Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Day marred by a lack of compassion

Taipei Times Editorial

As it has been in previous years, this year’s 228 Incident anniversary was commemorated with tears, apologies and defaced statues of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石). However, there was something new this year — insensitivity and a lack of compassion.

The 228 Incident in 1947 has been, and will remain, one of the most indelible wounds in the nation’s history. Tens of thousands of people were slaughtered by the then-authoritarian Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime.

China wants to drag Taiwan down

Jerome Keating

There are two reasons Taiwan is a democracy and China is not. The reasons, although simple, need detailed explanations.

The first reason is that Taiwan is Taiwan and China is China; to understand this people must delve into Taiwan’s history and its underpinnings of identity as opposed to those of China’s.

Justice for 228 Massacre victims

Joseph Tse-Hei Lee 李榭熙

As Taiwan commemorated the 69th anniversary of the 228 Massacre, it was heartening to see president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) pledge to pursue transitional justice and declassify more official documents about the Incident. This decision to confront human rights abuses during the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-imposed White Terror era (1949 to 1987) marks an important step in Taiwan’s search for truth and reconciliation in the democratization process.

Viewing 228 Massacre in new way to spur change

Yang Chen-lung 楊振隆

When I was a child, I liked to make paper boats and see them float away on the Hsuchuan Canal, which passed in front of our home in Keelung. I would follow it to the mouth of the canal, which opened into the Keelung Harbor. My grandmother often said that the harbor area east of the canal was a dangerous place and warned me to stay away.

I remember how one year, this area — which used to be full of driftwood — was filled in with soil and turned into a parking lot, although a lot of people were unwilling to park their cars there because it was not “clean.”

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