The Rehabilitation Movement over the 2.28 Incident under KMT Rule (1987-1997): Reexamining the transition from “confrontation” to “reconciliation”

ABSTRACT

This article reexamines the turning point from “confrontation” to “reconciliation” in the rehabilitation movement over the 2.28 Incident which began in the late 1980s, with a special focus on the role and accomplishments of Christians without any party affiliation.

The initial action to accuse the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and launch a redress campaign against the KMT government was driven by an anti-government movement. Following the establishment of the 228 Peace Day Association in 1987, the “2.28 Justice and Peace Movement” was carried out from 1989.

However, the “2.28 Shalom Service” initiated by Su Nan-chou in 1990 opened the initial gate toward reconciliation. The first victims’ family association, the World Alliance for Concerned Citizens and Surviving Victims and Families, was set up by Su together with Lin Tsung-yi. Both played a significant role in transforming the rehabilitation movement from “confrontation” to “reconciliation.”

Lastly, Lin’s five requests to President Lee Teng-hui (1. Publish an investigation report, 2. Issue a public apology and compensate families of victims, 3. Build a memorial monument and museum, 4. Establish February 28^th as a national memorial day, 5. Establish a foundation) were achieved in the form of government-private sector joint task forces until 1997. As “practical idealists,” Lin and Su devoted their efforts to achieve maximum results. What they chose was dialogue, not confrontation, and they transformed the rehabilitation movement from “confrontation to reconciliation,” from their standpoint of being practical idealists.

KEYWORDS:

• February 28^th incident
• rehabilitation movement
• Su Nan-chou
• Lin Tsung-yi
• 228 Shalom Service
• confrontation to reconciliation

1 Introduction

Taiwan’s February 28^th Incident (also 2.28 Incident) was sparked by an accidental conflict in Taipei that morphed into an Island-wide anti-government riot from February 28^th, 1947. In retaliation for the riot, the Nationalist Government Army is estimated to have massacred between 18,000 to 28,000 people. It is remembered as the worst incident in the contemporary history of Taiwan. This article attempts to reexamine the historical process of the rehabilitation and reconciliation movement over the 2.28 Incident that began in the 1980s.

The specific aim is to clarify the role and accomplishments of figures of Christian faith without party affiliation and distinguish them from other opposition groups of different political positions. The reason for directing attention to figures of Christian faith is not because of any religious preference; indeed, it was because many key figures in the rehabilitation process were Christians. However, those Christian figures and groups cannot be counted as a single entity. There are mainly two Church systems in postwar Taiwan: one is Mandarin-language churches, which use the Mandarin language to conduct services, and the other is Taiwanese (Hoklo) language churches, represented by the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT), which uses Taiwanese. The former mainly consists of Mainlanders who came from mainland China with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT: Kuomintang) after the war and their descendants. In contrast, the latter consists of local Taiwanese who inhabited Taiwan before World War II and their descendants, and thus, experienced 50 years of Japanese Colonial Rule. Unlike Mandarin-language churches, Taiwanese-language churches faced various difficulties (e.g., confiscation of Taiwanese language bibles, which the KMT government claimed was against the national policy of promoting Mandarin as the national language). The tendency of Taiwanese-language churches to be pro-Taiwan independence also provided an excuse for the suppression by the KMT regime; therefore, both church systems had clearly different political standpoints regarding KMT rule in Taiwan.

Various writings on the rehabilitation movement over the 2.28 Incident have been published after 2000 as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), an opposition party to the KMT that was a virtual dictatorship through single-party rule during postwar period, won the presidential election for the first time and achieved a historical transition of power. Many of the great contributions in challenging and confronting the powerful KMT government are owed to the courageous political activists and members of the PCT, who dreamed of Taiwan independence and became members of the DPP.

No one can deny the contributions of the PCT at the dawn of the rehabilitation movement over the 228 Incident from 1987 to 1990¹. However, in historicizing the developmental stage of the movement from 1990 to 1997, with a special focus on the turning point from “confrontation to reconciliation,” a somewhat blurred boundary can be observed regarding the achievements of an actor of Christian faith without affiliation to the DPP. For example, in the latest research published by the Memorial Foundation of 228, a description of Su Nan-chou, a Christian without party affiliation who will be the center of discussion in this article, is only seen in the following lines:

On December 8^th, Su Nan-chou of Wilderness Magazine launched “1990 Shalom [‘ping’an’ in Chinese, meaning ‘be in peace’] Service: Human Rights and the 2.28” activities, and held a service at Grace Baptist Church (Huaientang), inviting Christians, many of whom were second-generation Mainlanders. This Shalom Service became the first privately-organized memorial event on the 2.28 Incident, which both government ministers and officers attended for the first time in 40 years².

In any movement, there are always complexities of representation regarding actual actors and subjects. However, if one is to examine how pragmatic steps were taken toward the “rehabilitation movement vis-a-vis KMT rule” and actual progress, we should not neglect the role of Christians with no party affiliation, as represented in particular by Su Nan-chou. The reason is not simply because Su was one of the few figures who committed himself in all processes of negotiations in the rehabilitation movement against the KMT government. When we look at the respective results that were the fruits of dialogue, negotiations and compromise with the opposing KMT government, it is unimaginable that those goals would have been reached exclusively by the opposition’s unilateral actions of contestation.

The two main questions to be explored in this article are the following: 1. Who took the actual initiatives to achieve a pragmatic reconciliation and how? 2. While still under KMT rule, why was the rehabilitation movement able to reach its initial goal so expeditiously? To answer these questions, this article refers to the time period examined by Hsueh Hua-yuan, from 1987, when the rehabilitation movement began, to 1997, when the inscriptions of the incident were finally engraved on the panel of the 228 Memorial Monument in Taipei. In the first half, from Chapter 1 to 4, I will introduce the activities and contributions of anti-government movements. Then, in the latter half, from Chapter 5 onwards, focusing on Christians with no party affiliation, I will explore the turning point from “confrontation to reconciliation” and how those actual goals and results were achieved by their actions.

2 Political suppression under the KMT and the emergence of Taiwanese nationalism (1947-1987)

After 50 years of Japanese colonial rule, Taiwan became one of the provinces of the Republic of China (R.O.C.). However, in 1947, just two years after the reversion, the 2.28 massacre occurred. Then, two years later, the KMT and the central government of the R.O.C. resettled in Taipei as the government-in-exile following their defeat in the civil war in China. Under martial law which lasted for 38 years from 1949 to 1987, in the midst of the political atmosphere of Cold War tensions, speaking of the 2.28 Incident itself was considered taboo, much less about the victims.

