The DPP Should Confront the Sorrow of its Own "Lack of Transformation"

 The DPP Should Confront the Sorrow of its Own "Lack of Transformation"

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)

March 2, 2017

Translation of an Excerpt

The February 28 Incident, this year, elicited a wave of spasms for transformational justice. Under the lead of government officials emerged stirrings and unease in society that had rarely been seen in recent years. In the past years, the atmospherics of commemoration and reconciliation in Taiwan went down the drain overnight; the wounds of communal groups have again been torn asunder. Utilizing this, President Tsai seized the trend to launch another wave of attacks based on "transformational justice", declaring that she would set up an independent government agency to clean up the historical accountability of the February 28 Incident.

If we want to talk about transformational justice, we should take a balanced, comprehensive look at history, objectively assessing Chiang Kai-shek and the achievements and failings of that era. In the era of the global Cold War, the Korean Peninsula in the north and the Indochina Peninsula in the south were engulfed in wars one after another; Taiwan, on the other hand, was spared Communist China’s invasion. On this point, how do we calculate Chiang Kai-shek’s achievements and failings? Land reform, national education, economic reconstruction, public health, local elections, the ten big construction projects -- didn’t they come out of the policies of the two Chiangs? Two million military, public functionaries, teachers and intellectuals followed Chiang to Taiwan; weren’t they the mainstay of Taiwan's later development? These achievements of the government, if the Democratic Progressive Party had been the ruling party, we are afraid that only a very few would have been accomplished. However, the fruits of reconstruction under the two Chiangs in the past have been completely obliterated; is this a fair assessment?

We implore the Tsai government to let go of transformational justice! It is not that transformational justice is not important, but that transformational justice ought not to become a monopolistic political tool of the powers that be. It should be handed over to the private sector or an impartial organization for execution. Otherwise, under the unending incitement based on hatred, society will never get to the truth. The two Chiangs have become the political cash machine for the Green Camp over several decades. The DPP still finds it useful and tasteful, while the public have grown tired of it to the extreme. If transformational justice is so important, we implore the DPP to first confront its own transformation!

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