｜ II. "Limited Democracy" and the Fight of Free China The half-century-long era of Japanese rule in Taiwan ended on October 25, 1945. The Republic of China took over Taiwan on behalf of the Allied Forces. The Taiwanese people, who had just weathered World War II, were mostly overjoyed and eager to start a new era, especially intellectuals who were unhappy with Japan’s colonization of Taiwan and already harbored nationalist sentiments. However, some of the soldiers that came to Taiwan abused their power, resulting in constant social unrest that culminated in the February 28 incident (also rendered as the February 28 massacre, the 228 incident, or the 228 massacre), which occurred in the spring of 1947. From north to south, local gentry and intel- lectuals in Taiwan were massacred indiscriminately, arrested, and executed by the army. Japanese Publications Were Strictly Forbidden, Robbing a Generation of Taiwanese Local Intellectuals of Their Voices In just little over a year, the initial joy that Taiwanese people felt soured into dark times of fear and pain. The February 28 incident left a scar on Taiwanese society, making people fearful of discussing politics publicly. Additionally, the government strictly prohibited Japanese newspapers, magazines, and pub- Kuo Yu-hsin, who was repeatedly re-elected and served as a provincial councilor for 22 years since 1951, and was known as the "steel cannon of the council" and "representative of farmers", thanking people in Yilan City for their votes. Courtesy of: Sherman S. Kuo 20 Chapter 1 lications. Many up-and-coming novelists and writers were forced to give up their craft. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the ROC government helped draft and signed, states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Doctrines about protecting freedom of speech have been around for more than two hundred years, so provisions in the Declaration were hardly groundbreaking. After World War II, developed countries in North America and Europe established the right of citizens to “absorb” and “spread” information freely in various languages. In Taiwan, however, a generation of people who received education in Japanese lost the freedom to “express their thoughts” and “distribute opinions and information” through publications and media. A generation was robbed of their voice. The only brief and limited “speech reprieve” they got were electoral campaign speeches, which could be given in local languages. Professor Peng Ming-min, who returned to Taiwan from Tokyo Imperial University after World War II, once recalled, “During the second half of my life, I was thrust into the Chinese world utterly unprepared. I had to learn to speak, listen and write anew.” Peng Ming-min frequently talked about how neither he nor National Taiwan University (NTU) professor Liu Ching-jui (professor of constitutional theory at NTU who studied abroad at Tokyo Imperial University) knew Chinese. Thankfully, Professor Sa Meng-wu (Dean of NTU’s College of Law), who came from China, took them under his wing and encouraged them to publish theses for the College’s collections. Sa Meng-wu told them, “Just write in Japaneseinfluenced Chinese, I can help you edit it.” And thus, ｜ Martial Law: Derailing From International Human Rights Trends their Chinese improved through pages after pages of revisions and edits. When Peng Ming-min published Collection of Final Writings in 2021, he wrote in the preface, “With the greatest gratitude of someone who is almost 100 years old, I dedicate this book to Mr. Sa Meng-wu.” This clearly reveals how difficult it was for the generation of Taiwanese intellectuals who had been educated in Japanese to access information or express their opinions in 1950s’ Taiwan; they simply couldn’t do so in a language familiar to them. The protection and enforcement of freedom of speech and freedom of expression were only a remote possibility. Fortunately, Taiwan in the 1950s still had intellectuals from China who, like Sa Meng-wu, advocated democratic constitutionalism. These intellectuals, including Lei Chen, Yin Hai-kuang, and Fu Cheng, always stayed true to liberalism and fought for democracy through Tangwai (“outside the part”) magazines, the most iconic being the bi-monthly Free China. Other Tangwai magazines included Democratic Wave, Autonomy, Freedom, and Times and Tides. Word of how early Taiwanese Tangwai elites spoke out for the people in councils also spread thanks to the reporting of mainlander reporters. Free China—The Most Important Enlightening Publication Under Martial Law (1949-1960) Basically, Free China started out as a KMT publication. The journal’s director, Lei Chen (1897-1979), once represented the KMT as the secretary-general of the Political Consultative Conference and was responsible for negotiating with the Young China Party and China Democratic Socialist Party (once part of the China Democratic League) to participate in the constitutional assembly. As a result, he was once part of the anti-communist, pro-Chiang Kai-shek group that was close to the KMT’s inner circle. 21