Subsequently, when martial law was lifted in 1987, the rehabilitation movement over the 228 Incident materialized. Unlike the early postwar period, the former political framework of whether one was on the left or right was no longer the central issue of social division. Rather, the main political focus was the structural divisions and tensions between two main ethnicities: on the one hand, local Taiwanese who experienced the 50 years of Japanese Colonial Rule and their descendants, and on the other, Mainlanders who came from mainland China with the KMT after the war and their descendants³. Therefore, especially after the lifting of martial law, the initial contestation and organizational mobilization of protest campaigns against the KMT over the rehabilitation of 228 victims were first carried forth by those who not only condemned the KMT’s authoritarian rule and political suppression, but who were also driven by specific political motivations. The conflict was over the question of “unification with China or Taiwan independence,” which eventually became the focus of political debate on the Island, with initial protest actions led by those who shared the latter as their ultimate goal.

The reason the 2.28 Incident became considered taboo was due to the KMT’s propaganda of framing “communists, Taiwan independence activists, and anti-KMT figures” as rebellious subjects, demonizing them as the “trinity of enemies.”⁴ The KMT justified their massacre by using the term “purge” during the 2.28 Incident to “protect the R.O.C.,” as they propagandized the incident as instigated by those poisoned by Japanese imperial education, or rebels roused by communists who planned to subvert the Nationalist government⁵. The victims were labeled “rebellious elements = enemies of the nation” by the KMT regime; therefore, those victims’ families were forced to conceal their identities until the termination of martial law.

Overseas Taiwan independent activists defined the 2.28 Incident as directly instigating the independence movement and the self-determination ethos in the postwar period. After Liao Wen-yi, who had been leading the Taiwan independence movement in Japan surrendered to the KMT in 1965, the new center of the movement shifted to the United States, where Taiwanese population grew as many students studied abroad from Taiwan. At the same time, the Mainland Communist Government also clearly recognized and kept their perception that the Taiwan’s separatist consciousness was rooted in the 2.28 Incident⁶. However, due to the White Terror during 1950s completely terminated suspected communists following the rapid economic growth since the 1960s, the influence and threat from communism declined. Instead, it was those activists with the ideology of Taiwan independence gradually expanded their presence and turned into the major anti-KMT opposition throughout the 1980s.

In fact, the KMT government’s rule of terror by subjugation and suppression would not continue to produce lasting effects. 40 years from the 2.28 Incident, two major conflicts broke out in the late 1970s: the 1977 Chung-li Incident, which was the first mass riot since the 2.28 Incident, and the Meilidao Incident in 1979⁷. The Meilidao Incident was the starting point from which the anti-KMT opposition movement and Taiwan nationalism became indivisible. It is widely argued that after the Meilidao Incident in 1979, the Taiwanese people began to perceive Taiwanese nationalism as the ideology of the resistance movement against Chinese nationalism, which had been long promoted by the KMT government on the Island. These narratives of Taiwanese nationalism were theorized as “self-determination” by independent activists who fled overseas to countries such as Japan and the United States. From the 1980s, the Taiwan independence faction became the mainstream group of the “dangwai,” under the slogan of “self-determination of Taiwan’s future by the people of Taiwan.”⁸ Therefore, despite taking the form of an anti-government movement within the framework of the R.O.C., the movement had been influenced tremendously by Taiwanese nationalism, which defines the 2.28 Incident, the Island-wide suppression and massacre, as its origin and sets its goal as being the founding of a new nation, Taiwan.

In other words, it is not sufficient to regard the domestic problem of confrontation and reconciliation in Taiwan only within the framework of structural division and tension between the two main ethnicities, which are primarily represented by Chinese Nationalism of the KMT and Taiwanese Nationalism of the Taiwan independent activists. It is the conflict over the question of unification with China versus Taiwan independence that holds the key to fully understanding the complexities of the process of pursuing rehabilitation and the reconciliation movement over the 2.28 Incident.

The Chung-li Incident and the Meilidao Incident aside, the most shocking and pivotal events were the successive murder cases of anti-KMT intellectuals and their families, e.g., the Lin Yi-hsiung Incident and Chen Wen-chen Incident, by the Taiwan Garrison Command that governed social order in Taiwan under the martial law and the KMT secret services. The Lin Yi-hsiung Incident took place on February 28^th, 1980, and involved the murder of three family members of Lin Yi-hsiung, a member of the Taiwan Provincial Assembly prosecuted by a military court as one of the central figures behind the Meilidao Incident. All were slaughtered inside their own residences. Even though the family members were under surveillance by the KMT government, a suspect was not identified. In the Chen Wen-chen Incident, the victim, Chen Wen-chen, an assistant professor of Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, was taken away by the Taiwan Garrison Command during his short trip back to Taiwan and found dead the following day. Chen was suspected to be one of the supporters of the independence movement, which was assumed to be the reason for the murder; nevertheless, a suspect in this case was also never identified⁹.

In this context of resistance against the KMT, the 2.28 Incident was remembered and contested by independent activists abroad. One example reported in Taiwan Tribune, a newspaper in Chinese published by independent activists in the US, clearly intimated the Chen Wen-chen Incident as the direct reason for launching the newspaper. Number Zero, a pre-founding edition of the first issue on July 24^th, 1981 (the first official issue was on July 30^th, 1981), was exclusively compiled as a special issue on the Chen Wen-chen Incident¹⁰. The 2.28 Incident was mentioned in almost every single issue. For example, in an editorial titled, “Taiwanese People’s Heart Seeks Self-determination,” on September 22^nd, 1981, the following was succinctly stated:

Ever since the Taiwanese people experienced the 2.28 Incident and saw the true character of the colonizers from “the Motherland,” calls for self-determination were immediately heard among the Taiwanese people¹¹.

However, such manifestations were limited to among activists abroad. Under the strict control of the Taiwan Garrison Command, people had to wait until democratization, in order to discuss the 2.28 Incident in the public sphere. That was despite the fact that in reality, surveillance and arrests by authorities continued until the amendment of Article 100 of the Criminal Code in 1992. The Punishment of Rebellion Act, which legalized clampdowns on and suppression of anti-government figures, was abolished in 1991, with the above-mentioned Article 100 of the Criminal Code, which provided a legal basis for treason, finally amended in 1992¹².

