The Kaohsiung Incident of 1979-1980 disturbed Taiwan’s dictatorship and ultimately contributed to Taiwan’s democratization. This book analyzes the precursors to the Kaohsiung Incident, the Kaohsiung Incident itself, the following trials and the contributions of these events to Taiwan’s democratization.
After the indictments were issued, the murder of the mother and twin daughters of Lin I-hsiung, one of the defendants, shocked Taiwan and the world. The government accused the author, a well-known scholar of Taiwan, of being involved in the murder case and he was placed under “police protection” for three months. Part 2 of this book is the writer’s memoir of that period.