White Terror piece at ESWN

A sobering reminder of the days when the KMT ruled Taiwan:

Many years, many years later, we found out the reality behind those little pieces of news about the size of dried bean curd: using the first five years of the 1950's era, the Kuomintang government killed at least 4,000 people in Taiwan and jailed more than 8,000 "bandit spies." Among these "bandit spies," a very small percentage are really Communists. Most of them are intellectuals and culturati who were unhappy with the situation and had ideals; there were workers and farmers who have a sense of righteousness; there were citizens who had no idea how they were framed. In the impoverished 1950's, an average person earned $200 a month, but informing on a "bandit spy" can bring in as much as $200,000 in reward money.

[Taiwan] [China] [ESWN] [KMT]