3 Accusations after 40 years: “228 Peace Day Association” and “2.28 Justice and Peace Movement”

Meanwhile, the first accusation in the national legislature was lodged by a legislator, Chiang Peng-chien, in March 1985. He submitted an inquiry about the 2.28 Incident and requested the government to reveal the truth, make an apology, provide compensation, and establish February 28^th as a “Peace Day.”¹³ At the same time, in the following year, actual actions to seek truth and compensation in the form of a civil movement were initiated by the commemoration of the 2.28 Incident in an “Ethnic Groups and Human Rights” roundtable discussion, organized by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR) in February of 1986¹⁴. Seven months later, in September of 1986, the DPP was formed by anti-KMT political figures, followed by the establishment of the 228 Peace Day Association (PDA, Er’erba Hepingri Cujinhui) on February 4^th, 1987, by members of the DPP and TAHR. However, local legislators of the DPP had to use their own names to participate and not the name of their political party to avoid counterattacks from the KMT¹⁵. The first public speech was made in the same month, February 14^th, and the first protest rally was held in Taiwan the following day on February 15^th16. The PDA, eventually comprising 41 different organizations, took actions to demand the government disclose the truth, restore the reputations of those who were falsely accused, and establish February 28^th as “Peace Day.”¹⁷ It is clear from the actions mentioned here that the first accusation leading to the launch of the redress campaign against the KMT government and for the entirety of Taiwan society emanated from anti-government figures.

The abolishment of martial law was on July 15^th, 1987; nevertheless, the PDA was organized prior to that. Similar to President Chiang Ching-kuo silently tolerating the formation of the DPP, it indicated the ruling government could no longer contain resistance movements by means of violent suppression.

The Meilidao Incident broke out in 1979, eight years prior to the formation of the PDA. The PDA was an organization originally formed in continuity of the incident, and its activities followed in kind. The actions of defiance against the KMT Government by anti-government figures in the Meilidao Incident eventually resulted in eliciting positive reactions from the residents of Taiwan through an open military trial; however, a contradiction was pointed out by the PDA’s President Chen Yong-hsing in that victims’ families of the 2.28 Incident were still enduring serious repression and discrimination¹⁸. As underscored by Chen, the 2.28 Incident was the next political focus after the Meilidao Incident. This connection is easily understood from the slogan that the PDA used, “Commemorate 2.28, release political criminals.”¹⁹ If the 2.28 Incident is to be considered the front side of a coin, the back side was the real-time demand to release political criminals (“dangwai” figures). These defiant actions by anti-KMT figures broke what had been considered taboo and served as the first breakthrough in opening the gate for the rehabilitation movement.

The movement by the PDA was conducted under the name, “2.28 Justice and Peace Movement.” This was launched on January 28^th, 1989, by an alliance of more than 40 groups and associations such as the PDA, the TAHR and the PCT as the head, and its name has been used since²⁰. The three representative figures of the PDA were Chen Yong-hsin as the president, Lee Sheng-hsiung as the vice-president and Cheng Nan-jung (or Nylon Cheng) as the secretary. Chen Yong-hsin was a medical doctor of psychiatry, and he joined the DPP from 1990 to 1998. Lee Sheng-hsiung was a lawyer and Cheng Nan-jung was the publisher of Freedom Era Weekly magazine. Among them, Chen and Lee were both Christians and both became the president of TAHR. Cheng Nan-jung was a core figure who took the initiative in establishing the PDA. Cheng had been openly denouncing the KMT through his anti-government political magazine, Freedom Era Weekly, and he had only been released in January 1987, after being arrested for launching the “519 Green Movement” in May 1986, demanding authorities immediately lift martial law.

After being released, Cheng Nan-jung, who strongly believed the year 1987, as the 40th anniversary of the 2.28 Incident, to be of utmost importance, launched the “2.28 Justice and Peace Movement” with the determination to be rearrested²¹. The PCT, which was seen as problematic by the KMT due to their political claim of establishing a new independent nation through the self-determination of the residents of Taiwan, was also involved. Following the Meilidao Incident, large numbers of pastors took part in the movement. The key figures were Reverend Kao Chun-ming (PCT general secretary from 1970 to 1988), Reverend C.S. Yang (PCT general secretary from 1989 to 1998) and Rev. Lin Tsung-Jeng (Leonard Lin), who attended protest marches. Nevertheless, as Chang Yen-sheng points out, the PCT’s full involvement in the movement began in 1988, and it was only in 1990 that the Assembly sent an open letter to the victims of the incident and their families to express their apologies²².

4 First private 2.28 memorial monument, apex of the PDA, and self-immolation of Cheng Nan-jung

While not the only factor, but one which enabled the PDA to rouse voices of contestation 40 years after the incident that ended in a terrifying massacre, was the generational shift in Taiwan. Examples include Chen Yong-hsin, born in 1950, Lee Sheng-hsiung, born in 1941, and Cheng Nan-jung, born in 1947. People of these generations without direct involvement in the incident formed the core of the PDA. The PDA was launched just a year after the establishment of the DPP, but the significance lies not only within the framework of anti-KMT or anti-authority forces, but the inseparable relationship with the Taiwan independence movement.

Within the movement, a segment of mainlanders who supported Taiwan independence also delineated themselves as victims of the 2.28 Incident and the KMT dictatorship. Pen Hsin-yi, a mainlander of the younger generation whose ancestral home was Hebei Province, used the local language of Taiwanese to denounce the KMT and apologize to the Taiwanese people for the party’s responsibility in causing the unequal distribution of political power between local Taiwanese and Mainlanders. Cheng Nan-jung, a second-generation mainlander whose father was from the mainland and mother was a local Taiwanese, fearlessly declared “Taiwan independence,” despite being under surveillance by the KMT²³. Needless to say, those manifestations were illegal before the abolishment of the martial law; therefore, another bloody clash occurred between groups of protesters and the police in front of the town hall of the Changhua County government in March 1987²⁴.

Meanwhile, a big wave of transition was about to drastically change Taiwan politics. Due to the death of Chiang Ching-kuo who abolished martial law, Vice-President Lee Teng-hui became the first Taiwanese to become President of the R.O.C. in February 1988.

The most active years of the PDA in carrying out the “2.28 Justice and Peace Movement” were the four years from its foundation in 1987 to the end of 1990²⁵. Most of the victims’ families, due to their own experiences of being repressed, kept out of the public eye while closely following the situation, wary of the authorities from which they had long suffered for forty years since 1947. The symbolic significance of the DPP and the PDA as anti-KMT was crystallized by an act of Chen Shui-bian, who deliberately chose February 28^th, 1987, the fortieth anniversary, to proclaim, “I commemorate 2.28 and join the DPP!”²⁶ Thirteen years later, Chen became the first president of the R.O.C. to emerge from the DPP by winning a historic presidential election in 2000, realizing the first regime change from the KMT in postwar Taiwan.

