February 28 incident
The 228 Incident (二二八事件) or 228 Massacre was an uprising in Taiwan that began on February 28, 1947. This event is now commemorated as Peace Memorial Day there.
Taiwan had been handed over to the Republic of China from Japan two years earlier and tensions between the local Taiwanese and the new arrivals from the Mainland had increased in the intervening years. A dispute on February 27, 1947 in Taipei between a female cigarette vendor and an anti-smuggling officer triggered a civil disorder which was put down brutally and with large loss of civilian life by the ROC Army.
Taiwan under Japanese jurisdiction
As settlement for losing the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), Imperial Qing China ceded the entire island of Taiwan to Japan in 1895. Despite sporadic resistance fiercely suppressed by Japanese authorities, Japanese rule in Taiwan was much more humane and less oppressive than in Korea or mainland China. Taiwanese perceptions of the Japanese 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 expended considerable effort in developing Taiwan's economy and raised the standard of living for most Taiwanese citizens to levels far higher than other places in Asia. Family members of the elite were respected. By 1905, the island had electric power. However, it should be noted that Taiwan had been developed considerably ahead of other parts of China before the beginning of Japanese occupation. For example, Chinese governor Liu Ming-Chuan commissioned a railroad line running in northern Taiwan in 1887 and a telegraph line in 1888.
At the same time, Japanese rule led to a three stage process of colonization of the island, which began as an oppressive paternalistic approach, then a "doka" policy was instituted in which the Japanese considered the Taiwanese to be separate but equal, and the final stage being "kominka", a policy which readied Taiwanese to fight for the emperor. The "kominka" period hoped to teach the Taiwanese the "Japanese Spirit" (and eventually assimulate Taiwanese into the Japanese society), including compulsory Japanese education and forcing residents of Taiwan to adopt Japanese names. The later period of Japanese rule saw a local elite educated and organized. During the 1930s, several home rule groups were promoted as the Taiwanese developed a "Taiwan Consciousness" in contrast to the Japanese and Chinese. The Taiwanese eventually pushed for entry into the Japanese Diet. Some Taiwanese youngsters were drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army to fight in Mainland China, the island of Hainan and Southeast Asia.
Nevertheless Japanese colonial approaches distanced the Taiwanese locals from their former mainland counterparts. Many locals were educated poorly in Chinese literacy, some even incompetent in daily communication of the Chinese language. Education in "Japanese spirits" furthered the discrepancy. Consequently the younger generations born during Japanese colonial rule were more neutral and even sympathetic or protagonistic towards Japan whilst most elder populace of Taiwanese locals celebrated the return of Chinese jurisdiction after World War II.
Several Chinese nationalistic or anti-Japanese families had moved to the mainland including Lien Heng, the grandfather of Lien Chan, mainly to preserve their Chinese identities.
Tension between locals and mainlanders
Chen Yi, the Chief Executive 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.
After Japan's surrender in World War II, Nationalist rule began in October 1945. During the immediate postwar period, the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) administration on Taiwan was repressive and corrupt, leading to local discontent. Anti-mainlander violence flared on February 28, 1947, prompted by an incident in which a cigarette seller was injured and a passerby was shot to death by Nationalist authorities.
For several weeks after the February 28 Incident, the rebels held control of much of the island. Feigning negotiation the Nationalists assembled a large military force (carried on United States naval vessels) that attacked Taiwan killing many Taiwanese and imprisoning thousands of others. The killings were both random and premeditated as local elites or educated Taiwanese were sought out and disposed of. Many of the Taiwanese who had formed home rule groups under the Japanese were the victims of 228. This was followed by the "White Terror" in which many thousands of Taiwanese were imprisoned or executed for their real or perceived opposition to the Kuomintang military regime, leaving many native Taiwanese with a deep-seated bitterness to the mainlanders.
However, the number of victims are still in dispute. Some say that as high as 30,000 Taiwanese were killed, while others say the majority killed were innocent civilians from the mainland. The number is still being researched upon as the government declassified sensitive material recently. The government also set up a reparation fund for the victims or the families of victims, of 228. However, as of right now, only a few hundred have come forward to claim the money even though the deadline was pushed several times. This furthermore casts doubts on the number of victims.
Legacy
For several decades, the KMT-ruled authoritarian 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 to declassify related documents in order to apprehand the any living soldiers responsible for the incident but the government has not yet acted on this request.
On February 28 2004, over 1 million 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 commemmorate the 228 Incident, to call for peace, and to protest the PRC's deployment of missiles aimed at Taiwan along the mainland coast. The event was organized by the Pan-Green Coalition.
On the other hand, many Pan-Blue Coalition supporters have accused their political opponenets of over-exposure and misuse of the tragic incident to leverage public support. Pan Blue supporters bashed some politicians have used it to widen the gap and incite hatred between mainlanders and native Taiwanese populations in order to gain votes. This is still a highly volatile political issue in Taiwan.
Timeline of the February 28 Incident
- February 27 2pm: the dispute
- February 28: civilians mobbed around the office of chief executive (in front of the Taipei Rail Station) where the securities fired at the crowd.
- February 28 - early March: mobs controlled Taipei, Keelung, Kaohsiung, Hsinchu, Taichung and Chiayi.
- March 2: ROC troops were sent from mainland and wrested the control of the cities though bloody suppression in the following days.
- March 17: Pai Chung-hsi, the defense minister of ROC, arrived.
- March 21: Suppression continued in countryside
- April 17: A census was conducted
- April 22: Government of Taiwan Province was established in place of the Office of Chief Executive and Chen Yi was recalled to mainland. Martial law was declared and lasted until 1987. "White Terror" began.