Martial law in Taiwan in the context of "Chen Cheng"

The Kuomintang (KMT) is a major political party in the Republic of China (Taiwan). It was the sole ruling party of the country during its rule from 1927 to 1949 in Mainland China until its relocation to Taiwan, and in Taiwan ruled under martial law until 1987. The KMT is a centre-right to right-wing party and the largest in the Pan-Blue Coalition, one of the two main political groups in Taiwan. Its primary rival is the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the largest party in the Pan-Green Coalition. As of 2025, the KMT is the largest single party in the Legislative Yuan and is chaired by Cheng Li-wun.

The party was founded by Sun Yat-sen in 1894 in Honolulu, Hawaii, as the Revive China Society. He reformed the party in 1919 in the Shanghai French Concession under its current name. From 1926 to 1928, the KMT under Chiang Kai-shek successfully unified China in the Northern Expedition against regional warlords, leading to the fall of the Beiyang government. After initially allying with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the First United Front, the party under Chiang purged communist members. It was the sole ruling party of China from 1928 to 1949 but gradually lost control while fighting the Empire of Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the CCP in the Chinese Civil War. In December 1949, the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan following its defeat by the communists.

The Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of National Mobilization for Suppression of the Communist Rebellion provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of China were effective from 1948 to 1991 and amended four times by the Central Government of China. They effectively nullified the constitution and established martial law in Taiwan, where civil and political freedoms were curtailed. The official rationale for the provisions was the ongoing Chinese Civil War. However, with the demise of the Kuomintang single-party system, the provisions were repealed.

The Government of the Republic of China is the national authority whose actual-controlled territory consists of main island of Taiwan (Formosa), Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other island groups, collectively known as Taiwan Area or Free Area. A unitary state, the ROC government, under the current constitutional amendments, is run by a de facto semi-presidential system, consists of the presidency and five branches (Yuan): the Executive Yuan, Legislative Yuan, Judicial Yuan, Examination Yuan, and Control Yuan. The president is the head of state, with the premier as the head of government, currently ruled by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) since 2016. Since the 2005 amendments of the Additional Articles of the Constitution, the Legislative Yuan has been the de facto unicameral parliamentary body of the country.

Originally established in 1912 in Nanjing, the Government of the Republic of China relocated several times before finally moving to Taipei, Taiwan, in 1949 because of its military losses in the Chinese Civil War. Up until the 1990s, the government has historically been dominated by the Kuomintang (KMT) under the one-party state Dang Guo authoritarian regime, before evolving into a multi-party democracy after martial law and the climate of White Terror gradually ended. This government was the internationally recognized official government of China until 1971 by the United Nations and until 1979 by the United States.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is a centre-left Taiwanese nationalist political party in Taiwan. As the dominant party in the Pan-Green Coalition, one of the two main political camps in Taiwan, the DPP is currently the ruling party in Taiwan, leading a minority government that controls the presidency and the central government.

Founded in 1986 by Hsu Hsin-liang, Roger Hsieh and Lin Shui-chuan, a year prior to the end of martial law, the DPP is one of two major parties in Taiwan, the other being the Kuomintang (KMT), a Chinese nationalist party previously ruling the country as a one-party state, and its smaller allies in the Pan-Blue Coalition. It has traditionally been associated with a strong advocacy of human rights, emerging against the authoritarian White Terror that was initiated by the KMT, as well as the promotion of Taiwanese nationalism and identity. Lai Ching-te is the current chairperson of the DPP from 2023, who also serves as the incumbent President and is the third member of the DPP to hold the presidency; he succeeded fellow DPP member Tsai Ing-wen in May 2024.

Chiang Ching-kuo (/ˈtʃæŋtʃɪŋˈkwoʊ/, 27 April 1910 – 13 January 1988) was a Chinese politician and statesman. He was the eldest and only biological son of President Chiang Kai-shek, he held numerous posts in the government of the Republic of China and ended martial law in 1987. He served as the third premier of the Republic of China between 1972 and 1978 and was the third president of the Republic of China from 1978 until his death in 1988.

