{"id":387,"date":"2026-07-23T16:09:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T08:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/?page_id=387"},"modified":"2026-10-14T15:18:58","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T07:18:58","slug":"aki-nori","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/aki-nori\/","title":{"rendered":"Chronology"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\tChronology\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Year<\/th>Age<\/th>Events<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
1941<\/td>Birth<\/td>Born at the beginning of the sixteenth year of Sh\u014dwa\uff08\u662d\u548c\uff09, in the closing days of the gengchen \uff08\u5e9a\u8fb0\uff09year, under the sign of the dragon.
\n
\nOn January 15, 1941, Shih Ming Te was born on Dayong Road in Yancheng District, Kaohsiung Prefecture, in a Baroque-style building whose fa\u00e7ade bore the character \u201cShih\u201d \u2014 a Chinese-medicine clinic. His father, Shih Kuo-tsui, was fifty-seven; his mother, Shih Chen Ying, twenty-seven. The family was prosperous, holding extensive land and property. His father was a well-known general practitioner of Chinese medicine in southern Taiwan and, in the Japanese era, an examiner for the Chinese-medicine licensing examinations. The father had five daughters by his first wife; the mother was his second wife, married after he was widowed. Before Shih Ming Te she had borne three sons: the eldest, Shih Ming-cheng (then six); the second, Shih Ming-ho (four); and the third, Shih Ming-hsiung (two). Shih Ming Te was the fourth son. The Shih family were devout Catholics who had given funds to build the Holy Rosary Cathedral beside the Love River; Shih Ming Te was baptized there, taking the Christian name John. At home he was called by the Japanese name Aki-Nori.
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\nOn December 7, Japanese forces launched a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, igniting the Pacific War \u2014 a turning point of the Second World War.
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\n \"Holy
\n His father, Shih Kuo-tsui (1884\u20131953)<\/span>
\n <\/div>
\n
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\n \"Holy
\n Holy Rosary Cathedral, Kaohsiung<\/span>
\n <\/div>
\n<\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1943<\/td>Age 2<\/td>His younger sister, Shih Ming-chu \uff08\u65bd\u660e\u73e0\uff09, was born.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1944<\/td>Age 3<\/td>As the Pacific War intensified, it reached the Japanese colony of Taiwan. After shells fell on Kaohsiung and Pingtung, the family and their servants evacuated in winter to Tiancaopu, in the countryside outside Kaohsiung, to escape the American bombing. Inside the air-raid shelter, Shih Ming Te prayed and recited prayers with his mother and the rest of the family; outside it, he asked his father why Taiwan was being bombed. His father answered that it was because Taiwan was a Japanese colony. It was the first time Shih Ming Te heard the word \u201ccolony\u201d \u2014 a word that would mark him for the rest of his life.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1945<\/td>Age 4<\/td>After the war\u2019s end, in midsummer the family moved back to Kaohsiung, into a Japanese-style garden mansion of more than four hundred ping beside the small traffic circle. The road there was later renamed Zhongzheng Road, and the mansion became the Chang Hwa Bank. His father had a tailor make Western suits and leather shoes for the brothers; dressed neatly, Shih Ming Te began attending the children\u2019s class led by nuns at the Holy Rosary Cathedral, where he listened to Bible stories.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1946<\/td>Age 5<\/td>His father, Shih Kuo-tsui\uff08\u65bd\u95ca\u5634\uff09, completed four buildings in front of Kaohsiung Railway Station; the family moved into one and rented out the other three. With the constant flow of people before the station and always something new happening, the curious Shih Ming Te had a lively childhood and saw the full range of human affairs. He lived here until his first arrest.