The PDA organized public speeches and protest rallies in succession, and even announced a plan to establish the first 2.28 memorial monument and memorial hall in Neihu, a suburb of Taipei, in February 1988. The proposed site was donated by Lin Tsung-yi, son of Dr. Lin Mosei (Lin Mo-sheng), one of the most prominent victims of the 2.28 Incident; nonetheless, the plan was ultimately not realized because authorities intervened²⁷. As a result, the first private 2.28 memorial monument was built in Chia-yi City in southern Taiwan in August of 1989, instead of northern Taiwan. Coincidentally, “A City of Sadness,” a movie tracing the tragedy of the 2.28 Incident, won the Golden Lion Award, the top prize at the Venice International Film Festival, that same month. The global acclaim the film received consequently morphed into silent pressure on the KMT government to address the incident, not only domestically but also from the outside of Taiwan²⁸.

Meanwhile, Cheng Nan-jung, the central figure of the PDA, burned himself to death in April of 1989 to protest an order for his re-arrest by the KMT and became a “martyr.” Cheng was suspected of treason for publishing a draft of “The Constitution of Taiwan Republic,” written by Koh Se-kai in his magazine, Freedom Era Weekly. However, championing “100% freedom of speech,” Cheng chose self-immolation at his publishing office in protest against the KMT²⁹. In contrast to the realization of the first 2.28 memorial monument in Chia-yi, Cheng’s shocking self-immolation may have impelled the locus of the movement to shift from anti-government protests to actual relief of victims’ families.

Heedless of the dangers, the PDA and “dangwai” politicians relentlessly contested the position of the KMT government, protesting and demanding redress for 2.28 victims before and after the lifting of martial law. On February 27^th, 1990, a minute of silent prayer for the 2.28 victims was held at the Legislative Yuan for the first time in history, an achievement owed to DPP legislators who challenged the KMT³⁰. At the same time, problematic comments were heard, such as, “Manchurians killed many Han people when they conquered China and began their rule, but the Manchurian Emperor never issued a single to the Han people.” This specific statement was reported by Journalist magazine to have been made by mainlander, Yu Kuo-hwa, President of the Legislative Yuan, the previous year³¹. Despite the dominant party, the KMT, wielding an absolute majority in the Legislative Yuan, that a minute of silent prayer for the 2.28 victim was realized was truly groundbreaking³². Half a year later, in August of 1990, a 58-word description of the Incident appeared for the first time in high school textbooks³³.

5 Contributions by Su Nan-chou: from the “2.28 Shalom Service” (1990) to the establishment of the “World Alliance for Concerned Citizens and Surviving Victims and Families” (1991)

As described above, the PDA was the initial group that spearheaded the “2.28 Justice and Peace Movement.” If such anti-KMT groups can be considered the vanguard of the rehabilitation movement, then the frontrunners were not only the “dangwai” groups such as the DPP, but also Christians and the PCT.

However, as will be explained below, a major turning point was the “2.28 Shalom Service” in 1990, organized by a Christian who did not belong to the PCT and had no political affiliation. After the service, Mandarin-language churches and Catholic churches gradually started becoming involved. In 1992, Buddhist temples also began their own memorial ceremony for the victims, with various religious communities also declaring their support for victims’ families³⁴.

The “2.28 Shalom Service” in 1990 was organized by Su Nan-chou, a Christian man who kept his distance from any political faction. Su Nan-chou was born in Taipei in 1953. After completing the Graduate Program at National Taiwan University, Su co-founded the Song of Songs Publishing House with his wife, Peng Hai-ying, in 1986, and started The Wilderness magazine in 1987. Su’s given name, “Nan-Chou,” was derived from “Nanshu,” the literary name of historical Japanese figure, Saigo Takamori, and was given by his father who received Japanese education during the colonial period. Su was an active leader in Christian media and social movements³⁵. Below, I will examine the transformation that took place after the “2.28 Shalom Service” that gave birth to the first association of victims’ families, and how that accelerated the rehabilitation movement.

First, I would like to emphasize that the first memorial service for victims of the 2.28 Incident was organized by the PCT on February 27^th, 1987, with other services successively held in other parts of Taiwan under the name, “2.28 Victims Memorial Service.”³⁶ Naturally, those services were exclusively for victims’ families and held under the hope of healing the emotional and psychological scars of the victims and their families. However, another historical and symbolic service was held that marked a watershed moment for the victims’ families and perpetrators, who were overwhelmingly believed to be locked in a confrontational relationship, bringing them face to face and nudging both sides to take steps forward in the direction of reconciliation. That service was the “2.28 Shalom Service” initiated by Su Nan-chou in February of 1990.

The “2.28 Shalom Service” (“Shalom Service,” or officially, “1990 Shalom Service: Respect Human Rights, Remembering 2.28”) was held at Grace Baptist Church (Huaientang) in Taipei on December 8^th, 1990. The initial organizer was not the PCT, but Su Nan-chou himself. Su Nan-chou initiated this service by expounding on the significance of this event and exhorting approximately 10 members of the Wilderness Society, a group temporarily formed by Christians that was active for two and half years³⁷. The accomplishments of Su in organizing the service by inviting not only Protestant churches but also Catholic churches created an atmosphere of unification among churches in Taiwan to jointly engage on human rights issues and were also highly praised by Catholic churches³⁸.

With Reverend Chow Lien-hwa from the Mandarin-language churches and Reverend Weng Hsiu-kung and Reverend Kao Chun-ming from the Taiwanese-language churches (PCT) as symbolic figures, Su succeeded in winning support from more than 60 leaders of Christian churches; moreover, political leaders and figures were also invited, with a total of 2,000 participants attending the service. High-ranking officials and political leaders included the President of the Executive Yuan [Prime Minister] Hao Po-ts’un, Vice-Secretary of the Presidential Office Chiu Chin-yi, and Minister of the Interior Hsu Shui-teh from the incumbent KMT government, and on the other side, Hsu Hsin-liang and Shih Ming-teh, well-known “dangwai” figures opposed to the KMT who both later became chair of the DPP.

As mentioned above, memorial activities and services had also been organized by the PCT. However, if those were rather inwardly-organized memorial services to remember lost ones in silent opposition to the government, the Shalom Service by Su was epoch-making in breaking an entrenched taboo. This was because not only the DPP, the opposition party to the KMT, but also those on the perpetrator side represented by top government officials of the KMT, both gathered to attend a service with the victims’ families for the first time in the history of contemporary Taiwan. What is noteworthy is that during the service, Prime Minister Hao Po-ts’un in a surprising act shook hands and even exchanged words with more than 10 members of the victims’ families for the first time. This was a remarkable scene and entirely unprecedented, something no one had foreseen³⁹.

