Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Human rights advocates yesterday called on Beijing to stop the repression of people in Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, and blamed the recent cases of self-immolation by Tibetans and ethnic conflict in Xinjiang on the Chinese government.

“The situation in Tibet and East Turkestan [another name for Xinjiang] is becoming critical as 25 people have set themselves on fire in Tibet since March last year — of which 15 have died — and there have been violent clashes between Uighurs and Chinese in East Turkestan,” Taiwan Friends of Tibet chairperson Chow Mei-li (周美里) told a press conference.

The history of the 228 Incident is a bloody one. Irrespective of the controversies that surround it, it may serve as a lesson for later generations. More importantly, it is Taiwan’s most precious collective memory and historical asset. The sad thing is that each year around the anniversary of the Incident, as the subject is once more brought to the fore, it is often presented as a matter solely involving ethnic Taiwanese — Han Chinese whose ancestors moved to Taiwan prior to 1945, or the arrival of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — and Mainlanders (Han Chinese who moved to Taiwan after 1945). Discussion of the 228 Incident is often no more than a war of words between different party ideologies.