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1947<\/td>Age 6<\/td>In the deep cold of that early year, looking out from the family home in front of the railway station, Shih Ming Te witnessed the bloody scenes of the February 28 massacre. Students from Kaohsiung Middle School and from the fishery and industrial vocational schools, rifles in hand, faced the machine guns of the Nationalist government troops before the station; though vastly outnumbered, they pressed forward one after another, resisting to the death. In the fitful cold of March, the people burned banknotes in anger; executed resisters, name-placards thrust into their backs, were paraded through the streets and shot on the spot, their corpses left exposed in the roads.
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\nHis father too was arrested, but \u2014 having once treated the driver of Peng Meng-chi\uff08\u5f6d\u5b5f\u7ddd\uff09, commander of the Kaohsiung Fortress \u2014 was recognized and released, narrowly escaping disaster.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1948<\/td>Age 7<\/td>He entered the first grade at Sanmin Elementary School. Shih Ming Te, who went to school in leather shoes, envied his classmates who ran free and barefoot yet were masters at catching loaches, birds, and frogs.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1949<\/td>Age 8<\/td>Defeated in the Chinese Civil War, Chiang Kai-shek\u2019s regime fled into exile in Taiwan. The troops that landed at Kaohsiung Harbor advanced along Zhongshan Road toward the railway station; ragged soldiers carrying pots and pans left the children \u2014 who had known only the clean, orderly, imposing Japanese soldiers \u2014 filled with bewilderment, as if beholding the proverbial emperor in his new clothes.
\nTaiwan declared martial law.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1950<\/td>Age 9<\/td>Taiwan entered the era of the White Terror.
\nIn summer, the Korean War broke out.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1951<\/td>Age 10<\/td>His father, a bonesetter, each morning summoned his sons and neighborhood friends to practice boxing together for fitness; but under the White Terror he was falsely accused of \u201cgathering a crowd to practice martial arts\u201d and arrested. His mother, frantic, sold family property to raise cash and bribe officials to secure the release of Shih Kuo-tsui; but after months of severe torture he returned home unable to walk, bedridden until his death.
\nShih Ming Te was acknowledged by the family as a devoted son: after school he always sat by his father\u2019s sickbed, grinding apple pur\u00e9e for him, reading the newspaper aloud, and listening as his father explained the Korean War and the international situation point by point.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1952<\/td>Age 11<\/td>His father ordered the Shih brothers to rise at five every morning and run five hundred meters with lead weights bound to their legs.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1953<\/td>Age 12<\/td>On July 14, his father died at the age of sixty-nine.
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\n\u201cMy father had passed through the baptism of the Second World War and had also suffered the terror of the February 28 Incident; he cared especially for peace, even when war was as far away as the Korean Peninsula. Of course I did not understand many of the unfamiliar proper terms, nor necessarily the connections between events. As I read the papers, I listened to my father explain and analyze them for me. This was the origin of the concern for, and understanding of, international affairs that I have held since childhood.\u201d \u2014 Memoirs of Shih Ming Te.
\n

