DPP may restore the 'military trial system', is it aimed at defending Taiwan externally or 'to quell external threats, internal stability must come first'?

Hughes · March 16, 2025, 2:36pm

Creation: Proletarian Liberation Struggle Association Political Economy Group

Lai Ching-te announced on March 13 that Taiwan will conduct a comprehensive review and amend the “Military Trial Law.” Lai Ching-te explained that this is to address the threats posed by Chinese revisionism infiltrating Taiwan’s military and fleet activities. So, what exactly is the so-called military trial system? What does restoring this system in Taiwan mean?

According to Lai Ching-te’s government, this decision marks Taiwan’s reactivation of the military trial system, where military judges will return to the front lines to cooperate with judicial authorities in handling criminal cases involving active-duty soldiers related to rebellion, aiding enemies, leaking secrets, dereliction of duty, and insubordination. Lai Ching-te stated that in the future, active-duty military personnel who violate the “Army, Navy, and Air Force Criminal Law” and commit military crimes will be tried by military courts. Some analysts point out that Lai Ching-te’s move is more driven by considerations of cross-strait politics; before proposing this measure, he set a premise—China is considered an external hostile force. Clearly, Lai Ching-te’s action is entirely aimed at countering the increasingly aggressive provocations of Chinese revisionism. However, can such measures truly make Taiwan’s military as stable as an ironclad, united against enemies? Like any bourgeois military, the so-called strict discipline is never meant to defeat the enemy but is entirely a fascist dictatorship over soldiers and the people. Lai Ching-te’s government’s move is undoubtedly aimed at strengthening dictatorship. Taiwan constitutional scholar and researcher at the Taiwan Academia Sinica Law Institute, Huang Cheng-yi, commented on Facebook that the controversy and problems stemming from Taiwan’s “martial law era” military trials lie in the fact that if “ordinary judiciary cannot handle it, then military trials are used. What clever tricks does military trial have that are better than ordinary judiciary? Isn’t it just severe torture, hasty evidence collection, shooting first and drawing the target later, confessions as the only evidence, quick trials, and no distinction between prosecution and investigation?” It is evident that even Taiwan’s bourgeois mouthpieces suspect that Lai Ching-te’s restoration of the military trial system is a revival of the fascist dictatorship during the Kuomintang’s rule.

Taiwan’s military trial system has a long history. After the victory in the Anti-Japanese War and Taiwan’s return to China, the Kuomintang government at that time strengthened its dictatorship in Taiwan by declaring martial law. Any civilians and organizations suspected of “rebellion” or “espionage” had to undergo military trials. This measure was officially codified as the “Military Trial Law” in October 1956. However, the trial system was not limited to the military; under the Kuomintang’s White Terror regime, many resistance groups were accused of “rebellion” and subjected to military trials, with trials conducted in secret, and final verdicts approved by officials or even the president. Such courts were a disaster for the people.

More ironically, the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) development history is closely linked to opposition to the military trial system. In 1979, the “Formosa” magazine opposed Kuomintang’s dictatorship and published its first issue. In December of the same year, a mass movement against Kuomintang’s dictatorship erupted outside the magazine’s office, known as the “Formosa Incident.” Many protesters and magazine staff were arrested and sentenced to harsh punishments by military courts. Among them were some early members of the DPP. In 2013, 24-year-old soldier Hong Zhongqiu died from oppression in the military, sparking protests by hundreds of thousands in Taiwan. The DPP also used this to oppose the Ma Ying-jeou government at the time. Ultimately, under pressure, the Legislative Yuan quickly initiated legal reforms. The following year, the military prosecution office and military courts were officially abolished, and through people’s struggle, Ma Ying-jeou’s government effectively canceled the military trial system. However, it was during this process that the DPP, which had gained power by deceiving the people’s trust and had started out opposing Kuomintang’s White Terror, once again revived the military trial system. They seized the Kuomintang government’s butcher’s knife but continued to wield it against the Taiwanese people. This historical drama once again proves that bourgeois rule will never bring genuine democracy or happiness to the people; bourgeois formal democracy is merely a deception. Facing increasingly sharp class contradictions, any bourgeois government will unhesitatingly tear off the mask of freedom, equality, and fraternity to reveal its true fangs—infantry, cavalry, and artillery.

兴无 · March 16, 2025, 3:28pm

Is the Taiwan issue still considered a domestic affair by China? It feels like it has been independent from mainland direct control for a long time, like a small country supported by the U.S. imperialists.

