On the evening of February 27, 1947, 40-year-old widow Lin Chiang-mai knelt on the ground at the Taipei Circle, pleading with enforcement officers not to confiscate her smuggled cigarettes. Those few packs were the entire livelihood for her son and daughter. An officer, Fu Hsueh-tung, struck her head with a gun butt; blood flowed down her face. Hundreds of bystanders witnessed this scene.
No one knew that the following ten days would change the destiny of the entire island. The image of this woman kneeling on the ground ignited a volcano of anger that had been accumulating for two years.
✦ A conflict over smuggled cigarettes triggered the largest civilian uprising in post-war Taiwan, gave rise to the world's longest period of martial law, and claimed the lives of an entire generation of the finest intellectuals. It was only after thirty-eight years of silence that their names could be spoken once again.
An Island in Disillusionment
To understand why a woman's blood could ignite an entire city on that evening, one must first understand Taiwan after 1945: it was a two-year period moving from joy to despair.
When Japan surrendered, the people of Taiwan were joyful. After fifty years of colonial rule, they had finally "returned to the motherland." On October 25, 1945, the last Governor-General of Taiwan, Rikichi Ando, signed the instrument of surrender at the Taipei Public Hall (now Zhongshan Hall), and firecrackers echoed in the streets all night.
But the joy lasted only a few months.
The officials brought by Chen Yi, the Chief Executive tasked with taking over Taiwan, presented the people of Taiwan with a "motherland" completely different from what they had imagined. Many of the civil servants arriving in Taiwan were illiterate, yet they occupied the successful institutions established by Taiwanese during the Japanese colonial period. Rice prices skyrocketed four hundredfold within a single year, and infectious diseases such as cholera and plague broke out again. Unemployed veterans were everywhere on the streets, and public order deteriorated sharply.
The deeper injury was discrimination. For the same positions, the salaries of "Mainlanders" (those who arrived with the KMT) were several times higher than those of "Benshengren" (local Taiwanese). During the Japanese period, Taiwanese had received a complete education, yet they were excluded from the civil service system because they could not speak "Guoyu" (National Language/Mandarin). There were instances where doctors who spoke in Japanese in public were accused of being "Japanized."
It was upon this soil that a gun butt fell on February 27, 1947: onto a widow's head, within a roundabout, on an evening when no one predicted it would change everything.
📝 Curator's Note
The disillusionment following "Retrocession" was not formed in a single day. It was the accumulation of a thousand small insults—every glance that said "you have been Japanized," every contemptuous remark that "if you cannot speak Mandarin, you are not Chinese," all laid a layer of dry grass upon this island. Lin Chiang-mai's blood was the spark that fell on that dry grass.
The Ten Days of Fire
February 27: Gunshots at the Circle
At 7:30 PM, monopoly bureau enforcement officers were inspecting smuggled cigarettes near the Tianma Teahouse in Taipei. After Lin Chiang-mai was struck and fell to the ground, an angry crowd surrounded the officers. In the chaos, an officer fired into the crowd, hitting a bystander, Chen Wen-hsi; he died of his injuries the following day.
The news spread like wildfire.
February 28: From Petition to Gunfire
Early the next morning, crowds swarmed the Taipei branch of the Monopoly Bureau, smashing offices and burning tobacco and alcohol. In the afternoon, a procession of approximately two thousand people marched to the Office of the Chief Executive to petition. They were unarmed, demanding punishment for the perpetrators, compensation, and reform.
The guards responded with machine guns.
The gunfire in front of the Office caused many casualties. News spread across the island via telephone and word-of-mouth, as people in various regions rose in protest. Taichung, Chiayi, Kaohsiung, Pingtung, Hualien: the entire island burned simultaneously.
March 1–7: Brief Negotiations
"February 28 Incident Handling Committees" were established in various locations, attempting to seek solutions within the system. Composed of representatives, lawyers, doctors, and teachers, the committees proposed thirty-two demands for political reform: the direct election of county magistrates and mayors, the abolition of the monopoly system, and the protection of human rights.
Chen Yi maintained a facade of negotiation while secretly telegraphing Nanjing to request military aid. In his telegram to Chiang Kai-shek, he claimed the people of Taiwan "want to leave China to become independent" and requested troops to "extinguish the rebellion."