\n

\n \"1953
\n 1953 - Sanmin Elementary School<\/span>
\n <\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1954<\/td>Age 13<\/td>Shih Ming Te was admitted to the junior-high division of Kaohsiung Middle School.
\nHe pried open a case of banned books that his eldest brother, Shih Ming-cheng\uff08\u65bd\u660e\u6b63\uff09, had deliberately hidden under the bed-boards years before \u2014 all world classics of 1930s literature and of Russia and the West \u2014 and gathered classmates to divide the books and read them in turn.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1957<\/td>Age 16<\/td>On a summer evening he solemnly told his mother that he intended to enroll in a military academy, organize an army, stage an armed mutiny, and overthrow the dictatorial Chiang regime. His mother wept on hearing this; Shih comforted her: \u201cYou have five sons; one fewer will not matter.\u201d
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\nHe was admitted to the senior-high division of Kaohsiung Zhongzheng Middle School.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1958<\/td>Age 17<\/td>At Zhongzheng Senior High he befriended Yu Ching, and together they edited Xingyue (\u201cStars and Moon\u201d) magazine \u2014 its name alluding to toiling from before dawn until after dark. \uff08\u62ab\u661f\u6234\u6708\uff09
\n

\n

\n \"1958
\n 1958 - Kaohsiung Senior High School<\/span>
\n <\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1959<\/td>Age 18<\/td>He entered the Army Artillery School.
\n

\n

\n \"1959
\n 1959 - Army Artillery School<\/span>
\n <\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1960<\/td>Age 19<\/td>In autumn, the \u201cFree China\u201d Lei Chen case erupted. Lei Chen\uff08\u96f7\u9707\uff09, who in truth sought democracy, freedom, and the formation of a party, was framed by the authorities for \u201charboring Communist spies and inciting rebellion\u201d and sentenced to ten years\u2019 imprisonment.
\n
\nShih Ming Te has said that the Free China magazine of those years deeply influenced him as a young man.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1961<\/td>Age 20<\/td>He was posted to the front line on Lesser Kinmen as an artillery observation officer, coming to understand the ruthlessness of war and the pricelessness of peace.
\n
\nDuring this time he learned firsthand the truth of the August 23 artillery bombardment of Kinmen: \u201cKinmen and Matsu cannot defend Taiwan; Taiwan cannot protect Kinmen and Matsu.\u201d Had it not been for American military aid, Kinmen\u2019s ammunition and provisions would long since have been exhausted.
\n
\nOn September 19, Su Tung-chi \uff08\u8607\u6771\u555f\uff09was arrested; the case implicated Taiwanese military officers, with more than three hundred people arrested in all.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1962<\/td>Age 21<\/td>On June 16, just as he was about to be promoted to first lieutenant, he was arrested on Lesser Kinmen in connection with the \u201cTaiwan Independence League case\u201d and sent for interrogation to the \u201cThird Guest House,\u201d a counterintelligence unit of the Ministry of National Defense on Greater Kinmen. Within a month he was transferred to the counterintelligence section of the Army General Headquarters; days later, to the military-law detention center of the Army General Headquarters at Mamingtan, Muzha, Taipei; and then into the hands of Chiang Kai-shek\u2019s \u201cEastern Depot\u201d \u2014 the Security Section of the Taiwan Garrison Command \u2014 concealed in the Higashi Honganji temple in Ximending, where Shih Ming Te was tortured until all his teeth were pulled out, triggering the hereditary disease ankylosing spondylitis. Only after his dentures had been made was he sent to the Taiwan Garrison Command detention center at No. 3 Qingdao East Road.
\n
\nHis eldest brother Shih Ming-cheng\uff08\u65bd\u660e\u6b63\uff09 and third brother Shih Ming-hsiung \uff08\u65bd\u660e\u96c4\uff09were both arrested, implicated without cause.
\n

\n

\n \"1962
\n 1962 - Shih Ming Te as an artillery second lieutenant and forward observer on Lesser Kinmen<\/span>
\n <\/div>
\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1963<\/td>Age 22<\/td>In May the interrogation concluded, and he was indicted for \u201corganizing the \u2018Asia League\u2019 with intent to commit rebellion and taking steps to carry it out\u201d \u2014 a charge carrying a mandatory death sentence. Transferred to the Taiwan Garrison Command detention center at No. 3 Qingdao East Road, he was imprisoned together with death-row inmates: Han Jo-chun\uff08\u97d3\u82e5\u6625\uff09, Chen Chih-hsiung\uff08\u9673\u667a\u96c4\uff09, Huang Tsu-yao\uff08\u9ec3\u7956\u582f\uff09, Kai Tien-yu\uff08\u84cb\u5929\u4e88\uff09, Tsai Ping-kun\uff08\u8521\u79c9\u5803\uff09, Sung Ching-sung\uff08\u5b8b\u666f\u677e\uff09, Pai Ke\uff08\u767d\u514b\uff09, Chung Ying-chun\uff08\u937e\u76c8\u6625\uff09, and Yen Chun-chuan\uff08\u56b4\u541b\u5ddd\uff09. Observing closely the many kinds of the falsely accused, the absurdly condemned, and the prisoners of conscience in their final hours, Shih Ming Te reflected, awakened, and grew; these days lived in intimate company with the condemned profoundly shaped the whole of his life.
\n
\nShih Ming Te has repeatedly recalled that Toynbee\u2019s monumental A Study of History, which he read closely in this period, was deeply imprinted on his mind. After martial law was imposed, the books the Garrison Command had seized and confiscated from the public all ended up in the prison library \u2014 a paradox of history, whereby the least free of places became the place where one could read most freely.
\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1964<\/td>Age 23<\/td>The full set of dentures he had worn at twenty-one became precious, irrefutable evidence of \u201ctorture,\u201d and unexpectedly spared Shih Ming Te from the death penalty. On April 1 he was sentenced to life imprisonment without commutation or parole, his property confiscated; the whole prison cheered for him. His eldest and third brothers were each sentenced to five years, and together they urged him: \u201cDo not appeal.\u201d
\n
\nThe crude, ill-fitting dentures tormented him constantly in prison; from then on, if in the cells one heard the clink of a stone tapping against an aluminum bowl, one knew Shih Ming Te was eating. During exercise time he would search the ground for suitable sharp objects to carry back and carefully grind down his own dentures.
\n

