Though no one knows the exact number of dead, an estimated 30,000 people were killed 54 years ago at the hands of KMT-government troops in the wake of an incident which occurred on Feb. 28, 1947. The "228 Incident," often simply called 228, and its lasting memory cut to the core of native Taiwanese people's fear of reunification with China.
The massacre was triggered when officials from the wine and tobacco monopoly bureau accosted a woman for selling outlawed foreign-brand cigarettes. As the officials took possession of the contraband and some coins, the woman grabbed the arm of one officer in protest. Smacking her away, the officer took out his pistol and began beating her with the butt of the gun.
The ruckus drew a crowd of Taiwanese who, tired of suffering abuse under the newly-installed KMT government, chased the officials back to the monopoly bureau and burned it down. The conflagration marked the beginning of Taiwan's first rebellion against the KMT government which had regained sovereignty over Taiwan following Japan's defeat in World War II.
The 228 Incident "shattered people's hopes and dreams" for Taiwan's retrocession to China says Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文), senior adviser to president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Japan gained possession of Taiwan in 1895 under the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, and spent the next five decades building Taiwan into a productive colony, building bridges, hydro-electric dams, railways, concrete roads and modern industry. By 1920, Taiwan was the most developed area in Asia outside of Japan and far more developed than China. World War II ended all that.
Two foreigners living in Taiwan between 1945 and 1947 were moved enough by their experiences to write books about the restoration of Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan, including the 228 Incident and its subsequent bloody crackdown. American political attache George Kerr wrote Formosa Betrayed, and a UN officer from New Zealand, Allan Shackleton, wrote Formosa Calling. Taiwan at the time was commonly referred to as Formosa.
When US transports ships full of Chinese soldiers arrived at the port of Keelung in October, 1945, Taiwanese citizens stood along the roads waving red and blue KMT flags and cheering.
"We had high hopes for reunification," said Lee Wang-tai (
Although the crowds expected to see troops disembark and march into Taipei, the ships sat at harbor. Hours later, Chinese soldiers finally begin filing out of the ships and the crowds later discovered that the wait had been caused by an argument between the Chinese troop commanders and the US captains of each ship.
The Chinese had refused to leave the ships, believing large numbers of Japanese infantry remaining in Taiwan had taken to the hills and formed suicide squads. They requested that an American contingent move in first to secure the area. Instead the American captain kicked the troops off his ship. And there was no trouble with the Japanese soldiers.
Word spread fast about the cowardice of the newcomers. Local Taiwanese also began to joke about the young Chinese conscripts who spent hours gawking at elevators in department stores -- they had never seen one before. Bicycle theft also became a problem, but comically, the Chinese soldiers had to carry the bicycles away on their backs, because they didn't know how to ride them.
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