On Sunday, a group of academics published a report entitled The 228 Incident: A Report on Responsibility that claims former president Chiang Kai-shek (
The report, financed by the government-funded 228 Memorial Foundation and headed by Academia Historica President Chang Yen-hsien (
After it came to power in 2000, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government declared Feb. 28 a national holiday to commemorate the 1947 incident. The tragedy had been the subject of a massive cover-up by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime, and the misinformation disseminated as a result has led to distrust and tensions between various ethnic groups.
The report's clarification of the incident, in which many of Taiwan's intellectual elite were massacred, is necessary to put a stop to self-serving politicians or political parties exploiting misconceptions about Taiwan's past to exacerbate social divisions, instead of allowing people to learn something from this tragic event.
Not least among the lessons to be learned is that of forgiveness. But while knowing the truth may allow us to forgive, we must never forget, and those with blood on their hands should not be venerated as heroes.
In 1947, Chiang, who was orchestrating the war against the Chinese Communists from Nanjing, sent a division of the Nationalist Army to Taiwan in response to the 228 Incident. The troops landed in early March and proceeded to slaughter any dissidents, or those who had been framed as such, islandwide in a wave of cruel suppression that continued until after Chiang himself arrived in 1949.
Chiang then introduced martial law. This helped him to consolidate the power of the KMT through the White Terror era, to which both Taiwanese and Mainlanders who had followed the Nationalist Army over from China fell victim. The prison on Green Island (
Whether or not the contents of this report are accepted by Chiang's descendants, they will serve as evidence in a public debate on the 228 Incident. This may lead to a more comprehensive understanding of what actually happened. For example, the true number of victims remains a mystery.
Regardless of whether one agrees with the report's findings or not, the public can learn an important lesson -- namely that even governments cannot escape the judgement of history, and while crimes can be hidden for a time, most will eventually be revealed.
More importantly, Taiwanese should be able to use this incident as a point of reference in debate over the future of cross-strait relations. History tells us that every foreign government that has come to Taiwan -- be it the Qing dynasty, the Japanese, or the Chiangs -- has brought bloodshed in its wake. On the basis of this understanding, it is fair to ask whether, under the unified rule of a communist China, Taiwan has any guarantee of dignity or a secure future.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) sits down with US President Donald Trump in Beijing on Thursday next week, Xi is unlikely to demand a dramatic public betrayal of Taiwan. He does not need to. Beijing’s preferred victory is smaller, quieter and in some ways far more dangerous: a subtle shift in American wording that appears technical, but carries major strategic meaning. The ask is simple: replace the longstanding US formulation that Washington “does not support Taiwan independence” with a harder one — that Washington “opposes” Taiwan independence. One word changes; a deterrence structure built over decades begins to shift.
The cancelation this week of President William Lai’s (賴清德) state visit to Eswatini, after the Seychelles, Madagascar and Mauritius revoked overflight permits under Chinese pressure, is one more measure of Taiwan’s shrinking executive diplomatic space. Another channel that deserves attention keeps growing while the first contracts. For several years now, Taipei has been one of Europe’s busiest legislative destinations. Where presidents and foreign ministers cannot land, parliamentarians do — and they do it in rising numbers. The Italian parliament opened the year with its largest bipartisan delegation to Taiwan to date: six Italian deputies and one senator, drawn from six
Recently, Taipei’s streets have been plagued by the bizarre sight of rats running rampant and the city government’s countermeasures have devolved into an anti-intellectual farce. The Taipei Parks and Street Lights Office has attempted to eradicate rats by filling their burrows with polyurethane foam, seeming to believe that rats could not simply dig another path out. Meanwhile, as the nation’s capital slowly deteriorates into a rat hive, the Taipei Department of Environmental Protection has proudly pointed to the increase in the number of poisoned rats reported in February and March as a sign of success. When confronted with public concerns over young
Taipei is facing a severe rat infestation, and the city government is reportedly considering large-scale use of rodenticides as its primary control measure. However, this move could trigger an ecological disaster, including mass deaths of birds of prey. In the past, black kites, relatives of eagles, took more than three decades to return to the skies above the Taipei Basin. Taiwan’s black kite population was nearly wiped out by the combined effects of habitat destruction, pesticides and rodenticides. By 1992, fewer than 200 black kites remained on the island. Fortunately, thanks to more than 30 years of collective effort to preserve their remaining
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