For Taiwan, the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) National Day is usually barely noticed. Even the 70th anniversary will not be a big deal here on the island, which has been ruled separately from the mainland since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.
That’s because, for the Nationalists or Kuomintang (KMT) who retreated to Taiwan after being defeated by the Communists, it’s a day that symbolises the shame of losing one’s country,
Meanwhile, for the longtime Taiwanese – those whose ancestors settled in Taiwan as far back as the 1600s – the founding of the PRC coincided with the beginning of direct rule over Taiwan.
It was a period marked by martial law and the White Terror, in which an estimated 140,000 people were imprisoned, and around 3,000 to 4,000 were executed on suspicion of being anti-government or pro-Communists.
So on this day, Taiwan’s media is more focused on a typhoon hitting the island than on this significant turning point in history.