228 incident

Encyclopedia : 2 : 22 : 228 : 228 incident

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The 228 Incident (}; }; POJ: Jī-jī-pat sū-kiāⁿ) or 228 Massacre was an uprising in the Republic of China (Taiwan) that began on February 28, 1947 and was suppressed by the Kuomintang government, resulting in thirty-thousand or sixty-thousand civilians killed. The number "228" refers to the date of the incident, February 28.

This event is now commemorated in Taiwan as Peace Memorial Day. Official government policy had repressed the education of the events until recently, for various reasons. Many of the details of the incident are still highly controversial and hotly debated in Taiwan today, as the largely conservative-controlled government often tries to stifle discussion on the topic. Some people point to Communist involvement as a "justification" for the KMT's action.

Taiwan was placed under the administrative control of the Republic of China after 50 years of colonial rule by Japan two years earlier by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), and tensions between the local Taiwanese and mainlanders from China had increased in the intervening years. The flashpoint came on February 27, 1947 in Taipei when a dispute between a female cigarette vendor and an anti-smuggling officer triggered civil disorder and open rebellion that would last for days. The uprising was shortly put down by the military of the Republic of China.

Background

As settlement for losing the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), China relinquished its claims to the entire island of Taiwan to Japan in 1895. Taiwanese perceptions of the Japanese occupation during the colonial era are significantly more favorable than perceptions in other parts of East Asia, partly because during its 50 years (1895–1945) of colonial rule Japan during the history of the Republic of China expended effort in developing Taiwan's economy and raised the standard of living for most Taiwanese citizens. By the time of World War II many locals were proficient in Japanese but not in Chinese.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]} Education in the "Japanese spirit" furthered the discrepancy.

Following the end of World War II, Taiwan was placed under the control of the Republic of China. Chen Yi, the Governor-General of Taiwan, arrived on October 24, 1945 and received the last Japanese governor, Ando Rikichi, who signed the document of surrender on the next day and proclaimed the day as retrocession day. This turned out to be legally controversial since Japan did not renounce its sovereignty over Taiwan until 1952, which further complicated the political status of Taiwan.

During the immediate postwar period, the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) administration of Taiwan led to local discontent due to the large scale economic unrest produced by the civil war in mainland China. As Governor-General, Chen Yi took over and expanded the Japanese system of government industrial and trade state monopolies in tobacco, sugar, camphor, tea, paper, chemicals, petroleum refining, and cement. He confiscated some 500 Japanese-owned factories and mines, and tens of thousands of private homes. The Shanghai newspaper Wen Hui Pao reported that Chen ran everything "from the hotel to the night-soil business." Economic mismanagement led to a large black market, runaway inflation and food shortages. Many commodities were confiscated and shipped to mainland China where they were sold for inflated prices furthering the general shortage of goods on the island. The price of rice rose to one hundred times its original value between the time the Chinese took over to the spring of 1946. It inflated further to four hundred times the original price by January, 1947. Carpetbaggers from the mainland dominated nearly all industry, political and judicial offices, displacing the Taiwanese who were formally employed; and many of the ROC garrison troops were highly undisciplined, looting, stealing, and contributing to the overall breakdown of infrastructure and public services. (Subscription required)

Many members of the mainland-dominated administration arrived on Taiwan fresh with memories of Japanese atrocities on the mainland during World War II, including the Rape of Nanking. Anti-Japanese sentiment caused many to view the local Taiwanese who had been brought up and educated under the Japanese system as politically untrustworthy. At the same time, many of the Taiwanese viewed mainlanders as being backwards and corrupt. These perceptions, coupled with cultural misunderstandings and governmental corruption served to further inflame tensions on both sides.

Uprising and crackdown

The spark that set off the uprising occurred on February 27, 1947, when an agent of the government monopoly police attempted to confiscate black market cigarettes from an elderly Taiwanese woman. She resisted and, as accounts allege, was then pistolwhipped by the agents. An angry crowd soon gathered around the agents and the woman. After a warning shot fired by one of the agents went astray and killed an onlooker, the crowd pursued the agents to a nearby police station. The crowd surrounded the building, and demanded that the officer be given to them. The captain refused and the anger of the crowd heightened when it was discovered that the agents had been spirited out of the building via a rear entrance.

Violence finally flared the following morning on February 28. Security forces at the Governor-General's Office fired on the unarmed demonstrators calling for the arrest and trial of the agents involved in the previous day's shooting, resulting in several deaths. Formosans took over the administration of the town peacefully on March 4 and used the local radio station to caution against violence. By evening, martial law had been declared and curfews were enforced by soldiers in trucks firing at anyone who violated curfew.

An American who had just arrived in China from Taihoku said that troops from the mainland arrived there March 7 and indulged in three days of indiscriminate killing and looting. For a time everyone seen on the streets was shot at, homes were broken into and occupants killed. In the poorer sections the streets were said to have been littered with dead.

There were instances of beheadings and mutilation of bodies, and women were raped, the American said

For several weeks after the February 28 Incident, the rebels held control of much of the island. Though the initial uprising was spontaneous and peaceful, within a few days the rebels were generally coordinated and organized, and public order in rebel-held areas was upheld by temporary police forces organized by local high school students. Local leaders soon formed a Settlement Committee which presented the government with a list of 32 Demands for reform of the provincial administration. They demanded, among other things, greater autonomy, free elections, and an end to governmental corruption. Motivations among the various rebel groups varied, some demanded greater autonomy within the ROC, while others wanted UN trusteeship or full independence. Around the same time, many were reportedly considering an appeal to the United Nations to put the island under an international mandate, since ROC's possession of Taiwan had not yet been formally recognized by any international treaties. The Taiwanese also demanded representation in the forthcoming peace treaty negotiations with Japan, hoping to secure a plebiscite to determine the island's political future. A smaller subgroup including those that later formed the militia known as the "27 Brigade" (二七部隊) in Taichung were motivated by communist ideology. The Settlement Committee eventually settled upon the path of requesting greater autonomy, while stopping short of independence.

