Working in a Historical Jungle:

Although martial law ended in 1987, surveillance of the people of Taiwan by government security agencies continued into the 1990s. Since its termination, there have been calls for reflection, redress, and ­compensation.

Martial law was lifted in Taiwan in 1987, ending an era that had lasted 38 years. (MOFA file photo)

Since the 1980s, voices have appeared in Taiwan calling for reflection, redress, and compensation regarding the events of the authoritarian era.

From documents to incident sites

Since 2008 Lin Chuan-kai, a White Terror historical researcher and an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at National Sun Yat-sen University, has been continually involved in various activities, including personally interviewing political detainees and their families, assisting in gathering government documents from the authoritarian era, facilitating the return of the final letters or testaments of political prisoners to their heirs, and arranging “healing” meetings between the families of political prisoners and the descendants of military judges.

Lin rarely uses the term “transitional justice.” He believes in the importance of accountability, but prefers using a storytelling format and taking people back to the sites of history. This is because, rather than appealing to a remote sense of “justice,” he feels it is better to return to the actual tangled and complex past.

Before doing so, there is no need to assume any political goal on the part of political detainees, nor that going back can reinforce any specific imagined community. “Political detainees were not arrested because they were saints, nor did they become saints just by virtue of being locked up.” Lin, who has interviewed countless political prisoners and their families, states: “Some political prisoners were not what you would call ‘democracy pioneers’—some were just old soldiers [from China] who were detained for writing on a bathroom wall that they missed home.”

Lin Chuan-kai was involved in planning the exhibition The Man Who Couldn’t Leave at the Museum of National Taipei University of Education, which was set against the backdrop of the White Terror. Artists made prints in collaboration with family members of political prisoners, providing an outlet for the feelings of the bereaved relatives. (courtesy of Lin Chuan-kai)

Lin has visited local communities large and small across Taiwan to do historical and cultural research, especially into the White Terror era in Taiwan. The photo shows an activity held at the former residence of a political prisoner in Puzi, Chiayi County. Family members of victims were invited to return home and share their experiences. (courtesy of Lin Chuan-kai)

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Most of the time, it is hard to clearly define good and bad, right and wrong. For example, in the 1990s, state security organs stepped up their surveillance of Taiwan’s society, planting “informants” in various organizations. Lin asks: “You tell me: Were they all bad people?” He has heard a retired school principal say that if someone had to do such work, he [the principal] preferred to take it upon himself; at least that way he could keep the reports colorless, so no one would suffer too much harm.

What about military judicial personnel, who are often considered “bad guys”? Lin cites the case of a high-school student in Kinmen who was forced to confess to writing “Long Live Communism” on a campus wall, because the handwriting that the phrase was written in resembled his own. He was sentenced to ten years in prison, but his sentence was reduced to one year of reformatory education thanks to an appeal filed on his behalf by a military prosecutor. 

Consensus from stories

Obviously, one should not rush to judgment. “Understanding is the first step,” argues Lin. The public can make good use of the opportunities afforded by a democratic society, using the now-open political archives to revisit individual cases in their actual contexts and critically interpret the records to clarify responsibility.

If you do, you will discover that human nature is complicated. In the film A Foggy Tale, for which Lin was a consultant, a character named Zhao Gongdao helps the heroine Ah-Yue, but also engages in fraud. By examining White Terror cases in detail, people can develop understanding and empathy, transcending barriers of ethnic identity and political stance.

There are numerous examples of such insights. Lin is one of the authors of the book Last Will Undelivered: Remembering the Lost in the Age of Terror, which includes stories of both left-wing and right-wing political detainees whose last letters or testaments went unsent to their families. But no matter what their political ­orientation, their stories are so moving that since being published the book has gone through more than ten printings. In early 2026, controversy over the production of a film dramatization of the Lin Family Murders sparked a passion among the public for learning about Taiwan history. In a TV interview, Tien Chiu-chin, who was the first person to discover the crime scene, spoke about the case with restraint and caution, and thus far the program has been viewed more than a million times online.

People hold a commemoration ceremony at the memorial to White Terror victims in Jieshou Park.

As part of the promotion of transitional justice, many of the last letters or testaments of political prisoners that were sealed away in archives have been returned to their families, generating a tremendous response from the public.

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“Therefore I agree with what the recently deceased German philosopher Habermas said: In public discourse, everyone is bound to have a different position, which is related to how they grew up and what shaped them. But if good stories can cause people to come together and set their minds to collectively reassessing bad events of the past, they can gradually reach consensus.” 

However, people need to substantively commit to this path. Having stumbled by coincidence into this “white jungle of history,” Lin Chuan-kai calls this journey “heading to the future by going backwards.” He has always insisted on going to the real scenes of events, to try to discover amid the bewildering mist a road forward that everyone can travel.

As part of the promotion of transitional justice, many of the last letters or testaments of political prisoners that were sealed away in archives have been returned to their families, generating a tremendous response from the public.(courtesy of MandarinVision)

As part of its pursuit of transitional justice, Taiwan has continued to collect political documents and make them available to the public. The photo shows the National Archives building in Linkou, New Taipei City.