{"id":1059,"date":"2015-04-03T13:14:49","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T05:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/?p=1059"},"modified":"2026-10-20T16:13:42","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T08:13:42","slug":"20150403-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/20150403-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Origins of Shih Ming Te and Linda Gail Arrigo\u2019s Political Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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In 1978, a man named \u201cHsu Yi-wen\u201d published \u201cA Modest Proposal for Establishing a Fourth Central Parliament\u201d in The Generation magazine, later reprinted as a pamphlet. He criticized the Legislative Yuan and the National Assembly, whose members had not stood for re-election in thirty years, calling them the \u201cTen-Thousand-Year Parliament,\u201d and attacked forcefully the Chiang family\u2019s dictatorial, anti-democratic, and anti-human-rights measures \u2014 and narrowly escaped arrest once again. The article was the first to use the term \u201cTen-Thousand-Year Parliament,\u201d and from then on the phrase became the most incisive label the Tangwai and intellectuals used to criticize the Chiang family\u2019s dictatorship.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Who was Hsu Yi-wen? In the pamphlet published afterward, Tsai Che-cheng wrote an author\u2019s introduction. And who was Tsai Che-cheng? It was a complicated era, and everything had to be done under code names. Tsai Che-cheng was Chiou I-jen; Hsu Yi-wen was Shih Ming Te.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u201cDuring last year\u2019s campaign for the five categories of public office, I came to know Brother Hsu in Beigang. I sensed in him then the courage one must have to take part in real politics in an environment like Taiwan\u2019s. As I came to know him better, I found that he also had the wisdom, sense of right and wrong, and extraordinary perseverance that taking part in real politics requires.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u2014 Chiou I-jen (Tsai Che-cheng)<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\u00a0<\/strong>Chiou I-jen\u2019s 1978 manuscript of the author\u2019s introduction, \u201cWho Is Hsu Yi-wen?\u201d, for the pamphlet A Modest Proposal for Establishing a Fourth Parliament.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Why would a political prisoner \u2014 sentenced to life imprisonment, released after his sentence was commuted to fifteen years, on condition that violating any law carrying a sentence of two months or more would restore the life sentence \u2014 still concern himself with something as perilous as politics? Knowing it would be banned, why would he still analyze and criticize, with such clarity, the greatest \u201ccancer\u201d of the politics of the day \u2014 the Ten-Thousand-Year Parliament? Few can answer that question. It simply happened.<\/p>

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In the 1980s, while Shih Ming Te was on hunger strike in prison \u2014 after martial law was lifted and prisoners were finally allowed to correspond \u2014 attorney Lee Ching-hsiung wrote to him:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u201c\u2026 Recently I reread the \u2018Fourth Parliament\u2019 you wrote more than ten years ago, and was astonished by your grounding in political science and law. I feel it is unjust that some people regard you only as a \u2018street activist.\u2019 \u2026 If the KMT government had accepted your proposal back then, it would not be in such a sorry state today.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u2014 Lee Ching-hsiung<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Put simply, Shih Ming Te\u2019s \u201cFourth Parliament\u201d proposal sought a way out of the political dictatorship and institutional rigidity caused by a parliament \u2014 its three chambers: the Legislative Yuan, the National Assembly, and the Control Yuan \u2014 that had not stood for re-election in thirty years under the \u201cPeriod of National Mobilization for Suppression of the Communist Rebellion\u201d system. Asked about its \u201cfeasibility,\u201d he replied:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u201cI think the number of chambers is not important. Whether there is a precedent is not important either. What matters is that we really have reached a bottleneck that is hard to break through, and we cannot let this bottleneck bind us, suffocate us, and finally destroy and bury us! We must have some way to solve it. It was in order to solve the problem while keeping the larger picture in view that I designed the new concept of a Fourth Parliament.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0\u2014 Shih Ming Te<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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At the end of the pamphlet, Shih wrote a passage in a style that is typically his. He knew what he was pursuing; he knew why he was exercising restraint. As he often cautioned his own children: it is not that Taiwanese are not brave, not that we could not be like Che Guevara and his comrades; it is that, besides resisting the dictatorship of the Chinese Nationalist Party at home, we must also resist the territorial ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party from outside. We must always be careful and prudent.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u201cFinally, I would still like to share a thought with progressive people. Whether in facing the \u2018Ten-Thousand-Year Parliament\u2019 or other national issues still awaiting a breakthrough, so long as real reform can be achieved, what harm is there in making concessions, even in appearing somewhat weak? One more measure of forbearance today may be the very foundation of one more measure of history\u2019s praise tomorrow. If the old representatives are determined to hold on to today, then let us win history!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u2014 Shih Ming Te<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Yet even so moderate, rational, and sincere a proposal on national affairs was intolerable in the eyes of the dictator Chiang Ching-kuo, and the \u201cold thieves\u201d were gravely concerned. They immediately banned the pamphlet, and word spread that Shih Ming Te would be arrested. What could be done? That is why Linda Gail Arrigo and Shih Ming Te hurried to the American consulate to register their marriage, and then sought help from the U.S. government and international human rights organizations. This time Shih Ming Te escaped arrest. He later joked that it was \u201cthe thirty-seventh stratagem: marry a foreigner to save your skin.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The wedding of Shih Ming Te and Linda Gail Arrigo. First from left is Mr. Chen Po-wen, Shih Ming Te\u2019s close friend, then known by the code name Chen Yun-chung. He funded the publication of the pamphlet, and could be called the matchmaker of this wedding.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1978, a man named \u201cHsu Yi-wen\u201d published \u201cA Modest Proposal for Establishing a Fourth Central Parliament\u201d in The Generation magazine, later reprinted as a pamphlet. He criticized the Legislative Yuan and the National Assembly, whose members had not stood for re-election in thirty years, calling them the \u201cTen-Thousand-Year Parliament,\u201d and attacked forcefully the Chiang family\u2019s dictatorial, anti-democratic, and anti-human-rights measures \u2014 and narrowly escaped arrest once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":913,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"full-width-container","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"post_folder":[19],"class_list":["post-1059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-23"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1059"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3180,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059\/revisions\/3180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1059"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=1059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}