Lee Yun-chi, February 28th Incident, a Taiwanese Version. Published by the Taiwan New Service, Taipei, Taiwan (“printed by the Mercury Press”), [1947] . 5″x 3.75”, 7pp. Wrappers. Printed on inexpensive newsprint, and the pages are now browned. Good condition, though better than what might expected from the origin of the paper. Provenance: Library of Congress, with their rubber stamp on the rear wrapper.
Only two copies located in WorldCat: Cornell and Yale. $250
This is a propaganda piece on the “February 28th Incident” (“2-28”), which was a brutal suppression of a Taiwanese social movement by the government of China, resulting in the death of thousands of Taiwanese over a period of weeks (1). The author of this pamphlet insists on being Taiwanese eyewitness and lays the blame for the all that happened and all of the atrocities with the Taiwanese.
Here are some examples of the vicious sentiments of the (supposed) author:
- “Indiscriminate beatings of all Mandarin Chinese women and pregnant women and children…”
- “Taiwanese no longer they respect themselves as citizens of China but the old slaves of the Japs. Their sadism was immediately manifest.”
- “They lynched the Chinese, some dead some half-dead”;
- Taiwanese atrocities similar to those of the Japanese during WWII;
- Attacks by groups of “ruffians” and students;
- Taiwanese in “relentless hunt”for Mainland Chinese;
- Established the 2-28 committee to create peace by Taiwanese elements used it as a way to try to gain political power;
- The greatest shortcoming of Chen Yi administration is “granting democratic rights to my fellow Taiwanese…;
- Taiwanese never learned humanitarian love”;
- “The aggressive Japs taught the Taiwanese VIOLENCE”;
- The author claimed that years of re-education (of the Taiwanese) was needed.
- The “responsibility for the present chaos….is simple politicians, Communists, Jap instigators, and rascals…I hope the government will take adequate steps to exterminate these bugbears…”
- The ending sentence: “The future of Taiwan is bright and rosy.”