Eva Cheng
More than 60,000 people formed a human chain in southern Taiwan on February 1, acting in defiance of Beijing's military threats. Supported by President Chen Shui-bian and former president Lee Teng-hui, the protesters vowed to form a much longer human chain to "encircle Taiwan" on February 28, the 57th anniversary of an important rebellion on the island.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government of General Chiang Kai-shek took control of Taiwan in 1945, ending 50 years of Japanese rule over the island (which had been incorporated into the Chinese Empire in 1887).
After 18 months of violent rule and systematic looting by the KMT, an incident of brutality by a petty official in Taipei on the evening of February 27, 1947, triggered mass protests the next day.
The protests quickly spread to most parts of Taiwan, resulting in widespread occupations of government offices and key facilities, as well as strikes and other mass actions of defiance.
Rather than meeting the protesters demands for democratic reforms and an end to corruption, KMT governor Chen Yi called in troops from the China to drown the protests in blood. Tens of thousands of Taiwanese were killed. The KMT imposed martial law on the island, and thousands of people were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered by the KMT.
In 1949 the KMT regime was driven from China by the victory of Mao Zedong's Communist-led peasant army. The KMT continued to rule Taiwan under martial law until 1987, and claimed to be the "legitimate" government of China.
The 1947 rebellion was suppressed from the public record in KMT-ruled Taiwan until the early 1990s. The changing factional line up within the KMT in the early 1990s prompted the winning faction, then headed by Lee Teng-hui, to lift the ban on public discussion about the 1947 rebellion.
Lee had hoped that a reminder of the 1947 events would help deepen a sense of distrust among the contemporary Taiwanese for the rulers of China. Lee favoured Taiwan formally declaring its independence from China and had illusions that a public focus on the 1947 rebellion-massacre wouldn't backfire on his KMT regime.
In 2000, pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Chen Shui-bian was elected president of Taiwan. Chen has put special efforts into encouraging commemoration of the 1947 massacre, as an apparent tool against both Beijing and the KMT. The latter is still a significant force in Taiwan's parliament, holding 68 of the 312-member Legislative Council.
Commemoration of the 1947 massacre is particularly important this year, as it comes just shortly before the March 20 presidential election. To improve his chances of winning a second term, on January 16 Chen decided to combine a referendum with the presidential ballot.
The referendum asks voters to allow the government to increase military spending if Beijing doesn't remove its thousands of missiles currently pointed at Taiwan or renounce the possibility of invading Taiwan. It also asks voters to mandate the government to try to negotiate with Beijing for a peace treaty.
While the referendum questions haven't stirred much public debate, the policy behind them has. Taiwan hasn't had national referenda before, but Chen has expressed an interest in making them a regular feature of Taiwan's political life.
Prior to his decision to add the referendum to the March 20 presidential poll, Chen was lagging behind his KMT rival Lien Chan in opinion polls. But Chen began to close the gap after he called the referendum for the same day as the presidential vote.
However, the latest opinion polls in Taiwan still put Chen behind Lien. A February 15 United Daily News survey found Chen had the backing of 35% of voters, while 41% supported Lien.
While pro-independence sentiment in Taiwan is strong, it is by no means certain that an pro-independence referendum would
win, largely because of people's fear of an invasion by Beijing, which regards the island as a "breakaway province". However, Chen has repeatedly pushed the threat of a declaration of independence to provoke threats from Beijing as a means of shoring up voter support for the DPP.
Chen employed this tactic during the 2000 presidential election, and it was a major contributing factor to his victory over the KMT. He's trying it again through the March 20 referendum.
On February 8, China's deputy foreign minister, Zhou Wenzhong, asked Washington — Taiwan's military guardian — to publicly state US opposition to the referendum. Three days later, US Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that Washington does not see the need for Taiwan to hold any referendum and opposes any actions that would change the status quo in the region.
Powell told the foreign relations committee of the US House of Representatives that while Taiwan could "choose to have a referendum, they can have a referendum. We've made clear to them, however, that we do not want to see these actions lead in any way to change in the situation."
At a regular press conference in Beijing on February 12, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhang Qiyue expressed his government's "appreciation" of Powell's comments, according to the Beijing Peoples Daily.
From Green Left Weekly, February 25, 2004.
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