The reading report of the Chiang Kai-shek and the 28 February 1947 Incident: A Reassessment - Essay Example

The military continued to kill people, some people disappeared, and others were imprisoned and tortured. This happened at a time when Chiang Kai-shek was the leader of China and the incident has received a lot of interest from journalists and historians. Unfortunately, remarkably few people, from journalists to historians, have tried to look at the role of Chiang Kai-shek in the incident and the chaos that followed. The incidence of February 28 1947 in Taiwan has always baffled people. This was an act of lack of respect for human rights and democratic space.

The unfortunate incidence, along with others that followed including the killing, disappearance and imprisonment of people especially those who were activists has never been closely related to Chiang Kai-shek. The most baffling thing is that although the ruling regime of China at the time when the Chinese soldiers massacred thousands of people has been blamed, the then Chinese president has not been blamed by most scholars who have looked at this issue. Even the most offensive western scholars who unlike Chinese and Taiwanese scholars have had the guts to blame the then ruling regime led by Chiang Kai-shek failed to point out the role of the late president in the incident (Rawnsley and Ming-Yeh 80).

Many people who have addressed the issue have not put Chiang Kai-shek in the limelight to see how he contributed to the unfortunate incident. Instead, Chiang Kai-shek has received admiration in China and in Taiwan where the incident happened, and where thousands of people lost their lives, others lost their family members as killings continued for decades. Yet, Chiang Kai-shek was the president and therefore, the commander in Chinese of the military. Archives of history seem to indicate that Chiang Kai-shek personally ordered the military to be deployed to go and conduct the killings and the torture.

Instead of condemnation for these inhuman acts, Chiang Kai-shek has received