Capitalism: A Chinese Version (Guiding A Market Economy In Taiwan)

This is the first dispassionate, full-scale account of the origins, dynamics, and aftermath of a pivotal and much-misunderstood event in modern Chinese history - the violent uprising against the Kuommlang (KMT) in Taiwan in 1947, which began with an incident in Taipei and quickly spread to other cities throughout the island. For more than a week, the government and its police lorees lost control over Taiwan, or at least its cities. The nine largest cities were taken over by rebel committees and miltia units, and rampaging mobs destroyed buildings and other properly and savagely beat hundreds of Mainlander officials and civilians. Determined to crush the rebellion and to set a stern example to prevent a recurrence, the KMT brought in troop reinforcements from the Mainland, who, together with the provincial police, ruthlessly suppressed the uprising, arresting alleged leaders and participants and killing perhaps as many as 8,000 of them. The rebellion and its suppression, like the Paris Commune of 1870, were instantly mythologized by both left and right. They spawned the Taiwanese independence movement and permanently damaged relations between the native Taiwanese and the Mainland Chinese. Ironically, the tragedy also inspired reforms that ultimately permitted the economic and political medermzation of Taiwan over the next four decades. Both the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party subsequently claimed that the Communists played an important role in the uprising, a claim unsupported by the historical record.