White Terror in 1950s Nationalist Military on the Cold War Front Line

Date(s)： 2025/11/25

Time： 15:00~17:00

Venue： Archives 3rd Conference Hall

Host： Prof. Wu Jen-shu（Research fellow and Deputy Director）

Speaker：Prof. 楊孟軒（密蘇里大學哥倫比亞分校歷史系副教授）

Organizer： Urban History Research Group、State and Society Research Group

Abstract,
Research on White Terror history in 1950s Taiwan has focused on events that took place inside Taiwan. In the meantime, the military is considered one of the main instruments of Chiang Kai-shek’s apparatus of suppression. The civilian population, in particular local Taiwanese political activists (and their families) who formed Chinese Communist-inspired groups to fight for self-determination against the Nationalist dictatorship, are identified as the most salient victims. Many of the White Terror publications, predominantly those produced in the first two decades since the 1990s, rely heavily on survivor testimonies and personal narratives. Human memories tell part of the story, but not the whole picture. In recent years, the continued release of declassified military court case files and other government documents has begun to change how researchers understand White Terror history. The Nationalist military was not only the state’s instrument of suppression. Members of the armed forces were also Chiang regime’s main victims, especially in the 1950s. The anti-communist purge and strict security surveillance in the army were a result of dragooning soldiers, captive experiences, and chaotic mass flights toward the end of the Chinese Civil War. On the offshore islands, White Terror suppression was further exacerbated by proximity to the mainland and the Nationalist piracy and paramilitary activities against the PRC in the first half of the 1950s. In this talk, I will highlight several cases on the offshore islands (Kinmen, Matsu, Dachen) to illustrate my overall argument.
 
Bio
Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang is Associate Professor in the Department of History, the University of Missouri-Columbia. His research focuses on diasporic displacement, social trauma, and memory politics with regard to Taiwan and China, particularly as a result of the Chinese Civil War and the Cold War. Dominic has published in The Historical Journal, China Perspectives, Taiwan Historical Research, Journal of Chinese Overseas, and Journal of Chinese History. His latest research examines memorial landscape, ethics of historical memory, transnational justice process in contemporary Taiwan and Cold War refugees produced by wars in the Taiwan Strait. His book The Great Exodus from China: Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan won the Memory Studies Association First Book Award in 2020-2021.