30-Second Overview: From 1949 to 1987, spanning 38 years and 56 days, Taiwan saw at least 29,407 military trials, with over 20,000 confirmed victims and民间 estimates reaching between 140,000 and 200,000. But what sustained this system for 38 years was not secret agents—there were only a few thousand of them; it was the "joint liability guarantee" system where every person in Taiwan had to find neighbors to vouch for them to work, attend school, or get married. The uncle running the grocery store downstairs from your home was your surveillance camera.
On the morning of May 28, 1963, in Machangting, Taipei, 46-year-old Chen Zhi-xiong was dragged out of his cell and taken to the execution ground. Knowing he would shout slogans loudly, the guards of the General Headquarters of the Military Police first chopped off the soles of his feet with an axe, leaving him unable to stand, then stuffed a cloth in his mouth and pierced his cheeks with iron wire. 1
But in the moment before the gunshots rang out, he still shouted in Japanese: "Long live the Taiwanese! Long live the independence of Taiwan!"
Chen Zhi-xiong was a graduate of the Dutch language department at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and a former official of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After the war, he returned to Taiwan to join the independence movement. In 1961, he organized the "Tongxin Society." Two years later, he became the first Taiwanese to be executed for "advocating Taiwan independence" during the 38-year martial law period. Sixty years after his death, a small group still holds memorial services for him every May 28. Most Taiwanese do not know this name.
This article discusses the machine that led Chen Zhi-xiong to Machangting, that caused Shi Shui-huan to die on the list of colleagues at the Taipei Postal and Telecommunications Bureau, that lured Gao Yi-sheng down from Alishan, and that imprisoned Bo Yang for nine years over a single comic strip—White Terror was not executed by anyone; it was sustained by a system that turned all two million families on the island into a web of mutual surveillance.
From 29,407 to 140,000 — Why the Numbers Never Match
In November 1988, one year and four months after the lifting of martial law, Chen Shou-huang, the Chief Prosecutor of the Ministry of Justice, reported a figure to the Legislative Yuan: during the 38 years of martial law, military organs sentenced a total of 29,407 criminal cases involving non-active-duty military personnel. 2
This was the first official number. But all researchers know that this number is merely the tip of the iceberg.
| 29,407 Cases | 14,946 Records | 1,061 People |
|---|---|---|
| Ministry of Justice Military Trial Cases | Promoting Truth and Reconciliation Commission Database Subjects | Confirmed Executions |
The "Taiwan Transition Justice Database," launched by the Promoting Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2020, included data on 14,946 political case subjects. 3 The Taiwan Association for Truth and Reconciliation, meanwhile, counted 1,061 death row inmates during the martial law period (as of 2013). 4 The Executive Yuan estimated in 2017 that the actual number of victims might exceed 200,000. 5
These numbers never match. The reason is not different statistical methods, but the fact that they are fundamentally unstatistical: how many died while fleeing, how many were secretly executed, how many were killed while resisting arrest—the archives do not record these. Cai Kuan-yu from the Taiwan Association for Truth and Reconciliation stated that Mainlander victims accounted for 46%. 5 This number overturns the general impression that "White Terror equals the Kuomintang targeting Hoklo people." Once the machine started, anyone could be ground into it.
⚠️ Controversial Viewpoint
The number of White Terror victims remains a political issue, not a statistical one. Conservatives tend to use the Ministry of Justice's 29,407, emphasizing that most cases are documented; pro-independence advocates tend to use 140,000 to 200,000, emphasizing the unknowability of underground victims. Both numbers are partially true because "truth" in that era was itself a systematically hidden commodity.
Joint Liability Guarantee — Who Sustained the 38-Year Martial Law
In the year Chen Zhi-xiong was executed, Taiwan's population was approximately 12 million. How many were secret agents? According to various historical materials, the actual personnel of the intelligence system, including the General Headquarters of the Military Police, the Security Command, the Bureau of Investigation, and the Youth Salvation Corps, totaled only a few thousand.
So what sustained it for 38 years?