Born in Fenghua, Ching-kuo was sent as a teenager to study in the Soviet Union during the First United Front in 1925, when his father's Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communist Party were in alliance. Before his education in the USSR, he attended school in Shanghai and Beijing, where he became interested in socialism and communism. He attended university in the USSR and spoke Russian fluently, but when the Chinese Nationalists violently broke with the Communists, Joseph Stalin sent him to work in a steel factory in the Ural Mountains. There, Chiang met and married Faina Vakhreva. With war between China and Japan imminent in 1937, Stalin sent the couple to China. During the war, Ching-kuo's father gradually came to trust him, and gave him more and more responsibilities, including administration.

Dang Guo (Chinese: 黨國; pinyin: Dǎngguó; Wade–Giles: Tangkuo; lit. 'party-state'), also known as Tang Kuo, was the one-party system adopted by the Republic of China (ROC) under the Kuomintang, lasting from 1924 to 1987. It was adopted after Sun Yat-sen acknowledged the efficacy of the nascent Soviet Union's political system, including its system of dictatorship, however in practice it also borrowed from fascism. Chiang Kai-shek later used the Kuomintang to control and operate the Nationalist government and the National Revolutionary Army. All major national policies of the government bureaucracy were formulated by the Kuomintang, giving the party supreme power over the whole nation, as well as ideological supremacy across China, dominating the Chinese political landscape until the rise of Chinese Communist Party.

Following the beliefs of Sun Yat-sen, political power should have been returned to the people after the National Revolutionary Army militarily ended the Warlord Era. However, martial law in Taiwan continued from 1949 until 1987, during which other political parties were banned. Martial law was lifted in 1987 by president Chiang Ching-kuo, a move that legalized other political parties such as the Democratic Progressive Party and ended the Dang Guo era.

The February 28 incident (also called the February 28 massacre, the 228 incident, or the 228 massacre) was an anti-government uprising in Taiwan in 1947 that was violently suppressed by the Kuomintang–led Nationalist government of the Republic of China (ROC). Directed by provincial governor Chen Yi and president Chiang Kai-shek, thousands of civilians were killed beginning on February 28. The incident is considered to be one of the most important events in Taiwan's modern history and was a critical impetus for the Taiwan independence movement.

In 1945, following the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II, the Allies handed administrative control of Taiwan over to China, thus ending 50 years of Japanese colonial rule. Local residents became resentful of what they saw as high-handed and frequently corrupt conduct on the part of the Kuomintang (KMT) authorities, including the arbitrary seizure of private property, economic mismanagement, and exclusion from political participation. The flashpoint came on February 27, 1947, in Taipei, when agents of the State Monopoly Bureau struck a Taiwanese widow suspected of selling contraband cigarettes. An officer then fired into a crowd of angry bystanders, hitting one man, who died the next day. Soldiers fired upon demonstrators the next day, after which a radio station was seized by protesters and news of the revolt was broadcast to the entire island. As the uprising spread, the KMT-installed governor Chen Yi called for military reinforcements, and the uprising was violently put down by the National Revolutionary Army. Two years later, and for 38 years thereafter, the island would be placed under martial law in a period known as the "White Terror".

Green Island, also known by other names, is a small volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean about 33 km (21 mi) off the eastern coast of the main island of Taiwan. It is 15.092 km (5.83 sq mi) at high tide and 17.329 km (6.69 sq mi) at low tide, making it the seventh-largest island in Taiwan. The island is administered as Lyudao Township, a rural township of Taitung County and one of the county's two insular townships (the other being Lanyu Township). The island once served as a penal colony for political prisoners during Taiwan's period of martial law, although today it is primarily known as a tourist hotspot.

As a result of the surrender and occupation of Japan at the end of World War II, the islands of Taiwan and Penghu were placed under the governance of the Republic of China (ROC), ruled by the Kuomintang (KMT), on 25 October 1945. Following the February 28 massacre in 1947, martial law was declared in 1949 by the Governor of Taiwan, Chen Cheng, and the ROC Ministry of National Defense. Following the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the ROC government retreated from the mainland as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The KMT retreated to Taiwan and declared Taipei the temporary capital of the ROC. For many years, the ROC and PRC each continued to claim in the diplomatic arena to be the sole legitimate government of "China". In 1971, the United Nations expelled the ROC and replaced it with the PRC.

In 1987, martial law was lifted and Taiwan began a democratisation process, beginning with the abolition of the Temporary Provisions and culminating with the first direct president election in 1996. By 2000, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came to power and began to pursue Taiwanese independence and identity.