These seven days were Taiwan's last moment of innocence: people still believed that reason could change something.
March 8: Dawn at the Port
In the early hours of March 8, the 21st Division of the National Army landed at the Port of Keelung. Soldiers fired directly from the ships at the people on the pier. On the same day, the commander of the Kaohsiung Fortress, Peng Meng-chi, ordered the shelling of Kaohsing City. Machine guns were used to fire upon senators and civilian representatives who had come to negotiate, including Kaohsiung City Council President Peng Ching-kao and lawyer Chen Chin-neng, who were either shot on the spot or executed after arrest.
From this day forward, negotiations ended. All that remained was gunfire.
After March 9: "Qingxiang" (Cleansing the Countryside)
The military launched "Qingxiang" operations, conducting house-to-house searches. Anyone who had been educated, served as a lawyer, worked as a doctor, taught, or written articles—especially those who had spoken in the Handling Committees—was liable to be taken away.
The logic of qingxiang was intimidation: to eliminate organized intellectuals and leave the survivors in terrified silence. It was harder to record than a massacre because it could be completed without public declaration: a knock on the door late at night, a car parked at the entrance, and then... nothing.
Many were awakened by knocks in the middle of the night, never to return.
The Disappeared
One of the cruelest features of the February 28 Incident was its systematic removal of Taiwan's social elite: those most capable of telling this history to the international community were often the first to disappear.
Lin Sheng-wu, Taiwan's first PhD in philosophy, who earned his doctorate from Columbia University, was one of the most highly educated scholars in Taiwan. After the war, he assisted in the takeover of Taipei Imperial University and the founding of National Taiwan University, and established the Minbao (People's Journal) to record post-war chaos. Late on the night of March 11, 1947, eight armed men arrived at his home by car and took him away. His son, Lin Tsung-ping, later recalled: "The next morning, the household servant ran to tell me that the Master had been taken away last night; the situation was bad, and the Mistress was extremely worried." Lin Sheng-mu vanished from the face of the earth and his whereabouts remain unknown to this day. It was not until 2025 that the Taipei District Court formally granted a declaration of death—seventy-eight years after he was taken.
💡 Did You Know?
During the Japanese period, Lin Sheng-wu once lamented: "Every time I received my monthly stipend, I felt the resentment of discrimination. The Japanese received sixty percent more in bonuses and family allowances; the Japanese received double what the locals did." Throughout his life, he fought for equality—first against Japanese discrimination, then attempting to establish fair education within the new national order. In the end, the government he once believed to be his "motherland" was what took him away. (From the February 28 Foundation: Lin Sheng-wu Memorial Page)
Tang Te-chang, a lawyer from Tainan, whose father was Japanese and mother was Taiwanese. He had served as a policeman but was forced to resign after speaking out against a case where a Japanese person used their influence to run over a Taiwanese youth. He later went to Japan, passed the high civil service exam, and became a practicing lawyer. During the February 28 incident, he traveled throughout Tainan to persuade citizens against taking violent action, which helped Tainan maintain relative peace for a time. However, after the military arrived, he was arrested under the charge of being a "rebellion leader" and was publicly executed in Tainan's Minsheng Green Park (now Tang Te-chang Memorial Park) on March 13 without any trial. He was only 40 years old. The Tainan City Government later designated March 13 as "Justice and Courage Memorial Day."
Wang Tien-tung, a provincial councilor and lead writer for Renmin Daobao (People's Herald), was one of the primary drafters of the "Thirty-Two Demands." Despite knowing the danger, he did not flee Taiwan. According to witnesses, after his arrest, he endured brutal torture; even with blood flowing down his face, he continued to argue with the military and police with righteousness. Ultimately, he was doused in gasoline and burned alive. He was only 45 years old when he sacrificed himself, leaving behind five minor children. (According to historical materials from Renmin Daobao editors Su Xin-yu and Chang Yen-hsien, via FPN: Report on Wang Tien-tung)
Chen Cheng-po, a Kaohsiung City Councilor and one of Taiwan's most important oil painters. He went to the Kaohsiung Shuishang Airport to negotiate with the National Army with sincere intentions for a peaceful resolution, but was arrested and subsequently executed publicly in front of the Kaohsiung Railway Station. His posthumous work, Street Outside Kaohsiung, is currently held in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum; the bright street depicted in the painting is the same street he last saw, creating a cruel contrast. His family quietly preserved his paintings for decades, only able to speak publicly about his death after the lifting of martial law.