It relied on every Taiwanese who wanted to work, attend school, or get married having to find 2 people willing to guarantee them.
This system was written into the "Regulations for Suppression of Bandits and Traitors during the Period of Rebellion" promulgated in 1950, called the "Joint Guarantee and Joint Liability System." 4 To be released from prison, convicts had to find 2 guarantors to fill out multiple guarantee forms: children could not guarantee parents, guarantors had to have certain property, and in addition to personal guarantees, there had to be merchant guarantees. The guarantee forms were sent to the household registration police station for verification, then to the General Police Bureau, then to the Military Justice Bureau of the Ministry of National Defense, and finally, the prison issued the release certificate. If the guaranteed person "reoffended," the guarantors would face joint liability.
This mechanism was used not only for release. For the appointment of public officials and teachers, school admission, applications to go abroad, and marriage registration, every daily action required a "clean record," and a clean record required someone to vouch for you.
📝 Curator's Note
On household registers in Taiwan from the 1950s to the 1980s, many people had a red stamp next to their names: the name, address, and ID number of the guarantor. Today, if you open an old household register, you will see the relationships of relatives and neighbors from that era recorded in the form of political responsibility. Why your neighbor remembers you is because they guaranteed you; why your uncle stopped talking to your father for a while is because he refused to guarantee your father. Those silent, fractured, and tangled family relationships often began with a single guarantee form.
Eyes Beyond the Secret Agents
In addition to the joint liability system, there was a network of informants. In 1983, there were over 5,000 informants in university campuses across Taiwan. 6 From 1980 to 2000, the number of citizens monitored by the Kuomintang government annually ranged between 7,000 and 15,000. 6
In the reports written by these informants, some recorded the sexual orientation, marital infidelity, and secret vices of dissidents. Some files discussed using "female psychological weaknesses" to strike at radical actors. 6 Information could be fabricated, exaggerated, or used as a tool for power struggles, but once it entered the files, it became real.
✦ "There are secret agents watching me at the door; I have to escape." — Words spoken by White Terror survivor Chen Meng-he to visitors while hospitalized in his final years (from The Reporter's "Looking for Political Trauma Survivors")
Chen Meng-he was a political prisoner imprisoned for over ten years. After his release, he became a photographer, leaving images for other survivors. But on his hospital bed 60 years later, he still believed there were secret agents at the door. 7 You cannot say he misremembered. The greatest achievement of White Terror was making people remember for a lifetime.
Three Reasons for Arrest: Ideology, Relationships, Luck
The most terrifying aspect of White Terror was not that it had clear standards, but that it did not.
Ideology: Bo Yang's Comic Strip (1968)
On January 3, 1968, the Zhonghua Daily family section published an American comic strip translated by translator Bo Yang, Popeye. 8 The story involved Popeye and his father jointly purchasing an island, establishing a private nation on the island, and the two competing for president. In Bo Yang's translation, the child said to Popeye: "There are only the two of us in the whole country, you know!"
The military trial court believed this sentence implied the two Chiangs. On March 7, Bo Yang was arrested and sentenced to 12 years by military courts. In 1975, upon Chiang Kai-shek's death, his sentence was reduced to 8 years. On March 3, 1976, the day his sentence expired, the National Security Bureau decided to transfer him to Green Island as a "custodial employee" to continue his imprisonment. It was not until April 1977, following concern from the United States government, that he was released. 8
A total of 9 years and 26 days. For translating an American comic strip.
💡 Did You Know
During his nine years on Green Island, Bo Yang studied the Zizhi Tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance) hard, completing three manuscript volumes: The Outline of Chinese History, The Lineage of Emperors, Empresses, Princes, and Princesses in Chinese Dynasties, and The Chronology of Chinese History. After his release, he spent another ten years translating the Bo Yang Version of Zizhi Tongjian in 72 volumes. That prison cell turned him from a translator into a historian.
Relationships: Shi Shui-huan's Ceiling (1954)
Shi Shui-huan was born in 1926 in Tainan, graduated from Tainan Girls' Normal School, and worked as a clerk at the Taipei Postal and Telecommunications Bureau. In 1954, she was 28 years old.
