Conspiracy discussion about 2004 Chen Shui-bian shooting

[Betelnut]

Taking things totally out of context to make one side look like the only wrong doers in history is the green camp's way of telling stories in Taiwan. I was just stating the other side of the story that they don't like talking about. If you want to start a new thread over what really happened in 228, go right ahead.

I didn't think it was necessary for me to talk about the entire story of 228 from beginning to end here. Someone mentioned that the KMT party didn't trust the Taiwanese and I was simply stating why. Of course there are things that happened before and after the Taiwanese started killing mainlanders on site because they couldn't differentiate between normal people and government people, but this is something that did happen. The Taiwanese were not being help prisoners by the KMT government before the violence started like the Nazis were doing to Jews. It's hardly a fair comparison.

If you go to the 228 plaque in the 228 "Peace Park", it tells the story in the beginning and the end. It only tells the incident and some other things that happened, and then it goes straight to the suppression by troops from Nanjing. It doesn't mention anything that happened between the incident and shots being fired from the troops from Nanjing. I am just saying what happened in between.

The committees that were set up demanded that the Nanjing government grant the committees the right to continue to hold weapons (guns) taken from government institutions. Only then did CKS send troops from Nanjing because he viewed it as crossing the red line and had no other choice.

When I first learned about Taiwan's political history from my green friends, they totally distorted the story because they don't know any more of the story and are sometimes not interested. They just want to use 228 to push their agenda instead of looking at it from all sides.

If I gathered a group of Asian Americans in the U.S. and killed police officers in police stations and started attacking JFK airport with rifles, this would also be seen as crossing the red line to the U.S. federal government. But in Taiwan, you hear statements such as "The government can't kill its own people.". Yes, they can when those people are threatening others with guns and essentially wants to replace the government's authority to impose law and order by taking guns from police stations.

[Mucha Man]

Again, you are providing no context even as you insist you are doing no such thing.

The KMT government at the time was robbing Taiwan of everything it had spent 50 years developing. In the months before 228, Chen Yi and his cronies were worried China was going to fall and had ramped up the already unacceptable levels of carpet bagging.

The pushback from the Taiwanese was short and violence was quickly halted in favor of negotiation with the existing government. When CKS sent in the troops some weeks later there was no rioting, no looting, no violence, and hence no need to go on a rampage of retaliation of punishment.

In any case, there is no equivalence from any moral standpoint between a populace violently protesting government corruption and theft, and the government violently pushing back to maintain that corruption and theft.

[Betelnut]

What you mentioned about the Chen Yi government is generally known and does not have to be repeated. We all know the KMT provincial government was carpetbagging and that these conditions along with inflation led to the frustration.

I am just saying what led up to the troops being sent from Nanjing. I was saying that the committee's had already taken weapons from government institutions and in the negotiation process insisted that weapons stay in their hands so this left CKS with no choice but to send the troops.

There is no way to remove weapons from people without shooting. What is taken out of context is that the protestors or whatever you want to call them were armed and would not give up their weapons. In any society, this is crossing the line.

The Nanjing government did not condone what the Chen Yi government was doing. CKS did not support corruption in provincial governments. It's a very simple matter of a population trying to overthrow a provincial government in one of the provinces controlled by the ROC and the central government sending in troops to suppress the uprising. The central government did not push back to support a corrupt provincial government. It pushed back to retain control of one of their provinces which is perfectly in their right to do so as it is with any province on the mainland.

[Betelnut]

When we look at history, we need to look at the intentions of people and remember to look at people for their individual qualities. It's not fair to characterize an entire political party and all of its people as one way or the other. Corruption in a political party does not mean that all of the actions taken by it are to support corruption. It's very biased to paint parties that way.

Chen Shui-Bian himself was very motivated by making money through corrupt methods, but that does not mean that every single DPP city mayor and county commissioner supported his family's corruption or was corrupt themselves in the city and counties they were administering. We should view them as individuals and judge them according to individual acts.

This whole mentality that the KMT is inherently evil and that every action taken by a KMT affiliated person is for some evil intention is silly and childish. Some of you guys really need to chill out when it comes to this historical frustration and hatred of the KMT. Try to understand what is going on in history from all sides instead of just interpreting everything as negative because it fits your original conclusion.

[Mucha Man]

...Try to understand what is going on in history from all sides instead of just interpreting everything as negative because it fits your original conclusion.

Oh please. You are being a partisan apologist, not open minded.

And you'll find that most of us came here with very little knowledge of the KMT and Taiwan's history grew to despise them only after much reading and observation. Frankly, how anyone can look at the mess they made of one of the earth's most beautiful places and not be outraged is beyond me?

The Nanjing government did not condone what the Chen Yi government was doing. CKS did not support corruption in provincial governments. It's a very simple matter of a population trying to overthrow a provincial government in one of the provinces controlled by the ROC and the central government sending in troops to suppress the uprising. The central government did not push back to support a corrupt provincial government. It pushed back to retain control of one of their provinces which is perfectly in their right to do so as it is with any province on the mainland.

Nothing in the historical record supports such a lopsided and pro-KMT interpretation of events and characters. This is just stale propaganda.

[Betelnut]

Spent 50 years developing? First of all, a great deal of the development to Taiwan was in order for Japan to send back materials to Japan to further the empire. Japan was stripping Taiwan of its resources including taking gold directly from Taiwanese people in around 1940. A lot of the other infrastructure built up by Japan was not necessarily being stripped by the KMT. You can't strip certain kinds of infrastructure. The issue with private property being taken by people in the KMT is the real issue.

Can you describe this mess the KMT made of the place? Like building highways with soldiers? Putting in power stations? Do you have a good knowledge of what existed after the Japanese left and what was done afterwards by the KMT with the help of the Taiwanese?