Successively appointed to the top positions of the national army from Commander-in-Chief of the Army General Headquarters and Chief of the General Staff to Minister of Defense, Hao shook hands with victims’ families not simply as an act of greeting or courtesy. In spontaneously reaching out to victims’ families to shake hands, Hao’s action completely overturned the commonly-shared view long inculcated in the army that the 2.28 Incident was a conspiracy by the “trinity of enemies” and that the victims’ families were also “enemies of the nation.”⁴⁰

This “Shalom Service” was an event organized by Su Nan-chou who courageously stood up for victims’ families who hid their identities and lived in fear of discrimination, even though martial law had been abolished. As noted above, organizing such a service still faced possible reactive pressures from authorities, so Su carried out preparations with utmost care so as to not be identified as “anti-government” by the Taiwan Garrison Command⁴¹. This may appear as only a small step forward, but by bringing opposing sides to face each other to pray for peace, the service marked a historical turning point that opened a new gate for the reconciliation process⁴². On January 17^th, just a month after this service, the “Research Task force on the February 28 Incident” and the “Research Group on the February 28 Incident” were established by Hao Po-ts’un. Official investigations and research by the KMT government commenced from this point⁴³.

After the Shalom Service, the organization of the victims’ families began. On January 31^st, 1991, the initial step was taken by the organization of the Fellowship of Victims and Families of 228 (FVF, Er’erba Shou’nanzhe Jiashu Tuanqi) in the basement of Su Nan-chou’s home. It was the first organization of the victims’ families of the 2.28 Incident in Taiwan and was founded by 12 Christian members. Because the FVF was a small fellowship limited to Christian members, it was reorganized in August 1991, as the World Alliance for Concerned Citizens and Surviving Victims and Families (WACCSVF, Er’erba Guanhuai Lianhehui), an organization open to all members regardless of religious affiliation. The WACCSVF was the only existing victim support organization at that time.

The members of the WACCSVF elected Lin Tsung-yi as its chairman and the vice chairman was Kao Li Li-chen, wife of Reverend Kao Chun-ming. Lin Tsung-yi was a central and symbolic figure to lead the WACCSVF. Lin Tsung-yi was a representative figure of the victims’ families because of his background as the son of Lin Mosei, an elite victim of the 2.28 Incident, who was also a prominent intellectual in the fields of education and journalism in modern Taiwan and known as the first Taiwanese to study abroad in the U.S. and obtain a Ph.D. Additionally, Lin was internationally-recognized as an authority in psychiatry. He was appointed chairman and later became the Honorary President of the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) from 1981. The reasons cited above underscore the immense significance of Lin Tsung-yi becoming the head of the WACCSVF, especially as he was an iconic figure among the victims’ families and intellectuals of Taiwan, able to represent both authority and authenticity.

6 Lin Tsung-yi and Lee Teng-hui: dialogue and concessions between two Christian leaders with Japanese colonial education

The General Manager of the WACCSVF was Su Nan-chou. Su was also appointed Vice Chairman of various committees related to the 2.28 Incident on behalf of Lin, who returned from Canada, where he resided, to Taiwan about eight times annually for 10 years. Both Lin and Su were appointed founding board members of the “Memorial Foundation of 228” from 1995, with Su assisting Lin as they worked together with a mutual sense of respect and trust to overcome difficulties. Su was involved in almost every process of the rehabilitation movement until leaving the foundation in 1998 and greatly contributed to realizing the demands of the victims’ families⁴⁴.

In addition, to understand the progress of the rehabilitation movement and negotiations with the KMT government, it is necessary to highlight the relationship between Lin Tsung-yi and Lee Teng-hui. From 1990 to 1991, Lin submitted five requests (1. Disclosure of the truth, 2. Issue a public apology, 3. Compensate victims’ families, 4. Build a memorial monument in central Taipei, 5. Establish a foundation to alleviate ethnic tensions and promote democracy) in open letters to Lee; nevertheless, at the same time, Lin also suggested he could collaborate and provide assistance in the form of a “government-private sector joint taskforce,” avoiding any denunciation of the government⁴⁵. On the contrary, Chen Yong-hsin, the president of the PDA, also sent an open letter to Lee in 1990, but Chen’s letter opened with advice for accelerating democratization by resolving 228 issues. Most of the demands were centered on freeing political criminals, the elimination of black lists and further promotion of political reforms. There were no proposals or suggestions for mutual cooperation to resolve these issues⁴⁶.

On March 2^nd, 1991, with Lin as the leader, seven members of the victims’ families (still under the name of FVF) met President Lee Teng-hui for the first time and officially and directly submitted the five requests (1. Publish an investigation report, 2. Issue a public apology and compensate families of victims, 3. Build a memorial monument and museum, 4. Establish February 28^th as a national memorial day, 5. Establish a foundation) to Lee. Thanks to Lin’s prior efforts to reach out to the President, Lee gave detailed answers and responded that he would accept all the requests⁴⁷.

On February 24^th, 1992, the WACCSVF organized the 2.28 Memorial Music Concert at the National Music Hall. President Lee Teng-hui, invited by Lin Tsung-yi, also attended and significant progress was seen. In those years, audiences were required to stand and sing the national anthem prior to the main program; however, the national anthem was not sung in this case in consideration of the psychological and emotional stress it could cause for the victims’ families. This violation was unprecedented. The decision at the national level in the cultural arena broke one of the tenets of the KMT’s cultural policy, the singing of the national anthem, for the first time⁴⁸. Lee Teng-hui, as President, even shook hands with every victims’ family on stage and promised to set up a committee for the memorial monument as soon as possible.

Lin Tsung-yi not only took the initiative to negotiate directly with Lee Teng-hui, but in a realistic and practical manner, he took actions that led to the realization of the five requests by the government. It should also be noted that the two figures were only three years apart in age and both Christians who received higher education at imperial universities in Japan (Lin Tsung-yi, born in 1920, graduated from Tokyo Imperial University, while Lee Teng-hui, born in 1923, graduated from Kyoto Imperial University). This shared background may have directly or indirectly contributed to their amicable communication.

However, it is critical to understand that Lee Teng-hui was unable to take a conciliatory stance from the beginning. For example, in his first media interview after his inauguration in January 1988, following Chiang Ching-kuo’s death, Lee made the following comment on the 2.28 Incident: “If we are to take the means of ‘Eye for Eye’ or ‘Tooth for Tooth,’ then this society will not be stable. So, I am against anyone broaching this [the 2.28 Incident] entirely from a political position.” This statement was harshly criticized by anti-KMT figures⁴⁹.

Nonetheless, contrary to his statement as the President of R.O.C., Lee himself had been one of the victims repressed by the KMT. In fact, Lee recalls himself as “also on the side of being suppressed” during the 2.28 Incident. Even after Lee was promoted by Chiang Ching-kuo, a member of the intelligence service disparaged him by saying, “If not for Chiang Ching-kuo, nobody would pick someone like you.”⁵⁰ In regards to Lee’s position and his reputation inside and outside of the KMT, his political standing immediately after becoming Acting President was extremely unstable and requires serious consideration. Later, after Lee gained firm control of party leadership by becoming the eighth president of the R.O.C. in 1990, the sentiment he had long held locked inside was finally released in 1994, as he confessed, “I am also a victim.”

