China the primary threat to Taiwan's sovereignty, democracy: Lai

Taipei, Feb. 28 (CNA) China poses the greatest threat to Taiwan's sovereignty and democracy and is trying to divide Taiwanese society with operatives, President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) said Friday, the 78th anniversary of the Feb. 28 Incident.

China has never abandoned its ambitions to annex Taiwan, and its regime poses the greatest threats to Taiwan's sovereignty and democracy, Lai said at an event in Taipei commemorating the incident.

Beijing has been recruiting operatives in Taiwan -- including gang members, television pundits, political party members, and even retired and active military officers -- to "sow division" in society and "attempt to subvert Taiwan," Lai said, without elaborating.

The president called on Taiwanese to recognize the nature of authoritarianism in order to better preserve and strengthen Taiwan's democratic foundation.

Speaking of the Feb. 28 Incident, Lai said the tragedy was not triggered by ethnic conflicts, nor do those who commemorate the event 78 years later seek to provoke them.

He said any attempt to reduce the incident and its memorials to such a narrative was "irresponsible" and "unacceptable."

The Feb. 28 Incident refers to a series of anti-government protests sparked initially by the police's confiscation of contraband cigarettes from a woman in Taipei on Feb. 27, 1947.

According to the Memorial Foundation of 228, the woman who sold the illegal cigarettes was badly wounded by the police, thus igniting a public outcry that had been building up for some time against the rule of the then-authoritarian Kuomintang (KMT) in Taiwan.

The protests that started in Taipei quickly spread across Taiwan for several days, leading to violent and fatal crackdowns by the government that led to major civilian casualties, the foundation said on its website.

Lai, who attended the official memorial for the first time as president, also apologized to the victims of the Feb. 28 Incident and pledged doubling down on efforts to disclose political archives on past wrongdoing by the state.

"I would like to once again make an apology [to the Feb. 28 Incident victims] on behalf of the nation" Lai said, while also expressing condolences to the victims' family and descendants.

Lai said the National Security Bureau has been instructed to re-examine approximately 1 million political documents from the martial law period from 1949 to 1987 in Taiwan and will submit them to the National Archives Administration by June for review.

He added that those documents would eventually be made public.

Lai acknowledged, however, that uncovering the truth will not be easy, citing the case of the murders of pro-democracy campaigner Lin I-hsiung's (林義雄) family members in 1980.

Lin, who was a provincial councilor at the time and had been imprisoned for his involvement in the pro-democracy demonstrations that later became known as the Kaohsiung Incident, lost three family members in the brutal killings on Feb. 28, 1980.

No perpetrators were ever apprehended, and recent attempts to identify culprits, including a Transitional Justice Commission investigation that concluded in 2020 and a Control Yuan review that ended in 2023, did not bring full clarity on what happened.

According to Lai, the investigations were unable to rule out the involvement of the then-government in the case, and found that key evidence was destroyed.

On Friday, a separate memorial organized by the Taipei City government was held later in the afternoon at the 228 Peace Memorial Park, with Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) and former President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) expected to attend.