The stories of these four are among the many with names. Many more never even had the chance to be recorded.
⚠️ Historical Controversy: Death Toll
The number of casualties in the February 28 Incident remains one of the most controversial historical issues, with estimates from different sources varying wildly:
- Lowest Academic Estimate: Researchers from NTU Sociology (2017) estimated approximately 1,304 to 1,512 people using demographic methods.
- Official Yang Liang-kung Report (1947): Military and civilian casualties were approximately 1,860 to several thousand.
- 2021 Official Responsibility Report (edited by Chen Yi-shen and Xue Hua-yuan): The total number of documented deaths and disappearances is approximately 8,324 to 11,841 people.
- Demographic Projections: Some researchers, using age structure back-calculation, estimate total deaths between 18,000 and 28,000.
Historian Hou Kun-hung analyzed: "Official figures may underreport because they do not include those who died without trial or through irregular means; civilian figures may overstate due to intentional exaggeration or hearsay." The controversy surrounding this number itself reflects the degree to which this history was systematically suppressed—many victims left no record behind.
Chen Yi's Calculations
Throughout the incident, the role of Chief Executive Chen Yi warrants separate scrutiny: he was both a symbol of systemic failure and the most critical individual decision-maker.
Chen Yi himself was not a corrupt man. He was known for his integrity and was said to be quite upright, having earned a reputation as a reformer in the Fujian-Zhejiang region. However, he was stubborn, out of touch with the local populace, and trapped by factional politics—after arriving in Taiwan, he maneuvered between various forces such as the Military Statistics Bureau (Juntong), the CC Clique, and the Kong-Soong system. His orders were difficult to implement, and the accumulating public resentment had no outlet.
After the outbreak of the incident, Chen Yi demonstrated a cruel duality: on one hand, he claimed via radio to be accepting public demands and expressed willingness to negotiate; on $\text{the}$ other hand, he secretly telegraphed Chiang Kai-shek to request military aid, describing the situation in Taiwan as "communist bandit rebellion." A telegram on March 6 stated that the Taiwanese masses "want to leave China to become independent" and requested the deployment of "bandit suppression troops."
In other words: the negotiations were always a sham. The entire week-long period of the "Handling Committee" negotiations was merely waiting for the time required for the military to cross the sea.
After the incident subsided, Chen Yi was dismissed from office. However, the irony of history lies in this: he was later executed in Taipei in 1950 by Chiang Kai-shek on charges of "communicating with communists and treason" (related to an alleged coup attempt, not February 28). The fates of the perpetrator and the victim sometimes fold into each other in unexpected ways.
Thirty-Eight Years of Silence
On May 20, 1949, Taiwan officially implemented martial law.
From then on, "February 28" became a name that could not be spoken. During the thirty-eight years and fifty-six days of martial law (one of the longest in the $\text{world}$), the words did not appear in textbooks, newspapers were not allowed to mention it, and families protected the next generation through silence—"Don't ask, I don't want to tell" became the unspoken pact of an entire generation.
While the February 28 Incident and the subsequent Taiwan White Terror are often mentioned together, there is a significant difference in their nature. Researcher Wu Chun-ying points out that February 28 was a "state of lawlessness"—there were no judicial procedures; people were killed or summarily executed via vigilante justice. In contrast, during the White Terror period (1949–1991), although laws were distorted, there was at least the form of military courts, which left behind documentary records. This distinction means that February 28 victims often lacked even a death certificate, and their families remained unaware of where their loved ones were buried for decades.
During the White Terror, tens of thousands were imprisoned on charges such as "rebellion" or "spy." Some were sentenced to fifteen years for attending study groups; others disappeared because they criticized the government in their diaries. Fear seeped into every crack of daily life: people did not discuss politics on the telephone, did not speak Taiwanese in public, and even dared not keep books from the Japanese colonial period in their homes.
This was not merely a byproduct of a massacre. It was a meticulously designed engineering of forgetting—an engineering where every survivor who dared not speak became one of its components.
📝 Curator's Note
One thing is worth reflecting on: it was not just those who died who disappeared, but also the survivors who chose a lifetime of silence out of fear. Thirty-eight years is enough time for a child to be born, grow up, and start a family, yet remain entirely ignorant of why their father died. Forgetting never happens naturally—it is a policy, an active suppression passed from one generation to the next.
