Huang Hsiu-Cheng
The 228 Massacre, took place in Taipei City on February 1947, has been the one most tragic event ever happened to Taiwan that greatly influenced the development of Taiwan’s postwar history. Background relating to the Massacre was complex and intricate. First of all, there was this special governing mechanism in which the administrative leader, in addition to his double roles serving as the commander-in-chief of Taiwan Provincial Garrison Command had power over administration, legislation, justice, even the personnel and auditing. In other words, the military and administrative powers all concentrated on this one person. No wonder when the system was first promulgated, many Taiwanese expressed their disappointment over the system. During the time when the system was implemented, there were people constantly suggested the government to abolish the system, and resumed to the system of provincial government.
Secondly, there was the political monopoly and corruption as result of the take-over. At the time, mainland Chinese monopolized important high and mid-ranking positions in the government and were involved in cases of corruptions. Situation of which played an important contributing factor in the 228 Massacre. Thirdly, there was the government’s total control ofeconomy that led to suffering of people’s well-being. When Chen Yi and his people took over Taiwan, they adopted an “economic control policy,” in which they controlled all goods, monopolized finance and sales of commodities. As the result, it led to sufferings of the people, including unemployment and starvation. Then, there was the social unrest and culture estrangement. Some army and police personnel arriving Taiwan from China were poorly disciplined. Their abuse of power, in addition to the cultural estrangement between them and Taiwanese, had led to deterioration of social order.
Although curtain had fallen on the 228 Massacre fairly quickly following the crackdown and acts of pacification by the Nationalist government, the Massacre nonetheless had done a great deal of damages to Taiwan and left Taiwan with deep imprints. First of all, there was this psychological shock to Taiwanese, that subsequently led to their long-time fear and indifference towards politics. Before and after the 228 Massacre, the government carried out brutal crackdown and retaliated against Taiwanese protesters with either public or secret executions. It was also a horror when army and police strafed shooting mercilessly in the streets and caused great casualties among the innocent peasants. The government, aimed to eliminate the so-called rebels, also aroused fear in various places by arresting people openly and brazenly. Afterwards, the government continued to purge dissidents, frame others, and cook up charges. All these had led to Taiwan be filled with the air of White Terror that everyone feared of his/her own safety and was afraid to talk about politics.
Then, there was the damage to the elite pool that greatly disturbed local political ecology. A large number of Taiwanese elites were framed and arrested by Chen Yi and his army and police during the 228 Massacre. A lot of local gentry and intellectuals were assassinated, or died with injustice in the prisons. Alderman-level elites in every city and county in Taiwan went through a violent change, in which 80% of the local elites disappeared from the political field, hence resulted the “depletion of elites.” Those who filled the vacancies were a batch of political upstarts who made their way up the ladder via back-door visits with the authorities. These people replaced not only the social status of traditional local elites but also monopolized the local political rights and economic resources. All these changed the ecology of existing politics. Thirdly, it offered favorable condition for the Kuomintang’s one-party autocracy, and as the result, hindered development of democratic politics. In the early years after the war, Chen Yi and his ruling group and the Kuomintang had obvious estrangement with Taiwan’s local public. They not only weakened local power and created the “depletion of the local elites” during the 228 Massacre, but also carried on power struggles among factions in the Kuomintang. On August 1949, the Kuomintang government retreated to Taiwan. Chiang Kai-Shek, then president of the Kuomintang, concluded that the factions within the Kuomintang were one of the reasons that the Kuomintang lost the mainland. He therefore started party reform, plotted ways to pull out old factions in Taiwan and those within the central authorities, and re-positioned himself with all-powerful authority. He also used the Taiwan-Strait issues and China’s invasion as excuses to enforce martial law, ruled people with suppression and sanctioned all presses, speech, and crowdgatherings. He took advantages of his control over army, police, and intelligence to monitor and arrest dissidents, and led Taiwan to the White Terror Era. The forth impact left by the 228 Massacre was the deepening of the ethnic estrangement, that ended up hindering Taiwan’s cultural development. Aside from the public resentment Chen Yi government’s corruption that led to the 228 Massacre, the conflict among ethnic groups also played a role in it. The stand-off and misunderstanding among the ethnic groups did not subside with the end of the Massacre. It, on the other hand, further deepened the estrangement among the ethnic groups and hindered a normal cultural development in Taiwan. After the Massacre, Taiwanese elites were targeted, persecuted and attacked by the authorities. This not only weakens local political influences but also caused the fault of cultural continuity in Taiwan. In addition, when the central government retreated to Taiwan, the government---in order to justify the legitimacy of its ruling---used traditional Chinese culture as its instrument and used governmental agencies or schools to promote Chinese culture rejuvenation movement, all of which made the whole society packed with the Greater- China shade. People’s daily lives were soaked with Chinese mentality, culture, and way of thinking, all the while Taiwan’s local history and culture were being ignored and marginalized. Such a biased situation was only improved and that Taiwan’s local history and culture started to gain more attention after the lifting of martial law in July, 1987, and then an increase of prolocalization consciousness started to take shape.
History is like a mirror. As an old saying goes that “the past, if not forgotten, can serve as a guide for the future,” as noted previously, the 228 Massacre indeed can be said as the most unfortunate tragedy ever happened in Taiwan’s postwar history. Tasks on how to heal the wound left by the 228 Massacre are important matters facing us that worth our deep thoughts so that the 23 million Taiwanese compatriots can get out of its shadow, establish a society with peace and justice, and avoid repeat of similar tragedy.
(Huang Hsiu-Cheng is a professor of the Department of History at the National Chung Hsing University and a board member of the Memorial Foundation of 228)