget is not enough to convince others.
epilogue
According to a report by Taiwan's "China Times News Network," with the "nine-in-one" election on Taiwan Island approaching at the end of the year, people from all walks of life in the DPP have also started their actions early.
The process and outcome of this election is widely regarded as having a deep relationship with the 2024 direct election, although the dpp's former "democratic representative" Guo Zhengliang said that even if he is elected, he will "be the hardest leader in Taiwan's history", but this does not prevent everyone from still flocking to it.
After all, for the DPP, canvassing and election have long surpassed other demands and have been placed in the first place of pursuit.
When Annette Lu issued a "declaration on psychological resignation," she denounced the DPP for "losing the soul of the party." Although there are factors of infighting and failure, there may also be some authenticity in it.
Resources:
Will the Green Camp Net Army take to the table? The DPP's establishment of a "digital development department" is controversial; Taiwan Strait Network; 2022-08-29
The "legislature" was opened by the DPP?; Huaxia graticule; 2022-08-26
Chen Shui-bian criticized Chen Shizhong for "running for election with nearly 10,000 corpses"; Shenzhen Satellite TV Direct News; 2022-08-28
The Democratic Progressive Party, a political party group that supports "Taiwan independence"; Huaxia graticule; 2021-07-26
The Historical Problem of Historical Photographs; Wenhui Publishing House