President Tsai Ing-wen says that the 228 Incident is no longer a taboo subject. Tsai was speaking Thursday at a symposium revisiting the role of Taiwan’s indigenous people in the bloody incident, which happened 74 years ago.
The term “228 Incident” refers to the events of February 28, 1947. The incident itself started on February 27, 1947, when the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau sent agents to confiscate illegal cigarettes from a street vendor. A conflict erupted in which one person was killed by a gunshot. This initial confrontation then escalated into a full-scale uprising against the KMT government, which put down the uprising with an iron fist.
Tsai said that the 228 Incident not only involved conflicts between native Taiwanese and later Mainland Chinese arrivals, but also involved Taiwan’s indigenous people.
Tsai said indigenous perspectives on the violence will no longer be ignored, and that it is only by listening to the viewpoints of different communities that the historical truth of the incident can be unearthed.
Since taking office in 2016, President Tsai’s DPP administration has been pushing for transitional justice, with an emphasis on the period when Taiwan was under the KMT’s one-party rule.