When Lee Teng-hui met the victims’ families, he was outspoken in saying, “I am also a victim of the 2.28 Incident, but this was kept a secret in my heart … because of this experience, I especially understand the wounds which all of you have in your heart and this can never be solved by only a few words [of apology] or financial compensation.”⁵¹ Regarding this reality of “overcoming of the past,” Masahiro Wakabayashi succinctly points out that “it was impossible to accomplish something more than what was being compromised” between both local Taiwanese, who expanded their political representation and power through the electoral system, and mainlanders, who still wielded a strong influence on the military and mass media⁵². Although the earlier comment by Lee met with criticism, it should not be underestimated that political reform by the first Taiwanese president and the following process of indigenization (Taiwanization) accelerated the settlement of the past and led to a leap forward.

7 Investigation, apology, reparation and the Memorial Monument (1991-1997)

Through these negotiations, how were the requests of the victims’ families realized? The accomplishments regarding the five requests are briefly outlined below.

1. Publish an investigation report: In the month after the Shalom Service, a task force was formed and the government conducted an investigation. The result was publicly released in The Research Report on the 2.28 Incident published in 1992. Although a very detailed research report, the responsibility of the perpetrators was still left vague; nonetheless, this was the limit of an investigation under the KMT dictatorship⁵³.

2. Issue a public apology and compensate victims’ families: The first official state apology was made when the memorial monument by the central government was built in Taipei New Park on February 28^th, 1995. At the commemorative ribbon-cutting ceremony, Lee Teng-hui apologized to the victims’ families for the first time as a president representing the state. The significance is in Lee’s decision to issue a direct apology in his own words, not using the oblique expressions prepared in the script. According to Su Nan-chou, it was Su who helped Lee prepare the draft of the apology speech as Lee wanted the apology to be acceptable by the victims’ families. Considering Lee’s position as the President of the R.O.C., the expression, “where the wind passes, the grass bends” (Feng Xing Cao Yan) was originally written into the speech script. However, Lee chose not to use that expression and instead, offered an outspoken apology, saying, “I admit the mistake made by the government and express my deepest apology.”⁵⁴ Although not widely-known, this is significant for not only being the first national apology delivered by the head of the state, but also for the remarkable action taken by Lee Teng-hui that testified to his sincerity toward the victims’ families.

To compensate the victims’ families: Originally, the initial compensation by the government immediately after the incident was exclusively for civil servants. However, compensation was ultimately expanded toward civilian casualties under the “February 28 Incident Disposition and Compensation Act,” which was approved in 1995. The maximum compensation was 600 million New Taiwan Dollars. Later, the word “compensation” was replaced with “reparation” in 2007, after the DPP took power. There were 2,288 cases of certified victims and 9,959 people received reparations (totaling up to 7.275 billion New Taiwan Dollars) in the 20 years from 1995 to August 2015⁵⁵.

3. Build a memorial monument and museum for 2.28 victims: As previously mentioned, President Lee Teng-hui promised to set up a committee to build a memorial monument during the WACCSVF-organized 2.28 Memorial Music Concert in 1992. Two days after the concert, the government set up the “Construction Committee for the Monument of the February 28 Incident” in the Executive Yuan in the form of a government-private sector joint taskforce; however, problems and difficulties were also identified in the selection process. Initially, the following seven candidate sites in Taipei were proposed: Chiencheng Park, Tataocheng Park, Hwachiang Bridge Park, 7th Park, Hsingsheng Park, Yuanshan Recreation Center, and Youth Park. Nevertheless, the government had already decided on Hsingsheng Park prior to negotiations. Lin Tsung-yi immediately refused the proposal by the government and demanded Taipei New Park be the construction site⁵⁶. Taipei New Park would never have been a serious consideration by government officials in the first place, given its close proximity to the Presidential Office. Still, ultimately, with consent from Lee Teng-hui, the site was decided on Taipei New Park, but this accomplishment owes to Lin’s efforts in opposing the decision by government officials.

The monument itself was selected through a competition of more than 300 designs submitted from the public and this was also carried out through a government-private sector joint task force. The monument was finally unveiled on the Memorial Day of the 2.28 Incident in February of 1995, but without inscriptions. The reason as reported by the media was that it was simply the result of “a disagreement between scholars and victims’ families.”⁵⁷ However, this accomplishment also owes to Lin’s efforts on resisting the demands of committee members from the government side, who attempted to rush the selection of inscriptions and score a runaway victory in a short period of time⁵⁸. The selection of inscriptions was postponed and Lin and Su Nan-chou went through tough negotiations, attending more than 30 meetings with KMT authorities. As a result, 684 words to be engraved on the panel of the 228 Memorial Monument was finally completed in 1997.

It was no easy feat to get the KMT government to accept the requests of the victims’ families; it was the fruit of a series of arduous negotiations. Taipei New Park was renamed “228 Peace Memorial Park” in 1996, by Chen Shui-bian who became Mayor of Taipei from 1994. As for building a memorial museum, the “Taipei 228 Memorial Museum” was inaugurated on February 28^th, 1997, and the park officially metamorphosed into a national-level memorial space for remembering the victims of the 2.28 Incident (the National 228 Memorial Museum was established in 2007)⁵⁹.

4. Establish February 28^th as a national memorial day: February 28^th was established as “Peace Memorial Day” in 1995. Although not a holiday at first, it finally became a national holiday in 1997.

Lastly, establishing a foundation: The “Memorial Foundation of 228” was established in the Executive Yuan in December of 1995 and started accepting applications for compensation. The Foundation provides the above-mentioned reparations to certified victims or victims’ families upon screening and also has the authority to recommend amnesty and accept applications for the restoration of victims’ reputations⁶⁰.

As explained above, most of the requests submitted by Lin Tsung-yi to Lee Teng-hui were realized by 1995. On the other hand, there were also aspects kept obscured such as the legal responsibilities of the perpetrators. Nevertheless, settling of the past has usually been successful after the toppling of an incumbent regime or total transition of power. Regarding this point, these numerous accomplishments achieved even under KMT dictatorship, which was both perpetrator and the incumbent authority, marks a clear contrast to Communist China, which harshly suppressed the democracy movement of the Tian’anmen Incident in 1989. Most importantly, although it was only within the political limitations indicated above, these achievements in settling the past in Taiwan was perceived as groundbreaking and could represent progress in speeding up democratization and change in Taiwanese society. Democratization in the Republic of Korea began in 1987, the same year as in Taiwan, but the reconciliation process for the Jeju April 3^rd Incident, a massacre of 30,000 “communists” and citizens by the anti-communist authority, police, army and paramilitary groups since 1948, lagged far behind Taiwan. A formal apology by President Roh Moo-hyun was finally made in 2003; moreover, certification of the “victims” has still been strictly selective following the authority’s anti-communists criteria⁶¹.

