These service centers were ostensibly to promote circulation of the magazine. Actually, they constituted a conspiratorial network engaged in seditious and subversive activities. In the four months after its establishment, the magazine sponsored 11 mass rallies in an attempt to stir up trouble and undermine the social order. Of these rallies, the Taichung incident of November 20 was the most notorious.
美麗島雜誌自登記出版以來，其言論異常尖銳、苛刻，並在全省各地設立了十餘個辦事處、服務處，對於發起具有政治色彩的群眾運動過於熱中，因此這次他們申請登記三萬人的集會遊行，沒有得到治安當局的許可。