Cross-Ethnic Alliance

Amid the intensifying Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1950s, Chiang Kai-shek’s regime, isolated in Taiwan after retreating from mainland China, upheld the slogan of “retaking the mainland” as the unquestionable supreme national policy. Yet as political realities gradually shifted by the end of the decade, a group of far-sighted intellectuals within Taiwan began attempting to challenge the one-party authoritarian system imposed under martial law. The 1960 “Lei Chen and Free China Magazine Case” became not only one of the most shocking political purges of Taiwan’s authoritarian era, but also the first tragic attempt in postwar Taiwanese history to forge a cross-ethnic democratic alliance between mainlander and native Taiwanese elites within the existing political framework.

At the center of this historical drama stood Lei Chen, a native of Zhejiang Province in China and once a trusted mainlander adviser within Chiang Kai-shek’s inner circle. Following the implementation of constitutional government under the Republic of China, Lei had served as a Minister without Portfolio in the Executive Yuan. After the Nationalist government relocated to Taiwan in 1949, Lei — with the support of liberal scholars such as Hu Shih and Hang Li-wu — founded the biweekly magazine Free China. Initially, the publication was intended to promote anti-communism, liberal democracy, and support for the Nationalist government.

However, as Chiang Kai-shek steadily consolidated authoritarian rule in Taiwan and imposed indefinite martial law, Lei Chen and the editorial circle surrounding Free China — including figures such as Yin Hai-kuang and Tai Tu-heng — underwent a profound intellectual transformation. They came to believe that without genuine constitutional democracy and institutional checks on power, anti-communism itself would merely become a justification for dictatorship. Gradually, Free China evolved into one of the few remaining platforms openly criticizing political abuses and advocating freedom of speech, judicial independence, and constitutional governance. When Chiang Kai-shek sought a controversial third presidential term through constitutional manipulation, the magazine published editorials sharply condemning the move.

What alarmed the Chiang regime even more was that Lei Chen sought to transform intellectual criticism into organized political action. Around 1960, Lei recognized that any democratic movement led solely by mainlander intellectuals would remain politically rootless unless it formed alliances with Taiwan’s native local elites. He therefore joined forces with influential Taiwanese political figures such as Kao Yu-shu, Lee Wan-chu, Kuo Yu-hsin, and Wu San-lien in an effort to establish a genuine opposition party capable of challenging Kuomintang rule: the “China Democratic Party.”

This alliance marked a historic breakthrough in postwar Taiwan’s deeply divided political landscape. Mainlander intellectual elites contributed constitutional arguments, legal theory, and national-level discourse, while native Taiwanese local leaders brought extensive grassroots electoral support. To the ruling one-party state, such a cross-ethnic and cross-class democratic coalition represented nothing less than a direct threat to political control itself. Inevitably, it drew the full attention of Taiwan’s intelligence apparatus and secret police.

On September 4, 1960, just days before the planned announcement of the China Democratic Party’s establishment, the authoritarian state moved decisively. Agents of the Taiwan Garrison Command raided Lei Chen’s residence in Taipei as well as the offices of Free China magazine. Lei Chen, editor Fu Cheng, manager Ma Chih-su, and several associates were arrested on the spot.

To destroy the nascent opposition movement completely, the authorities immediately banned Free China magazine and initiated sweeping military prosecutions under charges such as “sedition” and “failure to report communist activities.” During the subsequent secret military tribunal, despite widespread international concern and extensive rescue efforts by Hu Shih in the United States, the outcome had already been determined. Chiang Kai-shek personally ordered that “Lei Chen’s sentence must not be less than ten years.” The military court ultimately sentenced Lei Chen to ten years in prison, while Fu Cheng, Ma Chih-su, and others received severe punishments and political reeducation sentences.

The brutal suppression of the Lei Chen case effectively crushed Taiwan’s first postwar cross-ethnic opposition movement before it could fully emerge. Following Lei’s imprisonment, fear spread rapidly among Taiwan’s local political elites. Under the suffocating atmosphere created by the secret police state, the China Democratic Party collapsed before its formal founding, delaying Taiwan’s democratization process by nearly a quarter century.

Throughout his decade-long imprisonment, Lei Chen endured both psychological and physical torment, yet he consistently refused to surrender his principles. While incarcerated, he wrote a massive memoir reportedly totaling several million words, though prison authorities later confiscated and destroyed the manuscript. By the time he was released in 1970, he was already an elderly man with white hair, yet his commitment to constitutional reform and democratic governance remained unbroken.

Viewed through the broader sweep of history, the 1960 Lei Chen case was far more than a simple prosecution over published writings. It was a calculated and devastating assault by the authoritarian state against the possibility of cross-ethnic democratic cooperation. Today, the former detention facilities of the Taiwan Garrison Command have been transformed into Taiwan’s National Human Rights Museum, while the once-banned issues of Free China now survive as historical archives. Yet the ideals that Lei Chen and his allies ignited in the darkness of authoritarian rule — the pursuit of cross-ethnic political cooperation and genuine party politics — did not disappear with their suppression.

Two decades later, those same ideals directly inspired the Tangwai movement during the Kaohsiung Incident era, ultimately becoming one of the intellectual foundations that enabled Taiwan to abolish party bans and evolve into a pluralistic democratic society.

This painful chapter of history continues to remind later generations that the political freedoms, party alternation, and rule of law enjoyed in Taiwan today were not achieved without sacrifice. They were built upon the shared struggles of countless mainlander and native Taiwanese predecessors who, during decades of authoritarian darkness, risked their freedom together in order to secure a more democratic future for generations yet to come.