Her younger brother, Shi Cheng-sheng, was a National Taiwan University student. After becoming involved in the "NTU Branch Case," he went on the run, hiding in the ceiling of her Taipei dormitory for two years. On July 19, 1954, Shi Shui-huan was arrested for protecting her brother, and her colleagues Qian Jing-zhi and Ding Yao-tiao were implicated in the "Postal and Telecommunications Branch Case." 9 Two years later, on July 24, 1956, she was executed in Taipei at the age of 30. Her brother Shi Cheng-sheng's final whereabouts remain a mystery.
During her two years in prison, she wrote 69 family letters to her mother. 10
✦ "Dear Mother, I don't know why my heart feels so heavy tonight, with tears welling up in my eyes. But I still bite my lip and endure desperately, because I know I should not cry for Mother anymore, as that would only cause Mother more sorrow..." — Shi Shui-huan's prison letter (from the Taiwan Association for Truth and Reconciliation's "Shi Shui-huan's Family Letters")
In her final letter, she wrote: "Every morning, as Mother instructed, I read the Bible and pray. May God's grace descend upon our whole family. Amen!" 10
The charge for her execution was "colluding with bandits." In reality, her crime was having a younger brother who was a fugitive.
Luck: The 896 Villagers of Lukang (1952)
From December 28 to 29, 1952, the Ministry of National Defense deployed thousands of military and police officers to surround the Lukang mountainous area in Shihding Township, Taipei County (now Guangming Li, Shihding District, New Taipei City), launching a massive search for the so-called "Taiwan People's Armed Defense Corps." The underground organization led by Commander-in-Chief Chen Ben-jiang and Branch Secretary Chen Chun-qing did indeed exist, but most villagers they absorbed had no idea what they had joined; some had merely given a mouthful of food to these fugitives. 11
896 people were arrested. 135 were sentenced, including 41 death sentences. 11 Compensation payments eventually totaled NT$545.63 million, and the Control Yuan corrected the Ministry of National Defense. 11 This was the largest political case in terms of scale during the White Terror period.
Former Director of the Academia Historica Zhang Yan-xian visited Lukang in his later years, conducting oral history interviews with over 100 villagers. 11 The common characteristic of the villagers was that they could not clearly explain "what exactly happened that year." Not because they forgot, but because they never truly knew. Some did not know what organization they had "joined" until years after their release.
📝 Curator's Note
Director Wu Nian-zhen's films A City of Sadness and Gossamer Life have prototypes from Lukang. It is now called "Lukang Incident Memorial Park," which contains a memorial stele. In 2017, the son of the ringleader Chen Ben-jiang said at the memorial ceremony: "I apologize to everyone on behalf of my father." The descendants of perpetrators apologizing is very rare in White Terror memorial ceremonies.
Green Island Beds and Gao Yi-sheng's Letters
In 1951, most political prisoners in Taiwan were concentrated in Green Island's "New Life Training Corps" for ideological reform. 12 This institution existed until 1965, holding a maximum of 2,000 people, organized into 3 battalions and 12 companies, with each company containing 120 to 160 people. 12
"New lives" (prisoners were collectively called "new lives") attended three hours of ideological reform classes daily: Sun Yat-sen's Last Will and Testament, the Leader's Words and Deeds, the Three Principles of the People, the Atrocities of the Communist Bandits, and the Critique of Communism. Other times were spent on labor: building houses, repairing roads, and growing vegetables.
Victim Zhang Ze-zhou later returned to the rebuilt barracks: "There were not enough beds; many people had to sleep on the floor, and I was often woken up by many people stepping on me while sleeping on the floor!" 12
Between 1953 and 1956, the New Life Training Corps also experienced the "Re-rebellion Case": people already serving sentences on Green Island were accused of continuing to organize connections within the prison, leading to further sentences and transfers to even heavier punishments. 12 Some were therefore imprisoned on Green Island for another ten-plus years.