群钓寒江雪 · March 17, 2025, 12:08pm

The current division between Taiwan and the mainland, and the so-called “Taiwan’s status undecided,” was caused by the reactionary forces of the United States and Chiang Kai-shek in history. Socialist China insists on opposing the reactionary forces of the US and Chiang Kai-shek and on liberating Taiwan. After the capitalist restoration occurred on the Chinese mainland, the Chinese government’s attitude towards Taiwan changed: it stopped shelling Kinmen and began to engage in “three links”" with Chiang Ching-kuo’s fascist government in Taiwan. This was because the revisionist traitor group on the mainland betrayed Mao Zedong’s revolutionary line of liberating Taiwan and became a fascist regime similar to Chiang Ching-kuo’s government across the strait. In recent years, China has completely embarked on the path of imperialist domination of the world, and Taiwan has naturally become an important front in its struggle against U.S. imperialism. Currently, the relationship between Taiwan and mainland China is de facto independence; regardless of what name Taiwan bears internationally—whether Taiwan or the Republic of China—they are indeed separate sovereign entities. This is a fact. However, the “unification” promoted by the revisionists has no progressive significance and is merely a savage invasion of the Taiwanese people, serving their imperialist ambitions. Such “unification” would also bring no benefit to the mainland people. Therefore, we must oppose the revisionist invasion of Taiwan. The government on the other side (mainly the Democratic Progressive Party government) is a comprador of U.S. imperialism and is reactionary. The current split and the brink of war in the Taiwan Strait are caused by the bourgeois governments on both sides, and I can say, mainly by the revisionist government of mainland China. We support the struggle of the Taiwanese people, not to support “Taiwan independence.” Taiwan has been part of China since ancient times; this is not something that the barbaric revisionists can shamelessly exploit. It is the conclusion of the production and class struggles that the mainland and Taiwanese peoples have engaged in over thousands of years. Now, the Taiwanese people oppose “unification” not because they truly support the comprador government of the Democratic Progressive Party and willingly turn to U.S. imperialism, but because they clearly see the reactionary nature of revisionism and refuse to accept the fascist rule of revisionism. Of course, this also does not exclude the reactionary propaganda of the Democratic Progressive Party government and U.S. imperialism aimed at the Taiwanese people, which may lead some uninformed people to support “Taiwan independence.” In short, Taiwan is currently a focal point in the struggle for dominance between the two imperialist groups, the U.S. and China. As Marxists, we support the Taiwanese people’s struggle against revisionist invasion. China’s reunification can only be achieved through the joint struggle of the peoples on both sides and only on the basis of socialism.

luanma · March 17, 2025, 12:22pm

The illusion of “Taiwan independence” comes from illusions about American imperialism and bourgeois democracy, because the petty bourgeoisie believes that as long as they depend on American imperialism, they can live a good life. This illusion is very serious in those Western countries and places influenced by American imperialism.

luanma · March 17, 2025, 12:34pm

You can take a look at Lenin’s written work “The Valuable Confession of Pjotr Iljitsch Sorokin,” in which Lenin discusses how the illusion of the petty bourgeoisie was shattered after the blatant reactionary nature of Western imperialism was exposed. Now, after Trump came to power, using Ukraine as a bargaining chip, selling out the interests of the Ukrainian people, forcing Ukraine to sign treacherous treaties, suppressing American progressives, and promoting reactionary fascist ideas, makes the situation similar to the time when Western imperialist interference in the Russian Civil War shattered the illusions of many petty bourgeois democrats who originally held hopes for the West.

luanma · March 17, 2025, 12:35pm

A popular topic in Taiwan now is comparing Ukraine and Taiwan, asking whether Taiwan will also be used as a bargaining chip by the US imperialists like Ukraine someday. This actually shows that division exists.