\n

\n \"1964
\n 1964 - His eldest brother, Shih Ming-cheng (left), and third brother, Shih Ming-hsiung, at Taiyuan Prison<\/span>
\n <\/div>
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\n \"1964
\n 1964 \u2014 Shih Ming-cheng and Shih Ming-hsiung, Taiyuan Prison (inscription on the reverse)<\/span>
\n <\/div>
\n<\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1965<\/td>Age 24<\/td>He was transferred to Taiyuan Prison in Taitung \u2014 Shih Ming Te\u2019s first time setting foot on Taiwan\u2019s eastern coast.
\n
\nIn this prison for political inmates he met many outstanding figures: Mei Chi-min, author of The Great Northern Wilderness and a fine writer; Ko Chi-hua\uff08\u67ef\u65d7\u5316\uff09, author of A New English Grammar, fluent in English and Japanese; and Chen Chi-chang\uff08\u9673\u5176\u660c\uff09, a graduate of the University of Tokyo, who later became Shih Ming Te\u2019s Japanese teacher. He also came to know like-minded revolutionary comrades \u2014 Chiang Ping-hsing\uff08\u6c5f\u70b3\u8208\uff09, Chen Liang\uff08\u9673\u826f\uff09, Cheng Chin-ho\uff08\u912d\u91d1\u6cb3\uff09, Hsieh Tung-jung\uff08\u8b1d\u6771\u69ae\uff09, and Chan Tien-tseng\uff08\u8a79\u5929\u589e\uff09 \u2014 and, of course, many who would later prove to be informers, betrayers, and stool pigeons.
\n
\nHe began a systematic study of international law, reading widely in Chinese, English, and Japanese.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1966<\/td>Age 25<\/td>The question of the People\u2019s Republic of China\u2019s efforts, from 1950 onward, to claim China\u2019s seat at the United Nations was a constant topic in the political prison. Shih Ming Te and the pro-independence political prisoners held the position of \u201caccommodating Mao without excluding Chiang,\u201d believing that Taiwan could accept \u201cOne China, One Taiwan\u201d or \u201cTwo Chinas\u201d so long as Taiwan could remain in the United Nations; Taiwan\u2019s problem, they held, was one of internal political liberalization.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1967<\/td>Age 26<\/td>Ko Chi-hua\u2019s First Publishing House published The True, the Good, and the Beautiful, a work Shih had translated from Japanese into Chinese.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1968<\/td>Age 27<\/td>On February 29, his mother died at the age of fifty-three. Shih Ming Te was not permitted to attend the funeral. Severely depressed, he developed an acute gastric illness and was sent under guard to the Taitung military hospital for treatment.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1970<\/td>Age 29<\/td>After long planning, it was resolved that on February 8, the third day of the Lunar New Year, political prisoners serving as outside laborers would rise in revolt: seizing weapons, freeing the entire prison, buying off a fishing boat to smuggle Ko Chi-hua \u2014 fluent in Japanese and English \u2014 alone to the Ryukyus, then commandeering a vehicle to seize the Taitung radio station and broadcast to the world the Taiwanese people\u2019s aspiration for independence and for remaining in the United Nations. It was, in essence, a kamikaze-style suicidal act of proclamation. Unexpectedly, the uprising failed. That day, Shih Ming Te felt that he had grown old.
\n
\nOn May 30, the Five Martyrs of Taiyuan \u2014 Chiang Ping-hsing, Chen Liang, Hsieh Tung-jung, Chan Tien-tseng, and Cheng Chin-ho \u2014 were shot.
\n
