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.”
It seems that this version of events is contrary in every way from the facts of the situation.
Notes:
1. Peggy Durdin, “Terror in Taiwan”, in The Nation, May 24, 1947.
“On February 27 a policeman of the Taiwan (Formosa) Monopoly Bureau saw a woman selling smuggled cigarettes on the streets of the capital, Taipei. When he tried to seize her tray and money, she pulled away, and he struck her a crashing blow on the head with his revolver butt. She died at his feet. An angry mob gathered, and the police shot into the crowd, killing one person and wounding others. Forthwith a year and a half of gathering hatred for an inefficient, autocratic, corrupt administration exploded into unarmed demonstrations against the mainland Chinese.
China put down the revolt with brutal repression, terror, and massacre. Mainland soldiers and police fired first killing thousands indiscriminately; then, more selectively, hunted down and jailed or slaughtered students, intellectuals, prominent business men, and civic leaders. Foreigners estimate that at least five thousand Taiwanese were killed and executions are still going on.
Governor General Chen Yi has turned a movement against bad government into one against any Chinese government. Nanking has again demonstrated that its chief solution for political and economic crisis is force. In spite of a curtain of censorship and official misrepresentation, the tragic events that took place in Formosa in March are well known here.
The Chinese government owns, controls, and operates -- for government profit and personal squeeze -- almost the entire economy of Taiwan. One of the articles whose importation and sale are rigidly controlled is tobacco. Many Taiwanese street venders sell smuggled cigarettes. It was in the course of a campaign against the sale of smuggled goods that the woman was killed in Taipei.”
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