luanma · March 17, 2025, 12:39pm

Question, a few months ago, what was the thing that particularly strongly prompted the representatives of this faction to leave the Bolsheviks, to leave the proletarian revolution? And what now prompts them to shift from hostility to neutrality? It is very clear that the reason for the change is: first, the bankruptcy of German imperialism, which is related to the revolution in Germany and other countries, as well as the exposure of British and French imperialism. Second, the disillusionment with the illusions about bourgeois democracy.
Let’s talk about the first reason. Patriotism is an extremely deep feeling formed over thousands of years of each nation being isolated from others. One particularly enormous and arguably unprecedented difficulty for our proletarian revolution is that it had to go through a period of sharp break with patriotism, namely the period of the Brest-Litovsk treaty. The pain, resentment, and anger caused by this treaty are understandable. Naturally, we Marxists can only expect the conscious proletarian vanguard to understand the following truth: for the highest interests of the world proletarian revolution, we undertake and should undertake the greatest national sacrifices. Non-Marxist thinkers and the broad masses of workers who have not been rigorously tested through long-term strike and revolutionary struggles, cannot believe that this revolution is imminent, nor can they unconditionally sacrifice for it. In their view, our strategy is at most mere fantasy, fanaticism, and risk-taking, indulging in the unrealistic, utopian, and unfounded idea that revolutions will also happen in other countries, which sacrifices the obvious interests of hundreds of millions of people. Due to their economic position, petty-bourgeoisie are more patriotic than the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
But the result is exactly as we said.
It seems that the only enemy, German imperialism, has fallen. It seems that the “dream” (borrowing Plekhanov’s famous phrase) of the German revolution has become a reality. The so-called friends of democracy and protectors of the oppressed—British and French imperialism—are actually beasts, forcing the German Republic and Austrian people to accept harsher conditions than the Brest-Litovsk treaty, and now they are using the armies of the “liberal” republics of France and America as gendarmes and executioners to suppress the independence and freedom of small nations. World history mercilessly, thoroughly, and straightforwardly exposes this imperialism. World history, with facts, shows Russian patriots, who only see the interests of their homeland (and in old ideas), that turning our Russian revolution into a socialist revolution is not an adventure, but an inevitability, because there was no other choice at the time. If the world socialist revolution and world Bolshevism cannot achieve victory, the imperialist powers of Britain, France, and America will inevitably crush Russia’s independence and freedom.
The English proverb says: facts are stubborn things. The facts we have witnessed in recent months show that a huge turning point has appeared in world history. These facts force the Russian petty-bourgeois democratic camp to first shift from hostility to Bolshevism to neutrality, and then to support, but due to the historical circumstances of our internal struggles, they originally hated Bolshevism. The conditions that once forced such democratic patriots to decisively leave us have disappeared. The emergence of conditions that force them to lean towards us. Pytor Sorokin’s change is not accidental but a manifestation of the inevitable shift of the entire class, the entire petty-bourgeois democratic camp. Whoever fails to see and utilize this is not a Marxist but a poor socialist.
Secondly, believing that the general “democracy” is万能 (universal), capable of curing all diseases, without understanding that it is bourgeois democracy, whose usefulness and necessity are limited by history—this situation has persisted for decades, even centuries, especially among petty-bourgeoisie. The big capitalists have rich experience; they know that under capitalism, the democratic republic, like any other state form, is merely a machine for suppressing the proletariat. Big capitalists understand this because they have close relationships with the true manipulators and ultimate (and often most covert) instigators of any bourgeois state machinery. Petty-bourgeoisie, due to their economic position and living conditions, find it harder to understand this truth, and even hold illusions that a democratic republic means “pure democracy,” “a government of the people,” a non-class or super-class civil rights system, a pure expression of the will of the people, and so on. Because petty-bourgeois democratic factions are far from sharp class struggles, trading circles, and “real” politics, their prejudices are very stubborn. Believing that propaganda alone can eradicate these prejudices in the short term is a non-Marxist idea.
However, world history is moving forward rapidly, smashing everything familiar and old with powerful hammers and unprecedented crises, making even the most stubborn prejudices untenable. “General democrats” naively trust the constitutional assembly, naively oppose “pure democracy” and “dictatorship of the proletariat,” which is natural and inevitable. But the experiences of the “constitutionalists” in Arkhangelsk, Samara, Siberia, and the South cannot but shatter the most stubborn prejudices. The idealized Wilsonian democratic republic is actually a form of the most insane imperialism, shameless oppression, and destruction of weak nations. The middle-ground “democrats”—Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries—think: “How can we have a highest form of state, what Soviet power! God can grant us a normal democratic republic!” Of course, during “normal” peaceful times, such “hopes” could last for decades.
Now, the course of world events and the harsh lessons of all monarchists in Russia forming alliances with British, French, and American imperialism actually show: democratic republics are bourgeois democratic republics. From the perspective of imperialism on the historical agenda, such republics are already outdated; now there is no other choice: either the Soviet power will triumph in all advanced countries of the world, or the bourgeois imperialism of Britain, America, and France, which has mastered the form of democratic republics, will reactively, madly ravage and destroy all weak nations, resurrecting reactionary forces worldwide.
Either one or the other.
There is no middle way. Once, this view was considered the ignorance and wild fantasy of the Bolsheviks.
But the result is exactly as described.
—Lenin, “Petrilim Sorokin’s Valuable Confession”

群钓寒江雪 · March 17, 2025, 5:06pm