A recent study, the 228 Incident: A Report on Responsibility names the dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) as the prime culprit, giving the backing of academic research to something everyone already knew. It told us nothing new.
However, Chiang's grandson, John Chiang (蔣孝嚴), together with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), have offered as "counter-evidence" to this proposition the order Chiang Kai-shek gave to Chen Yi (陳儀), then Taiwan executive administrator, on March 13, 1947, which read, "Any retaliation on the part of military administration officials should be strictly prohibited, and anything to the contrary dealt with as acting against orders." This, they contend, is proof that Chiang Kai-shek was not the prime culprit.
One has to question why Chiang Kai-shek included the word "should." It reveals that Chen didn't prohibit anything, and that the "retaliation" was already in progress. This is why Chiang Kai-shek used that word. He meant that Chen should do something -- prohibit retaliation -- that in fact he hadn't done.
Chiang never made this order on his own. It was in response to the situation. On the date in question, March 13, Yang Liang-kung (楊亮公), who had been sent by the Control Yuan in China to monitor the situation in Taiwan, sent a message to Yu You-ren (于右任), then president of the Control Yuan, saying, "As the local government's random arrests have disquieted civilians, I would like to suggest that you forward a request to the central government that it give the local government strict orders to refrain from retaliatory measures."
Upon receiving Yang's message, Yu immediately sent him a reply, saying "I have reported to the chairman [Chiang Kai-shek] on what you saw there."
Before sending his reply to Yang, Yu informed Chiang Kai-shek, who immediately responded by issuing an order. That is, Chiang's order was issued as a show for the Control Yuan. However, such an order is inadequate to prove that Chiang is not the main culprit in the 228 Incident.
According to Denny Roy's Taiwan: A Political History, Chiang gave Chen two orders. One was made public while the other was not. The undisclosed one tells Chen to be tough and "slaughter them all in a secretive manner." The author's sources are listed in a footnote on page 71 of the book. This assumption should not come as a surprise, for this was Chiang Kai-shek's standard tactic. It is sufficient evidence that Chiang Kai-shek directed the suppression of the unrest.
Why was Chiang Kai-shek so determined to slaughter the Taiwanese? At the time of the 228 Incident, Chiang Kai-shek wrote in his diary that "Communists and ambitious politicians are instigating the public."
A look at the overall situation shows that in January 1947, the ceasefire agreement between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was broken, in February, the CCP launched a massive attack on Jilin Province and civil war seemed imminent. Chiang connected the incident in Taiwan with "communists" thus determining his view of the character of the 228 incident and setting the tone for how to deal with it. On March 10, Chiang wired Chen, asking him to remain in his post although Chen had already expressed his wish to resign to take responsibility for the incident. In the telegram, Chiang said "There are reports that the undercover communists in Taiwan gradually are coming into play. We should take strict pre-emptive measures to prevent this from happening and cannot leave a single cell to jeopardize the future."
Ko Yuan-fen (柯遠芬), then head of the Taiwan Garrison, said straight out that "there is no doubt that the communists are the masterminds behind this political conspiracy." He strictly enforced the idea of "rather unjustly killing 99 innocent as long as he could kill a true [communist]." This attitude completely tallied with Chiang's motive. No wonder Chiang was so ruthless, for the massacre resulting from the 228 Incident was a link in the civil war between the KMT and the CCP.
It was Chiang Kai-shek who directed the suppression of the unrest following from the 228 Incident. On May 7, he dispatched Liu Yu-ching (劉雨卿), the commander of the 21st Division, to travel to Taiwan to maintain order. Officially, Liu was under the command of Chen, but he was in fact taking orders directly from Chiang.
Authors Lai Tse-han (
Chiang only trusted his own henchmen, and he was the only one who could direct them. Liu was under Chiang's direct orders to quell the unrest in Taiwan and that is why he reported directly to Chiang. Pai only relayed Chiang's orders to Liu.
Over the years, more and more information about the 228 Incident has been revealed. The KMT cannot cover up the truth of whether or not Chiang was the main culprit behind the incident. The evidence will tell its story.
Chin Heng-wei is the editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine.
Translated by Paul Cooper and Daniel Cheng
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