Isle of Time

Isle of Time

A Chronicle of Formosa

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Transitional Justice
Vol. 18New Formosa

Transitional Justice

When martial law was lifted in 1987 and the ban on new political parties and newspapers followed, Taiwan inherited a forty-year backlog of unacknowledged political violence. The February 28 Incident of 1947, in which an uprising against post-war Kuomintang rule was crushed with an estimated ten to twenty thousand dead, had been an unspeakable subject for two generations. Tens of thousands more had been executed, imprisoned, or blacklisted under the White Terror of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, their files sealed and their families silenced. Democratization without reckoning, many argued, would be democratization in name only. The first steps came haltingly. In 1995 President Lee Teng-hui formally apologized on behalf of the state for February 28; monuments were raised, a memorial day designated, and modest compensation offered to victims' families. Through the 1990s and 2000s, a patchwork of rehabilitation statutes returned confiscated property, expunged wrongful convictions, and permitted survivors to speak their names in public for the first time. Yet the underlying apparatus of authoritarian memory — the ill-gotten assets of the Kuomintang, the ubiquitous statues of Chiang Kai-shek, the classified security files, the unidentified perpetrators — remained largely untouched. The passage of the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice in 2017 and the inauguration of the Transitional Justice Commission in 2018 formally institutionalized the work. The Commission was mandated to open political archives, remove authoritarian symbols from public space, restore the reputations of the wrongfully convicted, and recover improperly obtained party assets. Its brief tenure — concluded in 2022 — produced tens of thousands of rehabilitation decisions, a sweeping review of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, and fierce political backlash. Critics from the pan-Blue camp accused it of partisan persecution; survivors and scholars argued its powers were, if anything, too circumscribed to reach those most responsible. This volume traces Taiwan's long and unfinished reckoning with its authoritarian past. Through compensation decrees, commission reports, memorial inscriptions, and oral histories of the bereaved, it documents how a democracy once built atop silenced graves has slowly, painfully learned to name its dead, question its heroes, and weigh what justice can still mean decades after the fact.

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The SARS Storm

Vol. 2 · New Formosa

The SARS Storm

Featured Figures
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Wang Yung-ching
Wang Yung-ching1917–2008
Hsu Wen-lung
Hsu Wen-lung1928–2023
Morris Chang
Morris Chang1931–
Stan Shih
Stan Shih1944–
Lee Yuan-tseh
Lee Yuan-tseh1936–
Teresa Teng
Teresa Teng1953–1995
Ang Lee
Ang Lee1954–
Chi Po-lin
Chi Po-lin1964–2017
Chen Shu-chu
Chen Shu-chu1950–
Lien Chan
Lien Chan1936–
James Soong
James Soong1942–
Chen Shui-bian
Chen Shui-bian1950–
Ma Ying-jeou
Ma Ying-jeou1950–
Tsai Ing-wen
Tsai Ing-wen1956–
Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi1940–
Audrey Tang
Audrey Tang1981–
Threads
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01

The Artists

From sculpture to cinema — Taiwanese artists who left their marks across four centuries.

Lin Zhanmei
Shi Shijie
Lai He
Huang Tu-shui
Lin Zhanmei + 11 more
02

Her Story

From Tungning to today — the women who held up half the island.

Lady Dong
Mahung Mona
Tsai A-hsin
Chen Chin
Lady Dong + 13 more
03

The Trailblazers

From crossing the strait to semiconductors — those who ventured out from nothing.

Yan Siqi
Zheng Zhilong
Hamada Yahyoe
Wang Shijie
Yan Siqi + 10 more
04

The Builders

From Liu Mingchuan to TSMC — the hands that built the island.

Shi Shi-bang
Guo Xiliu
Liu Mingchuan
Goto Shinpei
Shi Shi-bang + 9 more
05

The Defiant

Four centuries, one refusal to kneel — the faces who rose against power.

Guo Huaiyi
Camachat Aslamie
Zhu Yigui
Lin Shuangwen
Guo Huaiyi + 31 more
06

Indigenous Histories

Four centuries of indigenous Taiwan — from Siraya manuscripts to recognition movements

Zhimuliu
Pan Xianwen
Tauketok
Arokus
Zhimuliu + 4 more
07

Land & Ownership

Four centuries of territorial change and belonging

15 chapters
08

Language & Identity

Cultural struggles from indigenous languages to Mandarin campaigns

14 chapters
09

Sovereignty & Foreign Relations

Shifting sovereignty from Qing incorporation to cross-strait relations

14 chapters
Volumes
View all archives
The Shooting on the Nineteenth of March

Vol. 3

The Shooting on the Nineteenth of March

Taipei 101

Vol. 4

Taipei 101

The Red Shirts and the Trial

Vol. 5

The Red Shirts and the Trial

One Island, One Day

Vol. 6

One Island, One Day

A Letter from the Cape

Vol. 7

A Letter from the Cape

Morakot and the Village of Xiaolin

Vol. 8

Morakot and the Village of Xiaolin

Chronicle

1945–1949

The Early Postwar Years

From Cairo to Taipei

Vol. 1

From Cairo to Taipei

Surrender and Takeover

Vol. 2

Surrender and Takeover

The Shibuya Incident

Vol. 3

The Shibuya Incident

Homecoming of the Overseas

Vol. 4

Homecoming of the Overseas

De-Japanization

Vol. 5

De-Japanization

The Parliamentary System

Vol. 6

The Parliamentary System

The Constitutional Convention

Vol. 7

The Constitutional Convention

The Early Economic Crisis

Vol. 8

The Early Economic Crisis

The February 28 Incident

Vol. 9

The February 28 Incident

March at the Port of Keelung

Vol. 10

March at the Port of Keelung

The 27 Brigade

Vol. 11

The 27 Brigade

The Battle of Wuniulan

Vol. 12

The Battle of Wuniulan

The Penghu Incident of 13 July

Vol. 13

The Penghu Incident of 13 July

The Dilemma of Native Elites

Vol. 14

The Dilemma of Native Elites

Chiang Kai-shek's Diary

Vol. 15

Chiang Kai-shek's Diary

Voices from Elite Diaries

Vol. 16

Voices from Elite Diaries

The American Perspective

Vol. 17

The American Perspective

About This Archive

Isle of Time is a digital exhibition dedicated to presenting Taiwan's history with scholarly rigor and editorial clarity. We believe that understanding the past is the foundation for knowing the present.

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