The Taiwan Communist Party was a social democratic

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. It was established in 1994 but was unable to register with the

Ministry of the Interior An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministr ...

until 2008, when anti-communist provisions in Taiwan's constitution were struck down by the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...

History

The Taiwan Communist Party was founded by Wang Lao-yang on 16 October 1994 in Sinhua,

Tainan Tainan (), officially Tainan City, is a special municipality in southern Taiwan facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast. Tainan is the oldest city on the island and also commonly known as the "Capital City" for its over 200 years of his ...

. Before founding the party, Wang was an active member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Wang left the DPP after an internal party struggle, in which the faction he favoured lost. A wealthy landowning farmer, Wang spent the next thirteen years and NT$60 million ( US$1.85 million in 2008) trying to register the Taiwan Communist Party with the Ministry of the Interior, but his annual applications were repeatedly rejected. It was not until 20 June 2008 that Wang's goal was finally realised; on that day, the justices of the Constitutional Court ruled the prohibition of communism in Taiwan unconstitutional, thus allowing the registration of

communist parties A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

. Wang subsequently registered the Taiwan Communist Party on the same day, making it the first party to legally include "communist" in its name after the ruling. Wang claimed that the party had grown to 2,000 members by the end of 2008. The Taiwan Communist Party was dissolved by the Ministry of Interior on 29 April 2020.

Ideology

Although the party had "communist" in its name, Wang stated in an interview that he had never read the works of

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

, and he only chose the name because he thought it would attract more interest. Wang described the party as social democratic, and advocated the establishment of a

welfare state A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equita ...

and mutual aid in Taiwan. Wang also stated that the party's purpose was to "create a socialist paradise in Taiwan" by "upholding the socialist line and the legacy of Sun Yat-sen and his Three Principles of the People". However, one of the party's vice chairmen, Chien Ping-hung, stated in an interview that the party had an ideologically diverse membership, from moderate

progressives Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, techno ...

disillusioned with the DPP to devout Marxists. For example, another vice chairman of the party, Wu Miao-huo, claimed to have spent two decades studying Marxism in

mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...

. Nonetheless, the party was officially not communist, and as such it did not attempt to establish relations with the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...

Notes

References

{{Taiwanese political parties 2008 establishments in Taiwan Political parties established in 2008 Social democratic parties in Taiwan