Yesterday was 228 Memorial Day. However, over the past eight years, since former president Lee Teng-hui (
First, it is imperative for the public realize that what happened on Feb. 28 56 years ago was not an isolated and random infliction of violence by a government on its people.
There were many contributing factors to the event, ranging from ethnic tension between the Taiwanese and the Chinese mainlanders, the depression and the corruption and autocracy of the KMT regime, among others. On the other hand, the incident can been seen as formally beginning an era of White Terror and government oppression that lasted until a little over a decade ago.
The day symbolizes the oppression of an alien regime against the people of Taiwan. In this regard, it makes sense for the DPP to choose the 228 Memorial Day as the day to remember the Kaohsiung Incident, to make public de-classified files on the incident and demand an apology from PFP Chairman James Soong (
The pan-blue camp has also criticized the DPP of selectively focusing on the Kaohsiung Incident for political consideration, since many former victims and participants of the incident now play important roles in the DPP government. The pan-blue camp has also argued that reclassification of files of the 228 Incident and the White Terror era deserve more attention. But, one cannot help but think that this is perhaps because the Kaohsiung Incident, which occurred only a little over two decades ago, is simply too close in time for the many current pan-blue leaders, such as Soong, to evade responsibility.
Soong has adopted an embarrassingly evasive attitude toward his part of his past. It is true that in order to move on the people of Taiwan must learn to forgive those who have wronged them. But, isn't an admission of wrong by the wrongdoers a precondition to forgiveness? If there was no wrong, what is there to forgive? This is true irrespective of whether the wrong was the 228 Incident, the Formosa Incident, or the Kaohsiung Incident.
Many pan-blue camp members who helped the old KMT regime oppress the people characterized what happened as "a historical tragedy," playing down their own roles and perhaps implying they had no choice about doing the things they did.
But, even if they truly disapproved of the government's wrongdoing, just like everyone else, they had three options -- one, stand up against it; two, keep quiet but take no part in it; and finally, give disgruntled assistance.
It goes without saying what these three options respectively reflect about the moral characters of the ones who take them. While those who chose option one were clearly heros and those who chose option two were ordinary people, those who chose option three were at least accomplices.
If there is anything that should be learned from the 228 Incident, the White Terror era and the Kaohsiung Incident, it should be the priceless value of democracy. It is the only way that a government can sustain power without resorting to bloodshed, violence and gun barrels. The day also reminds us that the nation's democracy today was not without a costly price, giving everyone even more reason to appreciate democracy, freedoms and human rights.
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
After “Operation Absolute Resolve” to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the US joined Israel on Saturday last week in launching “Operation Epic Fury” to remove Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his theocratic regime leadership team. The two blitzes are widely believed to be a prelude to US President Donald Trump changing the geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific region, targeting China’s rise. In the National Security Strategic report released in December last year, the Trump administration made it clear that the US would focus on “restoring American pre-eminence in the Western hemisphere,” and “competing with China economically and militarily
RSS