Building political legitimacy during the rule ofChiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo:a constructivist analysis

• Main Authors: Chi-Cheng Yeh, 葉啓承
• Other Authors: Chin-Nung Chuang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/xfxu7z

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 政治學研究所 === 105 === One of many figures across Chinese history who sought to seize power in a winner-takes-all system, Chiang Kai-shek lost his bid for ultimate control, but arrived in Taiwan claiming to be a righteous ruler rather than admit defeat. Chiang styled himself a follower of Sun Yat-sen and the inheritor of the mantle of Chinese dynastic authority, a process of self-deification used to consolidate his own authoritarian power. Founded by Sun Yat-sen, the Republic of China retained a close relationship with the Kuomintang (KMT), which from the beginning was the state’s ruling party. The often-blurred line between the KMT and the ROC gave way to a direct appropriation of cultural symbols, under which the party anthem became the national anthem and the party flag the national flag, a process which later inspired the theory of “legitimate authority.” In this research Chiang Kai-shek, his son, and those who supported them deployed the Republic of China constitution alongside Confucian thought, the so-called Confucian cultural orthodoxy embodied in the lifestyle of the “Chinese ethnic group,” and the belief system embodied in the Three Principles of the People in order to justify their rule,which resulted in the authoritarian dictatorship in Taiwan. This thesis analyzes the rule of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo over Taiwan through the “servile media” which helped them establish political control, social approval, state ideology, and every other aspect of their rule. This media deployed rhetoric to prop up their legitimacy and to convince the people that the rulers’ interests were their own. By analyzing the many ways in which this fabricated consciousness enabled and encouraged authoritarian rule, I hope to provide a clearer picture of these political figures, who fought for personal gain rather than their nation.