8 Conclusion

This article reexamined the turning point from “confrontation to reconciliation,” in the rehabilitation movement over the 2.28 Incident which began in the late 1980s, with a special focus on the role and accomplishments of Christians without party affiliation. Initially, the political opposition movement and the ideology of Taiwan independence were the triggers in propelling the movement forward. The initial action to accuse the KMT and the launch of the redress campaign against KMT government was driven by an anti-government movement, which was mainly carried out by “dangwai” figures, followed by the establishment of the PDA in 1987 and the expansion of the movement under the name “2.28 Justice and Peace Movement” from 1989. However, in the 1990s, Su Nan-chou, a Christian without political affiliation, organized the “2.28 Shalom Service,” and the WACCSVF was set up under Su together with Lin Tsung-yi, the most representative figure of the victims’ families and a Christian.

What is noteworthy is that although Lin was from a family of victims, he was also a specialist and authority in psychiatry related to overcoming trauma and encouraging psychological rehabilitation. On the question of “confrontation or reconciliation,” Lin Tsung-yi insisted on the importance of reconciliation over confrontation, a lesson which Su learned from Lin⁶². Both were anti-KMT. Moreover, Lin was also one of the joint proposers of the Taiwanese Self-Determination Movement in 1973, which advocated the building of a new Taiwanese state. Nevertheless, what they chose was dialogue, not confrontation, and they transformed the rehabilitation movement from “confrontation to reconciliation,” from their standpoint of being practical idealists. Later, victims’ family associations became divided due to differences in views and goals, but Lin’s five requests were all achieved in the form of government-private sector joint task forces. Most of the goals were accomplished in 1997, which was only ten years after 1987, when martial law was lifted.

The contributions of the “dangwai” activists, who became members of the DPP, and the PCT were tremendous. However, had the confrontational attitude been left unchanged, there is a strong possibility that a resolution to the problem would have been delayed. In understanding the turning point of “confrontation to reconciliation,” the two main questions explored in this article were the following: Who took the actual initiative to achieve a pragmatic reconciliation and how? 2. While still under the KMT rule, how was the rehabilitation movement able to reach its initial goal so expeditiously? To answer these questions, this article shed light on the agency and the central role of Su and Lin in the movement, which have been overlooked in the past.

Overcoming their political disadvantage, they became “practical idealists,” persevered in arduous negotiations and reached a practical “reconciliation” with the KMT, gaining maximum results with minimal compromise. One example was that Lin, for the sake of victims’ families, withdrew his demand and accepted the replacement of the word “reparation” with “compensation.” “Reparation” would have been vehemently opposed by majority KMT legislators in the Legislative Yuan in order to pass the “February 28 Incident Disposition and Compensation Act” in 1995. The KMT’s obstinate resistance was because “reparation” admits the moral and legal responsibility of the state. As a “practical idealist,” he prioritized the benefits for the victims’ family⁶³. In addition, the reality of a “government (perpetrator) – private sector (victim) joint task force,” was that it entailed a series of lonesome negotiations and battles on the enemy-perpetrator’s homeground. As “practical idealists,” Lin and Su chose to endure humiliation and devoted their efforts to achieve maximum results⁶⁴.

Nevertheless, because the investigation of the truth and responsibility of perpetrators was not fully conducted during the KMT era, the application of the argument of Transitional Justice to Taiwan accelerated following the transition of political power to the DPP from the 2000s. The previous “2.28 Justice and Peace Movement” was eventually replaced by the “2.28 Rehabilitation ‘Pingfan’ Movement.” “Pingfan” means “rehabilitation” and “redress” in Chinese, but the term has the dual meaning of “corrective reappraisal” inherent in it. Under “Pingfan,” the DPP officially concluded that Chiang Kai-shek bore the biggest responsibility for the 2.28 Incident, which legitimized a series of de-Chiang-ization movements. On the other hand, Su Nan-chou advocated the name, “2.28 Shalom ‘ping’an’ Movement,” indicating that the rehabilitation movement was aimed at the victims’ families and Taiwan society to “be in peace” (an), rather than “to go against” (fan). Su passed away on February 27^th, 2020. It was the day prior to the 73^rd Memorial Day of the 2.28 Incident, and coincidentally, the very day which triggered the conflict that erupted into the incident in 1947.

Acknowledgements

This work was made possible thanks to an interview with Mr. Su Nan-chou on November 22^nd, 2019, and I am indebted to Professor Hsueh Hua-yuan for introducing me to Mr. Su. For more details on the essential differences between the “Pingfan” and “Ping’an” movements, philosophy and strategies of Su and Lin, please refer to my other article in Japanese. Lastly, I would like to express my deepest condolences to the Su family.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (Research in a proposed research area) Grant Number 17H06338.

Notes on contributors

Atsushi Sugano

Atsushi Sugano is a Professor at the Faculty of International Studies, Kyoritsu Women’s University, Tokyo, Japan. He was Vice-President of the Japan Society for Intercultural Studies (2019-2022). His area of research is the Contemporary History of Taiwan. In addition to published research papers, he has authored several books, including Taiwan no Kokka to Bunka [The Nation and Culture of Taiwan] (Tokyo: Keiso Shobo, 2011) and Taiwan no Gengo to Moji [The Language and Characters of Taiwan] (Tokyo: Keiso Shobo, 2012). He was awarded the Azusa Ono Memorial Award by Waseda University in 2002, the 3rd Award by the Japan Association for Taiwan Studies in 2005, and the 33rd Award for the Promotion of Studies on Developing Countries by JETRO-IDE in 2012. He received his PhD at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific (GSAPS), Waseda University, in 2007, and MA in 2001. He received his BA from Sophia University in 1998.

Notes

1. See, Chuang, “Zhanglao Jiaohui Yu Er’erba Pingfan Yundong (1987–1990),”

2. Hsueh, “Ni’nihachi Jiken Wo Meguru ‘Seigi To Wakai No Tsuikyu’,” 391–392.

3. During postwar KMT rule, political power was unequally distributed between local Taiwanese and Mainlanders. Although local Taiwanese represent the biggest population group on the Island, minority Mainlander elites held an overwhelming position in the central government and mainstream politics due to their Mandarin language fluency and political allegiance to the KMT.