State propaganda? I am interpreting CKS's action from biographies that are not totally biased and actually try to understand the person. I'm not sure how aware CKS was of what was happening in Taiwan, but I do know that he visited Taiwan in late 1946 and spoke to the people, etc. You can see pictures of it at CKS Memorial Hall. If you want to call him visiting Taiwan as state propaganda, then be my guest.

[Mucha Man]

As usual you are not addressing my points, but making up your own to argue with. Carry on.

Can you describe this mess the KMT made of the place?

Have you ever been to Taiwan?

[Charlie Jack]

Can you describe this mess the KMT made of the place?

No, I think that would require the talents and efforts of a professional scholar, and probably one who was willing to devote a quite a bit of time and hard work to the subject. But I think that by borrowing some of the writings of others, I can provide a few pencil strokes toward the beginnings of a rough sketch:

The destruction of the factories [by U. S. bombing] brought unemployment, unemployment to which the Chinese added by bringing over their own relatives and friends and by deporting 100,000 Formosans from overseas.

China was in the throes of a civil war and her economy was suffering accordingly. She therefore had no money to spare for rehabilitation and restoration - in fact she took so much money out of the Island that it looked as though she did not know the meaning of rehabilitation - and money that should have gone into restoring the industrial and economic life of the Island was taken to bolster the tottering economic system on the mainland. Furthermore, the Chinese let their hatred of everything Japanese go beyond the bounds of common sense and hastened to ship the Japanese population to Japan with all speed. This rebounded and caused them very great difficulties in industry.

--Allan J. Shackleton, Formosa Calling

In my first tour of the Island I came to the conclusion that by far the greatest difficulties of rehabilitation were those of finance. Time and again I was told that no money was available, and in such a highly productive Island as Formosa two questions arose. One was as to what had happened to the tangible assets of the various companies, particularly in the way of stocks, both of raw materials and finished products; and the other question concerned the proceeds from agricultural production, particularly of rice, which was undoubtedly a good source of external revenue, when it was remembered that the Island satisfied all its needs from one crop and the second crop produced in the year could be used for export. The answer in both cases was that every dollar that could be found was poured into the economic vacuum of the mainland. For example, of all old stock of sugar seven-eighths had to be handed over to the Executive Yuan and one-eighth remained with the companies.

--Shackleton, ibid.

. . . at the end of the war, the price of rice was 30 dollars per catty; afterward, consumer prices began to rise, factories were shut down, and now the price of rice has jumped from 30 to 1,400 dollars per catty. Taiwan has been a rice-producing area; its rice has been exported after feeding its own population. But why, after only one year's rule [by the new government] is there not enough for ourselves?

--Huang Chih-Huei, "The Transformation of Taiwanese Attitudes Toward Japan in the Post-Colonial Period," in Li Narangoa and R. B. Cribb, Imperial Japan and National Identities in Asia, 1895-1945

Looting was carried forward on three levels. From September, 1945, until the year's end the military scavengers were at work at the lowest level. Anything movable - anything lying loose and unguarded for a moment -- was fair prey for ragged and undisciplined soldiers. It was a first wave of petty theft, taking place in every city street and suburban village unfortunate enough to have Nationalist Army barracks or encampments nearby.

The second stage of looting was entered when the senior military men -- the officer ranks -- organized depots with forwarding agents at the ports through which they began to ship out military and civilian supplies. Next the Governor's own men developed a firm control of all industrial raw materials, agricultural stockpiles and confiscated real properties turned over to them by the vanquished Japanese. By the end of 1946 these huge reserves were fairly well exhausted. . . .

By the end of November looting had become well-organized and was on a massive scale. Foodstuffs, textiles, and scrap metals were at a premium. Officers worked in small gangs, with conscript help. By sharing a percentage with "higher authority" they could use confiscated Japanese military trucks to move loot to depots from which it was shipped on to Shanghai. The "Peace Preservation Corps" arriving in September had promptly commandeered all of Taipei's garbage trucks, for example, and by late November those that were still able to move were carrying loot to the ports.

The great Zuiho copper and gold mines near Keelung (Jilong) had at one time produced 20 percent of Japan's total copper ore, and the machinery at the mines was developed to match the wartime importance of such production. Solitary conscripts, on foot, first roamed about the silent unguarded premises, picking up supplies and tools from undamaged machine shops. Then the officer-gangs moved in with commandeered trucks. Soon they had ripped out the heavier machines, removed wiring and all metal fixtures, and shipped the whole off to the ports and on to Shanghai. When I visited the site not long after, I discovered that even the metal door-frames and sheet metal roofing had been carried off, leaving empty shells where important industrial installations had once stood.

--George H. Kerr, Formosa Betrayed

If a factory was not yielding commodities which could be sold promptly, the working assets were sold, beginning with the stockpiled raw materials and finished products, and then by dismantling the factories themselves. Units which could be sold piecemeal went first, then the very framework went, shipped off to Shanghai as scrap metal.

* * *

The fate of the Tropical Chemical Industry Company near Jiayi was an example. Here cassava root from some eight hundred farms was processed at a factory employing more than one hundred workers. In the face of organized community protest the new management simply dismantled and sold the works as machine units and as scrap metal. The cassava farmers were without a market, and the factory workers without jobs. In a similar fashion the industrial alcohol plant near Jiayi (the largest of its kind in the Orient) was allowed to fall into complete disrepair and go out of production. From a maximum of 3200 employees the working staff was reduced to a skeleton maintenance crew of about 130 men. Much of the plant fabric was carted away as scrap metal.

--Kerr, ibid.

[the bear]

Nice work Charlie.

[Charlie Jack]

Nice work Charlie.

Thanks.