Generation and Era: The Defending Diaoyutai Movement and NTU Student Activism in 1970s Taiwan
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Chang, Chun-Kai
Abstract
The 1960s saw student activism globally that challenged established political, social, and cultural systems. A younger generation engaged in public affairs became an important force that changed politics and culture of the postwar world. This thesis examines the Defending Diaoyutai Movement and student activism of National Taiwan University (NTU) that occurred at the beginning of the 1970s, a critical decade in the postwar history of Taiwan. It analyzes the development and nature of this movement and its impact on Taiwan’s politics and culture.
The thesis examines the NTU Defending Diaoyutai Movement and student activism by comparing it with their counterparts in other places in the world. Drawing on Karl Mannheim’s generational theory, it focuses not only on the objective generational background of the young intellectuals and college students involved in the Movement and related activities but also on their subjective identities and worldview. The thesis investigates how major political events created a powerful impact on these members of the postwar generation and how their particular identities and worldview were related to their public actions. A variety of student publications, written records, memories, and suchlike were analyzed in order to analyze their agency and actions and the dynamics of the Movement.
Chapter Two to Chapter Five examine, respectively, the early Self-Awareness Movement, the Defending Diaoyutai Movement, the call for political reform, and the Social Service Movement. The analysis of the thesis on their relationship shows that, first of all, the NTU students who initiated the Defending Diaoyutai Movement had strong patriotism and that their historical narrative was informed with Chinese nationalism. Secondly, the Movement was led by students but it was controlled by the KMT authority. It was the outcome of compromises between the students and the authority. Thirdly, the participants included both those of local Taiwanese background and those of Mainlander background. During the period of the Movement, many participants began to develop their strong faith in democracy and a particular concern with Taiwan instead of a greater China. Some activist students also developed their belief in left-wing ideals and became highly concerned with socially marginalized groups as well as the compatriots under the rule of communist China. They attacked the oppression caused by imperialism and capitalism and emphasized the importance of equality.
The thesis points out several importat structural factors that facilitated the emergence of student activism shared by many places of the world in the 1960s and 1970s Taiwan. It was the time when baby boomers reached maturity and thus the higher education developed rapidly. As a result, university campus became an important place where students could develope their collective identity and worked together. In the conservative political atmosphere of the Cold War, students were affected by many critical writers’ works and thoughts because of their involvement in a variety of student organizations. However, the thesis indicates that two characteristics of the Movement. First, the challenge it posed to the KMT government was relatively moderate. To the students, the ruling authority was not the target of their criticism but their collaborative partner. Secondly, influenced by the traditional Confucian ideals and values, the students were both loyalist and critic. Therefore, the Movement can be said to be a major act of the younger generation informed by patriotism, nationalism, and Confucian moral values.
The students involved in the Movement were postwar baby boomers, who shared similar experiences of growing under the KMT and the dramatic political change in the early 1970s, in Mannheim’s term, constituted part of a “generation as actuality.” They transformed from members of a “generation in-itself” to those of a “generation for-itself” (or “strategic generation”) through the mechanism of “conscientization” as a result of the impact of traumatic events. The process of their conscientization could be traced back to the Self-Awareness Movement that occurred in the late 1960s and emphasized individual awakening and morality. By contrast, the Diaoyutai sovereignty dispute and the subsequent diplomatic failures, helped the NTU students shift from individual awakening and morality to critique on existing political and power structure and their previous generation. It has to be noted that the members of the generation as actuality had different views of the socio-political reality and different strategies of actions. Some even sought support by or cooperation with their previous generation which brought about little intergenerational conflict. Others rejected the previous generation’s values and norms. Their criticism and challenge, however, were still moderate.
Although the Defending Diaoyutai Movement and student activism were suppressed as a result of the personal purge of the NTU Department of Philosophy in 1974, the students tried to carry out their ideals by promoting activities of investigating the life reality of socially marginalized groups. Their actions inspired those who played an important role in the political and cultural changes in 1970s and 1980s Taiwan.
Subjects
Generation
Defending Diaoyutai Movement
Student Activism
National Taiwan University (NTU)
1970s Taiwan
SDGs
Type
thesis
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