Koxinga, the KMT and 228

There is a curious addition to the Koxinga shrine that I wrote about first on
11/16/09. There is a ceremonial arch to one of the entrances to the Koxinga Shrine and recently (2006) there was an explanatory plaque put up next to this arch.

The cross member of the arch has the symbol(the circle with 12 outward pointing triangles) of the KMT, the Chinese Nationalist Party. An additional plaque describes why this is a controversial arch and why it is still up. Here is the plaque in Chinese, English and Japanese.

Let me summarise the story.  In 1945, after the defeat of Japan, the Chiang Kai-Shek's KMT was locked in a battle with the Mao' s Communists  for all of China. Taiwan had be repatriated to Chiang's KMT at the end of WWII. When Chiang's force took control of Taiwan there was an uneasy truce. The refugees from the mainland felt they were weaken by fighting the Japanese in WWII and this allowed the Communists to fight on. The Taiwanese had lived for 50 years as a Japanese colony and had been abandon by the Chinese in 1895, many Taiwanese had fought on the Japanese side in WWII.

This was a tense situation, the Chinese blamed the native Taiwanese for their losing on the mainland and some Taiwanese longed for the rule of law under the Japanese. The spark that set off a massacre happened in February 28th(228), 1947. An incident over a woman street vendor selling cigarettes and a Chinese tax official lead to protests from the Taiwanese in Taipei.  The Chinese Garrison  overreacted and the killing of unarmed civilians began. The Taiwanese began an open rebellion that was put down by the Chinese military. Then started the KMT's "White Terror" campaign in which maybe 30 thousand Taiwanese were killed. Many of those targeted had more than a high school education or had spoken out. They became a lost generation of Taiwanese intellectuals.

Here is the text of the plaque placed next to the KMT arch:

Start:

In 1947, the Chinese Minister of Defense General Pai Chung-Shi was sent to
Taiwan to deal with the "228 Incident". Sparked by the the seizure of smuggled
tobacco in Taipei, the "incident" became an island-wide conflict between the
Taiwanese and soldiers from mainland China, resulting in a bloody military
crackdown and thousands of civilian deaths. Taiwan was in a turmoil. When
General Pai passed through Tainan, he scarificed to Koxinga, erected a monument archway and inscribed the following couplets:

"The desolate minister grasped his desolate royalty, the magnanimity filled
everywhere and forever. The just man held in justness; do not take the
achievement to evaluate a hero".

And on the arch inscribed

"Having good faith, virtue and patriotism".

However the existent text was the revised edition by a historian. In recent
years, the KMT party emblem was thought to taint the site and some suggested
that it should be removed. However, the past serves as a warning to future
generations and it was decided that the emblem should remain as an important
element of history of those tragic times. Erected by the Committee of
Historical Documents of Tainan City Government in 2006 May.









:End

The English is a little rough but the intent is clear. It's an example of whoever is in power using the symbols of the past to justify there own actions.

There's an even more recent controversy about the Koxinga Shrine. Taiwan and mainland China are now in negociations over "Cross Straits Normalization" between the two countries.(Of course, mainland China still doesn't admit that Taiwan is a country!) Anyway the mainland Chinese negociator came to Tainan and also visited the Koxinga shrine. For the same reasons that any politician visits the Koxinga Shrine.

In Tainan, which is an anti KMT, anti mainland China area, a shoving match broke out between local a DPP politician and the mainland official. Charges from that fight are moving through the Taiwan court system now. Of course if this had happened in the mainland the local official would probably have been shot by now.

So Koxinga has been claimed as a hero by the Qing, the Japanese, the KMT, the mainland Chinese. Who will be next?