In the March 2000 election, the Republic of China (ROC) crossed a crucial threshold. With my election as president, Taiwan experienced the first-ever party rotation in its history. In my inauguration address in May, I proposed a number of human-rights goals: to enshrine major international human-rights norms in a domestic bill of rights; to establish a National Human Rights Commission in conformity with the United Nations “Paris Principles”; and to expand and intensify exchanges and cooperation with the international human-rights community. These policies and related measures are now at various stages of planning and implementation (a progress report is included on page 28). Despite, or rather because of, Taiwan’s international political isolation, the international nature of these policies and measures has attracted international curiosity, inquiries, and visits. I would like to take this opportunity to outline the conditions and considerations that have led us to this significant change in process.

Current Conditions

Taiwan’s human-rights conditions have advanced considerably since its liberalization and democratization in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. In the Freedom House Annual Report of 2000, Taiwan ranked with Japan as the only two “free” countries in the Asian region. The space allocated to Taiwan in the Amnesty International Annual Reports has dropped dramatically over the years. There seems to be good reason for self-congratulation, and a measure of it would be justified. However, if we examine the reports more closely and Taiwan’s general level of development is taken into account, there are equally good reasons for caution and concern. Progress has primarily been concentrated in the areas of specific civil and political rights while advances in other areas of rights tend to be more uneven and scattered.

Some civil-rights improvements are clear. Disappearances and politically motivated killings have ceased, and respect for citizens’ bodily integrity has advanced considerably. Freedoms of speech, assembly, and association are fairly secure. Legal rights, however, require greater progress, particularly in overhauling the judicial system. Despite two national conferences on judicial reform, implementation has been slow until recently.

Certain political rights are to be assumed as well, since Taiwan’s elections are known to be lively. At the same time, one must not forget other aspects of political rights that, if left unattended, impede equal participation and equal access to public service. The main obstacle is known locally as the “Black Gold” problem, a negative legacy of Taiwan’s authoritarian past. This custom grants individuals privileged access to public resources such as bank loans in exchange for personal and political gains, often in illicit alliance with outwardly respectable elements of organized crime. As a distortion of the political process, it severely damages the quality and accessibility of public service. Consequently, the Black Gold problem is one of our main concerns, and its elimination is a major goal of my administration.

In areas of other rights, progress has been similarly uneven. A crucial achievement has been our national health-insurance program, but we have yet to establish adequate unemployment-compensation or pension programs. The level of success in some other fields tends to depend on the varying strengths of civil society groups and the interaction between those groups. Although pressure-group politics is an unavoidable part of democracy, the haphazard nature of these interactions and of these occasional accomplishments requires the stabilizing presence that policies and the institutionalization of rights can provide.

This brief sketch would not be complete without mention of the state of human-rights awareness and institutionalization. In fact, diagnosis of this condition was the most important consideration that led to the development of my administration’s human-rights policies and measures. A number of levels and aspects of human rights must be considered: the cultivation of the values of freedom, equality, and pluralism; the spread of relevant knowledge and information; the design of effective redress mechanisms; and the focus on constitutional human rights in political and social life as well as the institutionalization of such principles. If weak in these areas, a country’s continuing advances in rights and freedoms would be difficult if not impossible. Taiwan faces challenges on all of these fronts.

As an example, fewer than six human-rights courses are regularly offered at over 100 Taiwanese university campuses, and, until early this year, there was no university human-rights center. Human-rights education at other levels of education has barely begun. And, according to a 1994 survey, the seven largest of our libraries contain a grand total of fewer than 200 Chinese language items pertaining to human-rights issues. The nation has only six properly trained international human-rights law specialists, none of whom are in government service. Taiwan also has no government department directly working on human-rights issues. In sum, these and other conditions constitute “human-rights infrastructure” deficiencies that have serious implications and require serious attention if Taiwan is to continue improving its human-rights record.

Authoritarian Legacy

These infrastructure problems stem from a number of factors. To begin with, Taiwan was under one-party authoritarian rule by the Kuomintang (KMT) for 57 years, 38 years of which were under martial law. During that long period, talk of human rights was taboo and genuine pursuit of human rights was a crime. Because it provided the only means then available for transmitting human-rights knowledge and information, instruction in constitutional law was under close surveillance by the government. Professors therefore did their best to skirt issues of rights and freedoms. Ironically, the ROC was then a member state of the United Nations, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and a participant in the drafting and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In fact, the ROC signed or ratified a total of 11 international human-rights covenants and conventions. All of these actions, however, were done to dress up its image as “Free China” in the days of the Cold War. The documents were removed from the public eye before the ink was even dry; the regime understandably did not want the people to make use of the provisions. Under circumstances like these, there simply was no space for a human-rights tradition to begin to take root.

Second, certain characteristics of Taiwan’s course of democratization contributed to the infrastructure problems. Facing popular resistance and under international pressure, the KMT regime was forced to make concessions to stay in power; the regime opened up the political process and protected certain civil and political rights, with both moves explaining the relative security today of those rights. But the popular movement for democracy was strong enough only to force basic changes; control of the broader agenda and schedule of change remained largely in KMT hands. Vested interests and inertia ensured that, unless forced, advances in other rights areas were piecemeal and limited, leading to the uneven and scattered form of progress mentioned earlier. Under such circumstances, it is no surprise that the human-rights infrastructure problems remained unresolved even after the democratization process began.