Why does this dispute become the major cleavage between Taiwanese?
In 1895, Japan defeat Qing Dynasty China in the first Sino-Japanese War. Qing cede the island of Taiwan to Japan. The sporadic armed resistance had stood still during about 20 years at the beginning of Japan colonial rule. At that time, almost all Taiwanese identify themselves Chinese.
After the early years turbulence of Japan administration on Taiwan, Taiwan society became mostly stable. Under the colonial government constant control, the living standard and population of Taiwan displayed significant growth during the 50 years of Japanese rule. Meanwhile, a part of Taiwanese identify themselves Japanese. Most of them grow up and had been educated under the Japanese sovereignty.
After Japan unconditionally surrendered in WWI in 1945, Japan renounced the sovereignty of Taiwan. Some of Taiwanese who identify themselves Japanese was disappoint at the war result. But the majority of Taiwanese was looking forward to reunion with the ROC.
Taiwan was placed under the control of the Chinese Nationalist Party(Kuomintang)-administered ROC. Chen Yi was appointed Chief Executive of the office of the Taiwan province. After 16 months of Kuomintang(KMT) administration led to the widespread impression that the KMT was plagued by nepotism,
corruption, economic failure. For example, the price of rice rose to one hundred times its original value between the time the KMT took over to the spring of 1946. Taiwanese hoped that KMT can bring them liberty and equality. But Japanese rule seems better than KMT administration. Tensions increased between Taiwanese and the KMT regime.
The flash point came on February 27, a female cigarette vendor and an KMT officer had a dispute in Taipei. This dispute triggered civil disorder and open rebellion in the following days. KMT violently suppress the uprising by the force. This was known as 228 Incident.The incident marked the beginning of the KMT's White Terror period in Taiwan, in which thousands more Taiwanese vanished, were killed, or imprisoned. Before the 228 Incident happened, most Taiwanese desired greater autonomy from China but not necessarily entire independence. The 228 incident was resulting in ethnic tensions between pre-civil-war residents and post-civil-war migrants, as well as the genesis of the Taiwanese independence movement.
When the Chinese civil war between KMT and China Communist Party(CCP) ended in 1949, 2 million refugees, predominantly from the KMT government, military, and business community, fled to Taiwan. Later, the KMT-dominated government systematically laid down a social network as well as numerous rules to discriminate against Taiwanese and ensure better social status for those considered "one of the kin members." Financial subsidies and unfair screening rules in schools as well as government departments further deepened the divide. This mechanism, along with KMT's dominance in military, academics and government system, has been silently but firmly building up an invisible "segregation," that continues to fuel the simmering rivalry on this island.
Most of those new migrants support to reunify with PRC. Therefore, pre-civil-war residents mainly uphold to keep current separation status from PRC. As time goes by, fewer people advocate reunion with PRC.
