Chen Yi (Ch'en I)

Early Life and the Warlord Era

Chen Yi (Ch'en I), courtesy names Gongxia and later Gongqia, art name Tuisu, was born in 1883 in Shaoxing, Zhejiang. In 1902 he went to study in Japan, entering the fifth class of the artillery branch at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy, and on his return served in the Ministry of War. After the 1911 Revolution he became head of military affairs in the Zhejiang military government in 1912, and in 1916 returned to Japan to study at the Army War College. Back in the Zhejiang army, he became commander of the Zhejiang 1st Division in October 1922 and of the Zhejiang 1st Army in 1924. In October 1926, as the Northern Expedition approached Zhejiang, Sun Chuanfang, who controlled five southeastern provinces, appointed him civil governor of Zhejiang. After the Northern Expedition took the southeast, Chen moved into the service of the Nationalist government.

The Nanjing Government and Fujian

In July 1927 Chen was appointed to the Military Affairs Commission of the Nationalist government; he toured Europe to study military affairs in 1928 and from 1929 served as administrative and then political vice minister of war. In January 1934, after the government suppressed the "People's Government of Fujian" (the Fujian Rebellion), he became chairman of the Fujian provincial government, later also serving as provincial security commander and director of the Fujian pacification office, and governed the province for more than seven years. In 1935, when Japan held an exposition in Taiwan marking forty years of colonial rule, he led a delegation of Fujian officials to visit the island. He left Fujian in 1941, became secretary-general of the Executive Yuan that December, and in 1943 served as acting president of the Army War College.

Taking Over Taiwan

In 1944, as the Nationalist government began planning the postwar recovery of Taiwan, Chen headed the Executive Yuan's Taiwan Investigation Committee and oversaw a training programme for the cadres who would take over the island. On 29 August 1945 the government appointed him Chief Executive of Taiwan Province, and in September also commander of the Taiwan Garrison Command. On 25 October, in Taipei, he accepted the surrender of General Andō Rikichi, commander of the Japanese Tenth Area Army, on behalf of the China Theater. His administration continued and expanded the Japanese-era monopoly and trade controls, and corruption among incoming officials and the plundering of the island's resources turned many Taiwanese who had at first welcomed the "motherland" against the new government. In February 1947 he was promoted to general, second rank.

The February 28 Incident

On 27 February 1947, monopoly bureau agents enforcing the tobacco monopoly in Taipei injured a cigarette vendor and shot a bystander, and the conflict soon spread across the island. On 2 March Chen agreed in a radio address to release those detained and compensate the dead and injured, and discussed a settlement with the joint official–civilian "Committee to Settle the February 28 Incident"; that same evening he cabled Chiang Kai-shek, Chairman of the National Government, reporting that he had asked Chief of the General Staff Chen Cheng to send "an infantry brigade of better quality", or at least one regiment first, "so that the treacherous bandits can be eliminated". Reinforcements landed at Keelung on 8 March; on 10 March Chen dissolved the committee, and a crackdown and "pacification" followed across the island. In mid-March he offered Chiang his resignation; in April the Executive Yuan abolished his administrative office and replaced it with a Taiwan Provincial Government, and Chen was made an adviser to the National Government.

Assessments of Chen's responsibility differ. The inscription on the 228 Memorial in Taipei, carved in 1997, says he was "muddle-headed and obstinate", negotiating while branding local leaders as traitors and "going straight to Nanjing to request troops"; other researchers note that his exact role in the incident remains debated.

Seeking Peace and Execution

In June 1948 Chen became chairman of the Zhejiang provincial government. After Chiang announced his retirement in January 1949, Chen wrote to Tang Enbo, commander of the Nanjing–Shanghai–Hangzhou Garrison, setting out arrangements for a "regional peace", including releasing prisoners of war and halting the army's advance; Tang instead handed the letters to Chiang's side. In February Chen was removed as Zhejiang governor and placed under house arrest. In April 1950 he was taken to Taiwan and held in Keelung. A military court sentenced him to death for collaborating with the enemy, and early on 18 June he was shot at Xindian in Taipei County (now Xindian District, New Taipei). The KMT's Central Daily News ran the story on its front page two days in a row under the charge of "colluding with communist bandits and plotting rebellion"; he remains the highest-ranking officer executed by the KMT. According to contemporary reports, he said before his execution that everything he had done was for the troops and civilians of Nanjing, Shanghai and Hangzhou.

His ashes were collected by his younger brother and buried at Wugu in Taipei County under a headstone bearing only his art name. After martial law ended, the grave was repeatedly vandalised, and in June 2014 his family reburied his ashes at Anxianyuan cemetery in Hangzhou. The Chinese Communist Party has described him as "a patriot who gave his life for the cause of the Chinese people's liberation".