Gao Yi-sheng's 60 Letters
Gao Yi-sheng (Tsou name: Uyongu Yatauyungana, 1908-1954) was an Alishan Tsou tribal leader, musician, educator, and the first democratically elected township head of Wufeng Township (now Alishan Township). On September 10, 1952, he was lured down from Alishan by the bait of the "Mountain Security Conference" and imprisoned in the Military Justice Detention Center at No. 3 Qingdao East Road, Taipei. 13
During his two years in prison, he wrote 60 family letters in Japanese to send back to Alishan. 13 On April 17, 1954, he and five others were executed in Taipei. The charge was "bandit spy gathering and rebellion."
The content of those letters was mostly trivial: plant rice well, take care of the children, believe in God. Half a year before his execution, he wrote: "If I can return home safely, I will continue to work for the tribe."
On World Human Rights Day in 2013, Gao Yi-sheng's son, Gao Ying-jie, donated these 60 letters to the National Human Rights Museum. In 2020, the Ministry of Culture officially published Gao Yi-sheng's Prison Family Letters—this was the first book publication outcome of Taiwan's indigenous transition justice. 14 Half a century later, the Tsou people could finally read their chieftain's final voice in full.
📝 Curator's Note
Gao Ying-jie, Gao Yi-sheng's son, said at the donation ceremony that he had read those letters for decades, but only now did he truly understand them—because his father wrote in Japanese, and Gao Ying-jie's generation was raised by the Nationalist government forbidden to speak Japanese. White Terror did not just kill a Tsou chieftain; it also severed the common language between two generations. The words the father wrote were unreadable by his son; this is the deepest form of violence in White Terror.
Why This History Has Not Ended
It is easy to say "White Terror is in the past." Martial law was lifted in 1987, the Regulations for Punishing Rebellion and Subversion were abolished in 1991, the Compensation Foundation was established in 1995, and the Promotion of Transitional Justice Commission went online in 2018. The state machine has not killed for 38 years.
But open the family history of any Taiwanese born in the 1950s-1980s, flip to the pages about their parents, and the word "guarantee" often appears, followed by a pause. His uncle refused to guarantee; his neighbor once guaranteed; his grandfather nearly lost his job because he had no guarantor. That pause is where White Terror has not ended.
Chen Zhi-xiong was executed in Machangting in 1963. Gao Yi-sheng was executed in Taipei in 1954. Shi Shui-huan was executed in Taipei in 1956. Their families spent half a century before daring to publicly speak these names. Taiwan's transitional justice revoked 5,983 guilty verdicts, 3 established memorial parks, and built memorial steles.
But the descendants of the 5,000 university campus informants still live, work, and vote in Taiwan. What their fathers or grandfathers did is not required to be clarified by any decontamination law. 6 The so-called "past" has never been publicly reconciled.
This is not hatred; it is a ledger. The day White Terror ends will not be the day martial law was lifted, nor the day the Transitional Justice Commission dissolved. It will be the day Taiwanese society is willing to admit: the system that turned two million families into a web of mutual surveillance, its traces are still carved into our anxiety towards neighbors, strangers, and the two words "guarantee."