Feigning negotiation, the ROC authorities under Chen Yi stalled for time while assembling a large military force on the mainland in Fujian province. Upon arrival on March 8, the ROC troops launched a massive crackdown. By the end of March, Chen had jailed or killed all the leading rebels he could identify and catch. His troops reportedly executed (according to a Taiwanese delegation in Nanjing) between 3,000 and 4,000 people throughout the island. Chen Yi was later quoted by TIME magazine in April 7 1947 as saying: "It took the Japs 51 years to dominate this island. I expect to take about five years to re-educate the people so they will be more happy with Chinese administration." (Subscription required) Full version at [link]

Some of the killings were random, while others were systematic. Political leaders and their followers were among those targeted, and many of the Taiwanese who had formed home rule groups during the reign of the Japanese were also victims of the 228 Incident. A disproportionate number of the victims were also Taiwanese middle and high school age youths, as many of them had volunteered to serve in the temporary police forces that were organized by the Committee and the local town councils to maintain public order following the initial rebellion. Several sources have claimed that ROC troops were arresting and executing anyone wearing a student uniform.

The initial purge was followed by repression under one-party rule, which lasted until the end of martial law in 1987. Many thousands of people were imprisoned or executed for their real or perceived dissent, leaving the native Taiwanese victims among them with a deep-seated bitterness towards what they term the mainlander regime, and by extension, all mainlanders.

The government has set up a civilian reparations fund supported by public donations for the victims and their families. However, only a few hundred have come forward to claim the money even though the deadline has been extended several times. This may be attributed to the fact that the incident has remained taboo in Taiwan until the lifting of martial law. As a result of this taboo, many descendants of Taiwanese victims are unaware that their family members were victims, while many of the families of victims from the mainland have also never learned of their relatives' deaths.

Points of contention

• According to The 2-28 You Don't Know, by Li Ao (a pro-reunification politician and a writer), Taiwanese separatists and Japanese expatriots played a role in the rebellion, an observation made by several other Chinese historians of the time upon whose work Li Ao's record is based. This is contradicted by the account given by George H. Kerr who was in Taiwan at the time as a US Foreign Service officer. Kerr mentions that nearly all of the Japanese living or stationed in Taiwan at the end of WWII had been repatriated by March 1946, and the participants in the uprising were primarily Taiwanese. Unfortunately, clear census data that would give the exact numbers of Japanese remaining in Taiwan at the time is not currently at hand, making it hard to determine which position is more accurate.

• Kerr also mentions that the goals among the insurgents were varied and not necessarily linked to Taiwan independence. For example, the Settlement Committee issued statements demanding greater autonomy within the ROC, but stopped short of independence. Li Ao also notes the heterogeneous nature of the insurgents. He writes that the separatist subset was noteworthy for those members who used violence in the pursuit of their political goals. This is in contrast with other insurgents who did not harm mainland civilians.

• The total number of victims is still in dispute. The official estimate is somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 killed.

Some say that as many as 30,000 Taiwanese died during the backlash. Others claim, especially those in the pan-Blue political camp in Taiwan, that the majority of those killed were innocent civilians from the mainland. The number of victims is still being researched. The government has recently declassified sensitive material that is aiding the investigation.

Legacy

For several decades, the KMT-ruled government prohibited public discussion of the 228 Massacre and many children grew up without knowing this event had ever occurred. In the 1970s the 228 Justice and Peace Movement was initiated by several citizens' groups to ask for a reversal of this policy and in 1992 the Executive Yuan promulgated the "February 28 Incident Research Report." President Lee Teng-hui, who as a young communist participated in the incident, made a formal apology on behalf of the government in 1995 and declared February 28 a national holiday to commemorate the victims. Among other memorials erected, Taipei New Park was renamed 228 Memorial Park and the 228 Incident Memorial Foundation was established to compensate victims and their families. The families of the massacre victims have demanded the government declassify related documents in order to apprehend any living soldiers responsible for the incident, however the government has not yet acted on this request.

Prior to the 228 Incident, many Taiwanese desired autonomy from mainland China but not outright independence. The failure of dialogue with the ROC authorities in early March, combined with the feelings of betrayal felt towards the government and mainland China in general is widely believed to have been one of the major factors behind the birth of the Taiwan independence movement.

On February 28 2004, thousands of Taiwanese participated in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally. They formed a 500-kilometer (300-mile) long human chain, from Taiwan's northernmost city, Keelung, to its southern tip, to commemorate the 228 Incident, to call for peace, and to protest the People's Republic of China's deployment of missiles aimed at Taiwan along the mainland coast. The event was organized by the Pan-Green Coalition. Over a million participants were estimated to have participated.

Many Pan-Blue Coalition supporters have criticized their political opponents of inciting hatred between the Chinese mainlanders and the native Taiwanese. Conversely, many Pan-Green Coalition suppporters criticize their opponents of attempting to whitewash history.

This is still a highly volatile political issue in Taiwan.

References

See also

• History of Taiwan
• History of the Republic of China
• 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally (in 2004)
• Political status of Taiwan
• White Terror

External links

• [Formosa Betrayed], a political science book by George H. Kerr that offers a Western perspective and interpretation of the 2-28 incident.
• [Taipei 228 Memorial Museum]
• [Collections of US Media Documentations]
• [Wikipedia Commons: Images Relevant to the 228 Incident]
• [Reflection on the 228 Event] from Taiwan Human Rights InfoNet

 

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