The 515 incident at Irving Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, Orange County, South California on May 15, 2022 is a miniature of “228 (two two eight) incident (holocaust)” which happened in February 28, 1947, 75 years ago in Taiwan. The defeated Chiang’s (Chiang Kai-Shek) regime exiled from Communist China to Taiwan. It happened after WWII and Japan gave up the fifty one years of ceded colonized Taiwan. The allied powers asked Chiang to host Taiwan temporarily. The unarmed, yet higher educated, cultural and law-abiding Taiwanese people could not tolerate the corruption and brutality of this intruder, military regime. Finally, it broke out the 228 incident (holocaust). The military Chiang’s regime killed all twenty thousand (20,000) elite Taiwanese including professors, doctors, lawyers, legislators and big landowners. A lot of survivals of this 228 holocaust fled to United States for the freedom and higher education (Ph.D., M.D. etc.)

Since then, Chiang’s regime continued using spy organizations at all levels of societies including schools to arrest and kill dissidents. The so called “The Republic of China”, in reality, is Taiwan. Taiwan is not a part of China. Chiang’s wife, Soong May-Ling spoke at the Congress of the United States and said ROC was a free China. Oppositely, Chiang implemented the world longest 38 years (1949 to 1987) of Martial Law to brutally oppress and control Taiwanese. It was a “white terror” country. It was not a “free” country. This was a big lie and propaganda to the Western World.

Taiwan has divided to two major ethnic groups. The people came with military Chiang are called Mainland Chinese or out of province. They accounted for about 15%of population. Their children born in Taiwan are called second generation. The native are called Taiwanese, islanders or native province. They accounted for more than 80% of population. They are Han ethnic from south east China. About four hundred years ago, most of these Taiwanese ancestors were high officials of the previous dynasty. In order to prevent the family massacre from the previous dynasty, they fled from central China to south China, and then bravely crossed the very dangerous Taiwan strait with small boats to Taiwan where it never belonged to China before. There is another minority, but they are a very important group. They are aboriginal people, account for about 2-3% of population. They are Austronesian-speaking people and habituated in Taiwan for at least 15,000 or 50,000 years.

The Christianity gospel came to Taiwan in the south from Dr. and Rev. James Laidlaw Maxwell, from Scotland, England in 1865 and in the north from Rev. and Dr. George Leslie Mackay from Ontario, Canada in 1872. They contributed Taiwan greatly and the gospel spread rapidly and built a very good and strong foundation in Taiwan. The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PTC) was formed. She is a native Taiwanese Church. She is the largest and strongest organization who stands and speaks out for the oppressed Taiwanese.

The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan based on their belief in God and issued three brave and important statements. At the end of 1971, right after ROC (Republic of China) was expelled from the United Nations. The Peoples’ Republic of China (Communist China) replaced the ROC seat in the UN. At this very frightening crisis, PTC instantly issued a “Statement on Our National Fate”. The whole clergy members who did this declaration had already written suicide notes. The Statement said as follows. The executive committee of PTC, which speaks for 200,000 Christians in Taiwan, wishes to express its extreme concern over development in the world which could seriously affect the lives of all who live on this island. Based on our belief that Jesus Christ is Lord of all men, the righteous Judge and Saviour of the world, we voice our concern and our request and in doing so we are convinced that we speak not only for the church but for all our patriots. In 1975, PTC issued a Statement of “Our Appeal.” In 1977, PTC issued “A Declaration on Human Right” ….. In order to achieve our goal of independence and freedom for the people of Taiwan in this critical international situation, we urge our government to face reality and to take effective measures whereby Taiwan may become a new and independent country.

The General Secretary of PCT, Rev. Kao Chun-Ming, and many clergies and office workers were arrested after 1979 Kaohsiung Formosa Incident. Chiang Kai-Shek’s son Chiang Ching-Kuo, then President continued the oppressive dictatorship as his father. He used this Formosa incident to charge and arrest Rev. Kao for hiding the wanted fugitive in 1980. This “White Terror” continued until the Martial Law was lifted in 1987. But, the oppression of leaders of pro Taiwan Independence still happened sporadically by the Chiang’s KMT(Chinese) party. All these persecutions have never been rehabilitated. The original culprits had never been punished. The peace loving Taiwanese never attacked them.

Some of the so called “Chinese”, they lived in Taiwan for whole their life, but still do not want to identify themselves as Taiwanese. The murderer, David Chou is a committee member of China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (CCPPR) on Las Vegas’s chapter. He kept this hate for a long time and finally targeted the authentic Taiwanese pastors and Christians from the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan who were immigrants in the USA for decades and did this horrible act. This is like the continuation of the persecution and killing of Taiwanese by Taiwan habitant Chinese.

Taiwanese Christian Church Council of Northern America appeals for the Justice and Peace on this violent political hate incident.

Ai-Lan Wang, Ph.D., M.D. Director of World Church Committee, TCCCNA

June 1, 2022

作者王愛蘭醫師是「海外台灣人基督教協會」（TCCCNA）世界教育委員會的主委