Further Reading:
- Taiwan's Democratic Transition — The full picture of the forty-year transition from martial law to Asia's most free democratic system
- Martial Law Period — The legal container of 38 years and 56 days and the process of lifting martial law
- Taiwan's Transitional Justice — The unfinished business of truth-seeking and holding perpetrators accountable after the lifting of martial law
- February 28 Incident — The prelude to White Terror: how the 1947 suppression foreshadowed the martial law regime
- Beautiful Island Incident — A key turning point in the late White Terror period in 1979
- Alishan: The Empire's Forest Plantation and Gao Yi-sheng's Mountain — The story of Gao Yi-sheng's mountain and the silenced ethnic group
- Yin Haiguang — The National Taiwan University philosophy professor confined to No. 18 Wenzhou Street after the 1960 Lei Zhen case, the founder of Taiwan's liberalism
References
- New Taiwan Peace Foundation: Historical Today — Mr. Chen Zhi-xiong's Victim Day — Records the final details of the Machangting execution on May 28, 1963, including axe chopping of feet, iron wire piercing cheeks, and the Japanese shout "Long live the independence of Taiwan."↩
- Liberty Times: 10 Years of White Terror Injustice / Radio Person Cui Xiao-ping Passes Away — Cites the official number reported by Chen Shou-huang, then Chief Prosecutor of the Ministry of Justice, in the Legislative Yuan's Internal Affairs Committee in 1988: a total of 29,407 criminal cases involving non-active-duty military personnel sentenced by military organs during the 38 years of martial law.↩
- Promoting Truth and Reconciliation Commission Official Website — Official statistics including data on 14,946 political case subjects and 876 confirmed death sentences, with 5,983 guilty verdicts revoked during its four-year term.↩
- Taiwan Association for Truth and Reconciliation: Introduction to White Terror — An independent民间 research institution, detailing the operation of the "Joint Guarantee and Joint Liability System" established by the 1950 "Regulations for Suppression of Bandits and Traitors during the Period of Rebellion," and statistics on 1,061 death row inmates during martial law.↩
- Storm.MG: White Terror Mainlander Victims Reach 46%! Victim Cai Kuan-yu — Cites 2017 Executive Yuan estimates that actual victims may exceed 200,000, and presents analysis that Mainlander victims accounted for 46%, overturning general impressions.↩
- Wikipedia: White Terror (Taiwan) — Synthesized from English academic sources, detailing the scale of the surveillance system: 7,000-15,000 citizens monitored annually between 1980-2000, over 5,000 informants in university campuses in 1983, and analysis of intelligence file contents.↩
- The Reporter: Looking for Political Trauma Survivors — Those Victims, Their Families, and Us — A deep report by Academia Sinica Assistant Researcher Peng Ren-yu interviewing White Terror survivors, recording the lifelong trauma case of Chen Meng-he who still believed "there were secret agents at the door" in his final years.↩
- National Human Rights Museum: Bo Yang's Popeye Comic Case — A victim event database established by the National Human Rights Museum, detailing the 1968 case where Bo Yang was sentenced to 12 years for translating the Popeye comic, and the details of his forced stay on Green Island after his sentence expired.↩
- Wikipedia: Shi Shui-huan — Records the complete chronology of Shi Shui-huan's arrest in 1954 due to her brother Shi Cheng-sheng hiding for two years and colleagues being implicated in the "Postal and Telecommunications Branch Case," and her execution on July 24, 1956.↩
- Taiwan Association for Truth and Reconciliation: Shi Shui-huan's Family Letters Carry the Elegy of White Terror — Includes complete excerpts of Shi Shui-huan's 69 family letters written to her mother in prison and historical background analysis, serving as important material for studying female White Terror victims.↩
- Liberty Times: Small File / Lukang Incident: The Largest White Terror Case — Compiles data on the Lukang Incident occurring on December 28, 1952, with 896 arrests, 135 sentences, 41 death sentences, NT$545.63 million in compensation, and former Academia Historica Director Zhang Yan-xian interviewing over 100 villagers.↩
- National Human Rights Museum: New Life Training Corps — The architectural history and operational details of Green Island's New Life Training Corps (1951-1965), including holding 2,000 people, a structure of 3 battalions and 12 companies, three hours of daily ideological reform classes, and excerpts from victim Zhang Ze-zhou's memoirs.↩
- The Reporter: Echoes from a Distant Valley — The Tsou People with No Choice and the Forgotten Victims — A deep report on Gao Yi-sheng's journey from Alishan Township head to his execution on April 17, 1954, including the 1952 entrapment under the name of the "Mountain Security Conference" and the background of his prison family letters.↩
- Ministry of Culture of the Republic of China: A Milestone for Implementing Indigenous Transition Justice — Gao Yi-sheng's Prison Family Letters New Book Released — A 2020 Ministry of Culture publication news, recording Gao Ying-jie's donation of 60 family letters to the National Human Rights Museum on World Human Rights Day in 2013, and the process of organizing and translating them over seven years, marking the first family letter publication for indigenous transition justice.↩