It has been 60 years since the 228 Incident occurred on Feb 28, 1947. All Taiwanese should know the cause of the incident, perhaps one of the most important events in Taiwan’s history, so that history is not repeated.
Opinion on the cause of the incident is widely divided. President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) calls it a rebellion against misgovernment, and one academic calls it a result of cultural differences. Neither of these views explain why the military and police from the “motherland,” who were enthusiastically welcomed when they arrived, stole the assets of Taiwanese and Japanese with abandon and slaughtered people.
Nor do they explain why an isolated incident led to a nationwide massacre, White Terror, and the 38-year-long Martial Law Era, not to mention the shocking murder of three members of former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Lin I-hsiung’s (林義雄) family on Feb. 28, 1980, more than three decades later.
On Dec. 3, 1943, the leaders of the Republic of China (ROC), the US and Britain issued the Cairo Declaration, demanding Japan surrender unconditionally and return Chinese territories — the four provinces in northeastern China, Taiwan and Penghu — to the ROC. But the three leaders did not sign the declaration, which was thus invalid and merely a “news communique.”
Because of former president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) deception, this is unknown to most people, who think the allies returned Taiwan and Penghu to the ROC. Chiang must have known that the ROC did not have legal ownership over Taiwan and Penghu.
On Sep. 8, 1951, the San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed by 49 countries, including Japan. The treaty officially came into effect on April 28, 1952. Until then, both Taiwan and Penghu were Japanese territories, something Chiang and the executive administrator of Taiwan, Chen Yi (陳儀), must have known.
This is also why the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) troops that arrived here treated Taiwan as the territory of the Japanese enemy and the Taiwanese who welcomed them as surrendering Japanese citizens, and that is why they so unscrupulously stole the assets of Taiwanese and Japanese, and why the anti-tobacco smuggling campaign resulted in slaughter. That is also why the slaughter continued on a nationwide scale.
When the KMT’s troops were defeated in China in 1949, the KMT government had no choice but to relocate to Taiwan and Penghu despite the fact that these were not ROC territories. Since it had no place to go except for this illegally occupied land, it adopted repressive rule to achieve its goal of military occupation, resulting in martial law and the White Terror. A rebellion against misgovernment or cultural differences cannot explain these brutal actions.
If such claims can explain the long-term bloody crackdown, shouldn’t there be endless bloody conflicts since cultural differences exist everywhere in the world? The cultural differences between Taiwanese and Americans is greater than that between Taiwanese and Chinese people. So why do Taiwanese people get along peacefully with Americans?
The cause of the 228 Incident was occupation, pillage and oppression. Neither rebellion against misgovernment nor cultural differences were the real cause of the incident.
Kuo Cheng-deng is chairman of the Healthy Taiwan Society.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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