9
legitimizing democratic values against the backdrop of authoritarian rule could not be
underestimated. Moreover, reform-minded reporters from these and other newspapers
were found to have contributed--under pseudonyms and behind the back of their bosses--
to understaffed Dangwai magazines the bulk of trenchant critiques of the KMT’s bad
behavior (Lee, 1993).
In the 1980s, ideological rifts and competition grew more intense between the
fractured Dangwai camps: a moderate faction advocated reform through electoral
triumph and a more radical faction was prone to take its grievances to the street. Each
faction ran several organs, sniping at each other besides attacking the KMT as the
common enemy. The confused KMT censors hardened their repression by imprisoning
more Dangwai publishers, acting on tips to impound their publications at the printers, and
producing far-right magazines as countervailing forces--but all gradually proving futile.
This round of repression turned out to be the last hurrah before democratic change set in.
In what Max Weber (1958) describes as a process of “disenchantment of the world,” state
repressive power suddenly lost its magic, for Dangwai figures regarded going to jail as a
litmus test of loyalty and a badge of honor, without which they would have no political
credential.
The Dangwai magazines grew adept at playing “hit and seek” games. Though
censorship was increasingly rampant, random, and erratic,
2
a total of 21 Dangwai
magazines remained in circulation. Each faction learned to acquire multiple “reserve”
licenses for a weekly, a biweekly, and a monthly so that in case one publication was
banned, others could fill the void (Feng, 1995: 130). They even deliberately wrote
something to provoke the wrath of the by-now overworked censors, and when a particular
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