The Return of Memory
In 1987, Taiwan lifted martial law. But the courage required to speak was greater than imagined.
One of the first to break the silence was Cheng Nan-rong. In 1987, he launched February 28 commemoration activities through his magazine, Free Times; it was the first time in forty years that someone discussed this topic in the public media. In 1989, he faced prosecution for treason after publishing a draft constitution for the Republic of Taiwan. To defend freedom of speech, he died by self-immolation at his magazine's office at the age of 41. He once said, "I am Cheng Nan-rong, and I advocate for Taiwan independence." This sentence became part of history after his death. His death shocked Taiwanese society and accelerated the thawing of historical memory.
In 1991, Taiwan abolished the "Regulations for the Punishment of Rebellion," formally ending the era of political prisoners that had lasted over forty years. In the same year, the "Law on Punishment of Violations of the Garrison Law" was repealed. This was a key node in the process of Taiwan democratization and provided the legal foundation that made public discussion of the February 28 history truly possible.
Afterward, memory surged forth like groundwater.
In 1992, the Executive Yuan published the Report on the February 28 Incident, marking the first time the government officially acknowledged state violence during the incident. Lead author Lai Tse-han stated that it was more reasonable to estimate deaths in the "thousands," but admitted that "no one can provide an exact number at this time."
In 1995, then-President Lee Teng-hui apologized to the families of the victims on behalf of the government. At the dedication ceremony of the memorial monument, he stated: "To take responsibility for the mistakes committed by the government and to express our deepest apologies." (From CTS News Historical Footage 1995/02/28) This was the first time a post-war head of state had publicly apologized for the February 28 Incident, marking a major milestone in Taiwan's transitional justice.
In 1997, February 28 officially became "February 28 Peace Memorial Day" and was designated a national holiday.
In 2011, the February 28 Memorial Museum officially opened on Nanhai Road, Taipei. The site was originally an educational hall from the Japanese period and the location of the last assembly of the "Handling Committee"—the choice of site itself was a form of memory restoration. The museum preserves a vast amount of oral history, images, and documents, making it one of Taiwan's most important institutions for historical memory.
In 2018, the Transitional Justice Commission, established during the process of Taiwan democratization, began systematically overturning convictions in political cases. By the time it ceased operations in 2022, it had overturned convictions and restored the honor of over 5,800 political victims. The Commission's work included: opening political archives, reconstructing historical facts, removing symbols of authoritarianism, and promoting historical education—it was the largest systematic undertaking in Taiwan's transitional justice process.
Wounds Between Communities Remain Unhealed
The February 28 Incident left more than just historical scars on Taiwanese society; it shaped the inter-community relations (between Benshengren and Waishengren) for decades to follow.
During the incident, some angry mobs attacked Mainlanders, using provincial origin as a criterion for identifying enemies—they identified Mainland accents and beat those who could not speak Taiwanese. This history cannot be avoided: violence was never one-way. The suppression and qingxiang operations conducted by the National Army primarily targeted local Taiwanese, and their scale and systematic nature far exceeded the spontaneous clashes of the mobs. These two types of violence overlapped in the same period, leaving a deep, indelible mistrust between the Benshengren and Waishengren.
This rift was repeatedly torn open, sutured, and torn open again in subsequent political competitions. "Provincial conflict" became the underlying structure of Taiwanese politics; whichever side held power and how they interpreted February 28 influenced whether this wound could truly heal.
Historians still debate the characterization of the incident: some define it as a national movement of colonized people resisting foreign rule, others emphasize that the complexity of ethnic conflict cannot be simplified, and some argue it was primarily a failure of governance, followed by ethnic conflict. Historian Chen Tsui-lien noted in Factional Struggles and Political Maneuvering that the factional struggles within Chen Yi's government—the tug-of-war between the Military Statistics Bureau and the CC Clique—were significant factors that prevented the crisis from being properly handled.
These different interpretive frameworks correspond to different political stances in Taiwanese society and reflect the difficulty faced by a society confronting its own dark history—every interpretation contains part of the truth, and every interpretation carries part of the wound.
