On February 28, 1947, Chinese soldiers struck an old woman selling smuggled cigarettes on the streets of Taipei, killing her. One and a half years after the transfer of power from Japan, the Taiwanese had experienced Chinese mismanagement, large-scale takeovers and subsequently suspended state-industries, inept rule, plundering across all levels of society, and betrayed promises and hopes. The Taiwanese were out of jobs, out of power, out of patience, and downright pissed off!
Large-scale protests erupted that were violently repressed by "Governor" Chen-Yi's soldiers. Sensing an opportunity to re-calibrate the levers, the ever-enterprising Taiwanese immediately began coalescing and concocting a plan for mutual co-existence with their new Chinese rulers. Elements of these include:
- Taiwan be given provincial (not colonial) rule.
- Provincial and city magistrates and mayors be elected before June
- More Taiwanese be given administrative, police, and judicial posts
- all special police be abolished and no political arrests be permitted
- Granting of freedom of the press and speech
- The right to strike
- Trade and Monopoly Bureaus be abolished
- Political and Economic rights of aborigines be guaranteed
- Central government (China) repay Taiwan for expropriated sugar and rice
....until the afternoon of March 8, when the streets of Keelung and Taipei were cleared with gunfire to announce the entry of Chinese troops. These were the Szechuan 21st Division, an outfit with a reputation for brutality. In the next 4-5 days, random terror was unleashed upon the streets of northern Taiwan followed by targeted island-wide massacre of intellectuals, professionals, businesspersons, and.... those convenient starry-eyed committee members working so hard to build a workable future with the Chinese.
This served as a targeted execution of an entire generation of leaders, craftily employing the tactics described in the popular Taiwanese saying "Slay the chicken to warn the monkey" Leaving a Taiwan society stripped of its leaders, too fearful to rise up against their brutal dictators for the next 40 years....
Scholars estimate that up to 28,000 people lost their lives in the turmoil. During the "White Terror" of the subsequent years, the Nationalists ruled Taiwan under martial law, which ended only when democratization set in during the mid-1980s.
The "228 Incident" remains a defining event in the political divide that exists in Taiwan today.
One of my favorite articles about the incident is posted here:
http://www.taiwandc.org/hs