4. Anti-KMT political activists were called “dangwai,” meaning “outside of KMT = non-KMT.”

5. See, Taiwansheng Xingzheng Zhangguan Gongshu, Taiwansheng Er’erba Baodao Shijian Jiyao.

6. See, Zhu ed., Dangdai Taiwan Zhengzhi Yanjiu.

7. The Chung-li Incident was a mass riot against electoral fraud in Chung-li City, Taoyuan County, in November of 1977. The Meilidao Incident (also called the Kaohsiung Incident) was a conflict in Kaohsiung City between non-KMT (dangwai) opposition groups and armed police on World Human Rights Day on December 10^th, 1979. It was illegal to hold a mass rally under the martial law, but those gathering at Meilidao magazine’s office to organize an opposition party took actions to call for freedom and civil rights. As a result, they were violently suppressed by armed police.

8. Wakabayashi, Taiwan No Seiji, 52–53, 148–162.

9. See, Wu, Lin and Hsieh, “Jiance Zhuiqiu Zhengyi Juexin,”

10. Taiwan Gonglunbao [Taiwan Tribune], No. 0, July 24 1981, 1.

11. Editorial “Taiwanese People’s Heart Seeking for Self-determination,” Taiwan Gonglunbao [Taiwan Tribune], No. 14, September 22 1981, 12.

12. Wakabayashi, Taiwan No Seiji, 199–202.

13. Ho, Taiwan Gendaishi, 217.

14. Su, “Er’erba Gongyi Heping Fendoushi Gaishu,” 82.

15. Chang, “Er’erba Pingfan Yundong Yu Qi Lishi Yiyi,” 3–4.

16. Er’erba Hepingri Cujinhui ed., Zouchu Er’erbade Yinying, 22–29.

17. Chang, “Er’erba Pingfan Yundong Yu Qi Lishi Yiyi,” 23–24.

18. Ibid, 26.

19. Ibid, 78.

20. Chang, “Er’erba Pingfan Yundong Yu Qi Lishi Yiyi,” 72.

21. Er’erba Hepingri Cujinhui ed., Zouchu Er’erbade Yinying, 26.

22. Chang, “Er’erba Pingfan Yundong Yu Qi Lishi Yiyi,” 4–5.

23. Er’erba Hepingri Cujinhui ed., Zouchu Er’erbade Yinying, 26, 44.

24. Ibid, 52, 54.

25. Ibid, 2–7.

26. Ibid, 40.

27. Ibid, 61–62.

28. Hsueh, “Ni’nihachi Jiken Wo Meguru Rekishi Seisan Mondai,” 164–165.

29. Wakabayashi, Taiwan No Seiji, 197–198.

30. Er’erba Hepingri Cujinhui ed., Zouchu Er’erbade Yinying, 87, 96–98.

31. Ibid, 70, 86–88.

32. However, Legislator Wu Chun-ching claimed “freedom of standing or not standing,” and became the only legislator who did not stand and make a silent prayer. Zhongyang Ribao [Central Daily News], February 28 1990, 2.

33. Er’erba Hepingri Cujinhui ed., Zouchu Er’erbade Yinying, 105–106.

34. Chang, “Er’erba Pingfan Yundong Yu Qi Lishi Yiyi,” 5–6.

35. Sugano, “‘Genjitsuteki Riso’shugisha’ To Ni’nihachi Jiken Wo Meguru Wakai No Kokoromi,” 223.

36. Chiu, ed. Er’erba Pingfan Yu Zhuanxing Zhengyi, 81–82.

37. See, Su, and others, Ping’an, Er’erba.

38. Kuo, “The Implementation of Catholic Social Teaching in Taiwan,” 163–164.

39. Su, and others, Ping’an, Er’erba, 55.

40. Su, Xing Gongyi, Haolianmin, 238–242.

41. Ibid.

42. With Chen Yong-hsin attending the Shalom Service as a guest, the PDA concluded its official record of the four years of the “2.28 Justice and Peace Movement” with prayers offered by Reverend Kao Chun-ming. Sugano, “‘Genjitsuteki Riso’shugisha’ To Ni’nihachi Jiken Wo Meguru Wakai No Kokoromi,” 226.

43. Zhongyang Ribao [Central Daily News], January 19 1991, 11.

44. After Lin Tsung-yi passed away in 2010, Su Nan-chou became the only person who can testify about the entire negotiation process with the KMT over the 2.28 Incident. See, Sugano, “‘Genjitsuteki Riso’shugisha’ To Ni’nihachi Jiken Wo Meguru Wakai No Kokoromi,” 223.

45. Su, “Er’erba Gongyi Heping Fendoushi Gaishu,” 91–98.

46. Er’erba Hepingri Cujinhui ed., Zouchu Er’erbade Yinying, 98–100.

47. Su, “Er’erba Gongyi Heping Fendoushi Gaishu,” 103.

48. Su, and others, Ping’an, Er’erba. 221.

49. Er’erba Hepingri Cujinhui ed., Zouchu Er’erbade Yinying, 56–60.

50. Lee, Taiwan No Shucho, 33, 48.

51. Zhongyang Ribao [Central Daily News], February 25 1994, 4.

52. Wakabayashi, Taiwan No Seiji, 315.

53. Chang, “Er’erba Pingfan Yundong Yu Qi Lishi Yiyi,” 8.

54. Sugano, “‘Genjitsuteki Riso’shugisha’ To Ni’nihachi Jiken Wo Meguru Wakai No Kokoromi,” 205, 223. For the full text in Chinese, see, Su, and others, Ping’an, Er’erba, 200–202.

55. Breakdown of the 2,288 cases of certified victims: 684 cases of death, 178 cases of missing persons, 1,426 other cases such as confinement, bodily injury and reputational damage. See, Hsueh, “Ni’nihachi Jiken Wo Meguru Rekishi Seisan Mondai,” 171–172.

56. See above 48. 64.

57. Lianhebao [United Daily News], February 12 1995, 4.

58. See above 48. 66.

59. In addition, Chiayi City 228 Memorial Museum was inaugurated in 1996. Memorial monuments in Taiwan number more than 20 as of 2017. See, Chiu, Er’erba Pingfan Yu Zhuanxing Zhengyi, 134–149.

60. Hsueh, “Ni’nihachi Jiken Wo Meguru Rekishi Seisan Mondai,” 171.

61. See, Koh, Giseisha No Politikusu: Saishu Yon-san/ Okinawa Sen/ Taiwan Ni-ni’hachi, Rekishi Seisan Wo Meguru Kunoh.

62. Lin, “Kanzheng Yihuo Fuhe?” 114–149. Sugano, “‘Genjitsuteki Riso’shugisha’ To Ni’nihachi Jiken Wo Meguru Wakai No Kokoromi,” 220–221.

63. Su, Xing Gongyi, Haolianmin, 179.

64. Sugano, “‘Genjitsuteki Riso’shugisha’ To Ni’nihachi Jiken Wo Meguru Wakai No Kokoromi,” 218.