國立臺灣大學政治科學論叢

Abstract / Chinese PDF Download

From the perspective of comparative politics, relying on the state’s despotic power to consolidate the ruler’s power is an evident trait of authoritarian states. Compared to the other authoritarian states, the Kuomintang (KMT) state had constructed a repressive regime during the 1950s and 60s that was more powerful than what an authoritarian ruler necessarily needs for his rule, incorporating the army, the police, and the intelligence units. . Past researches on this topic explained the construction of this mighty repressive regime by defining the KMT state in Taiwan as a colonial ruler, settler state or settler regime. They pointed out that the repressive regime was established not only for dominating the society and maintaining internal security, but also for waging the war to retake mainland China. However, these researches did not further elaborate the relationship between the authoritarian rule, the repressive regime and war mobilization in Taiwan. This article employs the state-centric approach to explore the question and illustrates that, with its authoritarian rule, the KMT state could institutionally penetrate the society to extract manpower for war mobilization. Oral histories and official documents reveal that the state made use of the police system and the Hukou system (the household registration) to control the citizens and then built the conscription system to extract the manpower necessary for war. The KMT regime integrated the police, the Hukou and the conscription system and put these institutions under the control of a military-intelligence unit, the Taiwan Garrison Command. The Taiwan Garrison Command had the capacity to militarily administrate the manpower, particularly the draftees and reserve soldiers. With its capacity of policing the society and repressively extracting the manpower for war mobilization, the Taiwan Garrison Command had therefore become the most powerful military- intelligence unit within the repressive regime.