China tries to reclaim Taiwan political heroine

Beijing, Feb 27: China is mounting a propaganda blitz ahead of commemorations in Taiwan this week of a crackdown by Chinese troops in 1947 that left thousands of Taiwanese dead and has become a rallying point for independence supporters.

A Chinese government-backed publisher has unveiled a new book on Hsieh Hsueh-hung -- known as Xie Xuehong in China -- who led demonstrations in central Taiwan in 1947, to claim her as a Chinese heroine and not the ''mother of Taiwan independence''.

Hsieh, a Taiwan communist from the island's central city of Changhua, fled to China after Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist troops put down rioting sparked on February 28, 1947 after a dispute between tobacco agents and a cigarette vendor in Taipei.

The Nationalists fled to Taiwan two years later after losing a civil war to the Communists and ruled the island until 2000.

''Some Taiwan independence scholars have political motives and assert that Hsieh Hsueh-hung is the 'mother of Taiwan independence','' said Liang Guoyang, head of the All-China Taiwanese Association, a Chinese-backed group.

''The important thing is the book reclaims comrade Hsieh Hsueh-hung's real historical place, and has the power to hit back at the 'Taiwan independence' faction,'' he said at the launch of the book, which is written in the form of a film script.

The author, Zhang Kehui, said he had gone through countless documents to prove that Hsieh was, first and foremost, a Chinese nationalist who would never have stood for Taiwan independence.

''She opposed feudalism and the control of capital by the government, to liberate the women of Taiwan and for the benefit of Taiwan's toiling masses,'' Zhang said in a thick Taiwan accent, using old school communist terminology.

Pro-Taiwan independence groups say that Hsieh, who they call Sha Shets-ho in the Hokkien dialect spoken in Taiwan, was one of the first proponents of self-determination for the island.

The ''228 Incident'', as it is known in Taiwan, has in recent years become a rallying point for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and President Chen Shui-bian, who favours formal independence for the democratic, self-ruled island.

They see it as the first time Taiwanese who have been on the island for centuries and make up a majority stood up against mainlanders who arrived around 1949.

The debate over Hsieh is part of a war of words between Beijing and Taipei, where both sides often trot out their respective experts to justify their own takes on Taiwan history.

China claims Taiwan, a Japanese colony for five decades until 1945, as its own, and has not ruled out using force to bring the island under its control.

A hall featuring memorabilia from the incident opens this week in downtown Taipei. Seminars, exhibitions and speeches are also planned. The date itself is now a Taiwan public holiday.

Reuters