📝 Curator's Note
The hardest part of transitional justice is not erecting monuments or apologizing, but enabling different people to accept "this happened, and it was wrong," without first needing to resolve "whose fault it was more." Taiwan's February 28 reconciliation process has been underway for over thirty years and is still on the road.The stories of Mainlander victims (89 recorded in official reports) are also part of the February 28 history—the civilians who were identified by their accents during the chaos and subsequently attacked were equally victims of this historical tragedy. A complete history must be able to accommodate everyone's wounds.
Wounds Still Healing
Every February 28, memorial bells ring in the Taipei February 28 Peace Memorial Park. Elderly family members place white chrysanthemums before the monument; some are still waiting for an answer: Where exactly is my father buried?
Lin Sheng-wu's case only saw a declaration of death in 2025, seventy-eight years after he was taken. Those eight armed men who arrived by car, that knock on the door that night, the body that was never found—the answers to these questions may never come.
In Tainan's Minsheng Green Park, where Tang Te-chang was executed, the area was later renamed "Tang Te-chang Memorial Park," and his statue stands facing the site of his execution. In 2020, Tainan citizens raised 16 million TWD through crowdfunding to purchase his former residence as a permanent historical space. What does it say when a city is willing to do this for a victim from seventy-three years ago? It says that memory is not silent.
Although provincial conflict has gradually faded with the changing of generations, the attitude of politicians toward February 28 remains a sensitive issue in Taiwanese elections. "To what extent is transitional justice complete?" remains a question without consensus. Can the historical ledger be closed? Or rather, under what conditions can it be considered "closed"? This is not a question with a standard answer.
But the people of Taiwan have chosen to remember. Because they have already paid the price for forgetting once.
From that evening when Lin Chiang-mai knelt on the ground at the Circle, to today when Taiwanese people can freely discuss this history, take photos in front of the national memorial museum, and read these three words in textbooks—this road has been traveled for seventy-eight years.
Lin Sheng-wu's body was never found. His family waited seventy-eight years, only to receive a declaration of death. That is not an answer; it is simply the last thing the law can provide in a place where there are no answers.
What is written on that paper does not matter. What matters is that someone has finally written it down.
Further Reading:
- National Human Rights Museum — The institutionalization of victim commemoration and perpetrator accountability; unveiled in 2018, budget frozen in 2025.
- Martial Law (/en/history/martial-law-era) — The legal container for 38 years starting from 1949, an extension of the 1947 suppression.
- Taiwan White Terror (/en/history/taiwan-white-terror) — Political cases during the 38 years of martial law.
- Taiwan Transitional Justice — The struggle between overturning convictions and perpetrator accountability.
- National Holiday — How February 28 became the first statutory national holiday of the Republic of China in 1997.
References
- February 28 Incident Foundation — Official incident overview, list of victims, and commemorative activities (Primary source).
- February 28 National Memorial Museum — Permanent exhibitions, oral history archives (Primary source).
- Wikipedia: February 28 Incident Casualties — Compilation of various estimates and discussions on controversy.
- Wikipedia: February 28 Incident — General reference, including multiple perspectives.
- Chen Yi-shen, Xue Hua-yuan (2021) Research Report on the Responsibility for the February 28 Incident — Latest official casualty data (Primary source, Academic).
- February 28 Foundation: Lin Sheng-wu Memorial Page — Life and martyrdom of Lin Sheng-wu (Primary source).
- FPN: The Story of Wang Tien-tung — Biography and account of Wang Tien-tung's martyrdom.
- The News Lens: Lawyer Tang Te-chang — Biography and story of Tang Te-chang's martyrdom.
- Academia Sinica: Spies of February 28 and the White Terror — Academic research on the relationship between Feb 28 and the White Terror (Primary source, Academic).
- Taiwan Christian Bulletin: Lee Teng-hui and February 28 — Historical record of the 1995 presidential apology.
- CTS News: Historical footage of the dedication of the 228 Memorial Monument and Lee Teng-hui's apology — Original video footage of Lee Teng-hui's apology.
- Transitional Justice Commission — Statistics on political case exonerations, archive openings (Primary source).
- Chen Cheng-po Cultural Foundation — Biography and collection of Chen Cheng-po's paintings (Primary source).
- Liberty Times: Declaration of Death for Lin Sheng-wu — Report on the 2025 approval of the declaration of death.