White Terror (Taiwan)

In Taiwan, the White Terror describes the suppression of political dissidents, as well as public discussion of the 228 Incident in Taiwan under the period of martial law, which lasted from May 19 1949 to July 15 1987, 38 years, and 57 days. Taiwan's period of martial law had been the longest period of martial law in the world at the time it was raised, but has since been surpassed by the Syrian half-century martial law, which had existed from 1963 to 2011.

During the White Terror around 140,000 Taiwanese were imprisoned, of which about 3 or 4 thousand were executed, for their real or perceived opposition to the Kuomintang Party (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party) government led by Chiang Kai-shek. Most of those prosecuted were labeled by the Kuomintang as "bandit spies" (匪諜), meaning spies for Chinese communists, and punished as such. The "White Terror" left many Taiwanese with a deep-seated bitterness towards the Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-shek, and the mainland Chinese.

The KMT killed mostly the Taiwan's island's intellectual and social elite out of fear that they might resist KMT rule or sympathize with communism. A large number of the White Terror's other victims were mainland Chinese, many of whom owed their evacuation to Taiwan to the KMT. Often, after having come unaccompanied to Taiwan, these refugees to Taiwan were considered more disposable than local Taiwanese. Many of the mainland Chinese who survived the White Terror in Taiwan, like Bo Yang and Li Ao, moved on to promote Taiwan's democratization and the reform of the Kuomintang.

Fear of discussing the White Terror and the 228 Incident gradually decreased with the lifting of martial law in 1987, culminating in the establishment of an official public memorial and an apology by President Lee Teng-hui in 1995.

See also

• White Terror
• White Terror (mainland China)
• Anti-communism
• History of Taiwan
• Political status of Taiwan
• Politics of the Republic of China
• Period of mobilization for the suppression of Communist rebellion