When Taiwan shook off the yoke of Japanese colonialism in 1945, it ignited great expectations about a "return to the fatherland." No one was expecting anything like the February 28 Incident to erupt just two years later. The incident, with its tangled web of political, class and ethnic ramifications, threw society in Taiwan into a state of high anxiety, and raised doubts about the legitimacy of KMT rule.
當 1945 年台灣擺脫日本殖民統治，重生的希望濃厚地寄寓於「重回祖國」之際，不料僅僅兩年，就爆發了集政治、階級和族群衝突等複雜意義於一體的「228 事件」，台灣社會自此焦躁不安，國府的政權正當性遭受空前質疑。