Timed to coincide with 228 Memorial Day events this week, academics got together yesterday to launch a new Chinese-language translation of Formosa Betrayed — known locally as “被出賣的台灣” — an influential book on the nation’s post-World War II political transition written by US diplomat George Kerr in 1965.
Published by the Taiwan Association of University Professors (TAUP), the new edition is an update, with corrections and numerous references and explanatory notes added, of the 1974 Chinese-language translation of the book by Ronald Chen (陳榮成) and other young Taiwanese academics living in the US at the time.
“This book had a tremendous influence on Taiwan’s democracy movement. When overseas Taiwanese students read Kerr’s original book in English in the 1960s and 1970s, a lot of them were thoroughly shaken up. They turned around to embrace the Taiwan independence cause,” TAUP president Lu Chung-chin (呂忠津) said at the book launch yesterday.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Lu added that it was the overseas students’ first encounter with eyewitness reports on the tragic events of February and March 1947, and the book also prodded them to question the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government’s version of events. They began to have misgivings on how much the KMT had distorted and falsified Taiwan’s wartime and post-war history.
Kerr was a teacher in Taiwan from 1937 to 1940. After the war he returned to Taiwan to serve as vice consul of the US diplomatic mission from 1945 to 1947, and later became a professor at universities in the US. He was an eyewitness to KMT forces’ atrocities in the spring of 1947, which Kerr unequivocally described as the “March Massacre” in his book.
Work on the new edition began in 2010. Chan Li-ju (詹麗茹) and Lanny Chen (柯翠園) were the translators.
Chen yesterday choked with emotion when she described translating Kerr’s original manuscript.
“It was a very painful process for me to go through the book word by word. Every so often, I could not control my tears and kept crying, and had to stop work. I was grief-stricken when I read about how my compatriots were tortured and killed [by KMT troops],” she said.
“I normally produce several thousand words a day when I do translations. However, this book was a difficult and emotional experience. It took me much longer to finish than other translations. I was only able to translate 11 chapters over five months,” Chen said.
Led by Taiwan Society president Chang Yen-hsien (張炎憲), five professors at TAUP were responsible for post-translation editing, research, fact-checking, and verification against historical documents and national archive files.
“Four decades after the first Chinese-language edition [of the book] came out, we have a rejuvenated script with restored interpretations of the contents of Formosa Betrayed. It is a very meaningful work,” Chang said.
“I believe the book should be a must-read for students learning about Taiwan’s history and the 228 Massacre in 1947,” he added.
“First, Kerr’s first-hand account is very important for historians and Taiwanese. He was there taking down his observations, becoming an important witness to history,” Chang said.
“Second, Formosa Betrayed and the translated editions are of great value for academics. It is a whole field of study by itself, for academic studies of Kerr’s lifetime body of works, with renewed interpretations of history from contemporary perspectives,” Chang added.
He said that Kerr’s 1965 original publication is hailed as a classic and had withstood the test of time.
“This updated translation can be seen as a representative history book for our time. We have made a comprehensive re-examination of the book, to clarify the meanings, made corrections [to the 1974 translation] and provided our best current interpretation of that chapter of Taiwan’s history,” Chang said.
Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深), a research fellow at Academia Sinica and a member of the editing team, gave an example of corrections to the text.
He said that where Kerr wrote about the government radio station in Taipei in February 1947, where after a certain incident “the station went off the air,” it was erroneously translated into Chinese as “the station exploded” in the 1974 edition. The translation has been rectified.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck off Tainan at 11:47am today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 32.3km northeast of Tainan City Hall at a depth of 7.3km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Tainan and Chiayi County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and County, and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Kaohsiung, Nantou County, Changhua County, Taitung County and offshore Penghu County, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
RSS