Chen Yi (Kuomintang)

Chen Yi (; courtesy names Gongxia (公俠) and later Gongqia (公洽), sobriquet Tuisu (退素); May 3, 1883 – June 18, 1950) was a Chinese military officer and politician who served as the chief executive and garrison commander of Taiwan Province after the Empire of Japan surrendered to the Republic of China. He acted on behalf of the Allied Powers to accept the Japanese Instrument of Surrender in Taipei Zhongshan Hall on October 25, 1945. He is considered to have mismanaged the tension between the Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese which resulted in the February 28 Incident in 1947, resulting in the deaths of 18,000 to 28,000 people, and was dismissed. In June 1948, he was appointed Chairman of Zhejiang Province, but was dismissed and arrested when his plan to surrender to the Chinese Communist Party was discovered. He was sentenced to death and executed by shooting in Taipei in 1950.

Early life and education

Chen was born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang. After studying at Qiushi Academy (now Zhejiang University), in 1902 he went to a military academy in Japan for seven years. Chen Yi already had a wife back in China named Shen Hui (沈蕙) from Dongpu (東浦) in Shaoxing, but Chen Yi also married a Japanese woman in 1916 as his second wife, a daughter of a Japanese military instructor, her name was Yoshiko Furuzuki (古月好子) who later changed her name to Chen Yuefang (陳月芳) when she moved to China with Chen Yi. He joined Guangfuhui while in Japan. He returned to Japan in 1917 to study in a military university for three years, then resided in Shanghai. He is said to have been a "Japanophile." Chen was also the commander of the 19th Route Army of the National Revolutionary Army (國民革命軍第十九路軍軍長). After 1927, he worked in the Military Affairs Department (軍政部), as director of the Shanghai Arsenal, viceminister of war and since 1934 as chairman of the Fujian province, and Secretary-General of the Executive Yuan.

Chen and Fujian

Chen served as governor of Fujian province for eight years, beginning in 1934. During his stay in Taiwan, he praised the modern public facilities and the strong economic development. Chen publicly expressed his admiration with jealousy about the advanced life quality Taiwanese people enjoyed compared with the Chinese mainlanders who suffered from prolonged war incurred destruction and lack of further modernization. After he went back to Fujian, he filed a report to Chiang Kai-shek about his visit. With his experience in Japan and Taiwan, Chen had become the first candidate as the Taiwan governor in Chiang's mind after Japan relinquished the sovereignty of Taiwan.

Under the authorization of Douglas MacArthur's General Order No. 1, Chen Yi was escorted by George Kerr to Taiwan to accept Japan government's surrender as the Chinese delegate. On October 25, 1945, joined by delegates from the Allied Powers, Chen signed a surrender instrument with General Ando Rikichi, governor-general of Taiwan, in Taipei City Hall (current Zhongshan Hall). Chen Yi proclaimed that day to be the Taiwan Retrocession Day which was regarded as legally controversial as Japan had not yet ceded Taiwan in any treaty until 1952. Native Taiwanese, who were generally anti-Communist and supportive of the KMT, cheered the retrocession, believing their exports could now be directed to help China rather than Japan.

Praise and criticism

Chen did receive some praise for his dedication to work, his frugality, and incorruptibility. He was, however, criticized for his support for his more corrupt subordinates, and his stubborn lack of flexibility in some policies. Despite fluency in Japanese, he refused to use the language to interact with local Taiwanese elites, many of whom could not speak Mandarin, believing that the island must abandon the colonial language in favor of the new national tongue. This inability to communicate easily with his subjects and the fact he made surprisingly little effort to leave his official offices and interact with the Taiwanese society he ruled over made it difficult for him to detect the growing unrest on the island after the first year of postwar rule.

Chen and the 2/28 Incident

In the early years of KMT Chinese rule of Taiwan, rampant corruption in the new administration headed by Chen caused high unemployment rates, widespread disease, and severe inflation, which in turn led to widespread local discontent. A peaceful protest march occurred on February 28, demanding justice for the widow's killers; after marching to the headquarters of the Monopoly Bureau, they moved on to the Governor-General's office, where four were shot and killed without warning by machine guns. Chen was replaced as governor by Wei Tao-ming after Stuart's report was given to Chiang on April 18, 1947. Wei's position as governor was specifically proscribed from the military authority that Chen's position held as Governor-General, in response to the inefficient government of Chen. According to reports from foreigners in Taiwan, leaflets signed by Chiang promised leniency for those who had fled the initial wave of killings and urged them to return; many of those who did so were imprisoned or executed. After the initial indiscriminate killing and looting, troops selectively targeted 'elites' such as students, intellectuals, civic leaders, people identified as previously critical of government policies, and prominent businesspeople to eliminate resistance. The total death toll from the incident remains in dispute and has become a political issue in the decades following the end of martial law in 1987.

<!--How many people were killed in the February 28 Incident? (this question was raised by a Canadian Goose in CT Forum)

The government of Taiwan, Republic of China does not want to release the truth to their people.

The formal presidents Lee, Chen and Chen’s party tried to use the February 28 Incident as an election tool, lied and exaggerated the death count to get more votes from native Taiwanese.

Unfortunately, the new president Ma continues to hide the truth and has disappointed most of the citizens in the island.-->

Later career

Following his dismissal from the post of Taiwan Governor-General, Chen was employed as a consultant. In June 1948, he took the position of provincial chairman of Zhejiang province. In November, he released over a hundred communists scheduled to be executed. In January 1949, Chen Yi thought the KMT position was untenable, so to rescue the 18 million residents of the Nanjing-Shanghai-Hangzhou region from a meaningless war, he attempted to defect to the Chinese Communist Party. Along with his defection, he attempted to induce the garrison military commander Tang Enbo to surrender to the Communist Party. However, Tang informed Chiang Kai-shek that Chen had advised him to rebel against the Kuomintang. Chiang immediately relieved Chen's chairmanship on the charge of collaboration with the Communists. In April 1950, Chen Yi was escorted to Taiwan, and later imprisoned in Keelung. In May 1950, alleged for espionage case, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the Taiwan military court to sentence Chen Yi to death. In the same year on 18 June at 5:00 pm, he was executed at Machangding, Taipei

Quotes

"Mainland Chinese were advanced enough to enjoy the privileges of constitutional government, but because of long years of despotic Japanese rule, the Formosans were politically retarded and were not capable of carrying on self-government in an intelligent manner." — (1947)
"It took the Japs 51 years to dominate this island. I expect to take about five years to re-educate the people so they will be more happy with Chinese administration." — (1947)
"I never forgot private enterprise. I always intended to re-establish it." — (1947)