\nAfter the failure, Shih Ming Te was held in solitary confinement in a small \u201cdark cell\u201d three feet by six for as long as thirteen months, denied all visits. Months later, alarmed to find that he was losing the power of speech, he began each day to read aloud to himself, reciting Tang poetry, Song ci, and the Gettysburg Address he had memorized in his youth.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1972<\/td>Age 31<\/td>Japan established diplomatic relations with the People\u2019s Republic of China; Chiang Kai-shek severed all exchange with Japan, including cultural exchange, banning Japanese films and books, while the prison simultaneously forbade the reading of Japanese-language books. The second foreign language Shih Ming Te had acquired over these years was thus cut off; his Japanese books had all to be sent home or else be confiscated.
\n
\nOn May 2, through \u201cExercise Dong-an,\u201d the Taiwan Garrison General Headquarters transferred the 306 sedition convicts serving sentences at Taiyuan to Green Island in three batches.
\n
\nIn autumn, an acute appendicitis on National Day, its treatment delayed, turned into peritonitis; three days later a military aircraft carried him to the Taitung hospital for emergency surgery, and his life was saved.
\n
\nHe published a critical analysis, \u201cFoundations of International Law,\u201d in a magazine.
\nOn October 25, UN Resolution 2758 recognized the government of the People\u2019s Republic of China as the lawful representative of China at the United Nations, and the Republic of China withdrew from the UN.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1973<\/td>Age 32<\/td>He undertook research on the design of a new Taiwanese script, producing Design Principles and Practical Rules for a New Taiwanese Script; the manuscript vanished after the Kaohsiung Incident.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1974<\/td>Age 33<\/td>His girlfriend transferred her affections to a recently released political prisoner. With no one left to sustain Shih Ming Te in prison \u2014 his brothers and sister likewise unaware \u2014 for more than a year he was so destitute as to lack even toilet paper and soap. Recalling those solitary, forsaken days, Shih Ming Te sighed: \u201cCold and cheerless, bleak and desolate, wretched and forlorn.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1975<\/td>Age 34<\/td>In spring, the dictator Chiang Kai-shek died; a nationwide commutation of sentences was carried out, and Shih Ming Te\u2019s life sentence was reduced to fifteen years.
\n
\nOn September 30 he wrote \u201cInspirations from Sprouting Beans,\u201d an essay that later inspired a scientist at Academia Sinica to conduct experiments demonstrating that bean sprouts, when subjected to pressure, release ethylene and grow thicker and sturdier.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1976<\/td>Age 35<\/td>He was transferred to the Ren\u2019ai Educational Institute in Tucheng, the site of ideological reform for political prisoners before release.
\n
\nIn October, the Hsieh Tung-min mail-bomb case occurred.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1977<\/td>Age 36<\/td>In January, Wang Hsing-nan\uff08\u738b\u5e78\u7537\uff09, who had carried out the mail bombing, was arrested at Taipei Songshan Airport by Kao Ming-hui, deputy director of the Taipei Investigation Station. After his arrest he knelt and begged for mercy, disclosing Taiwan-independence secrets in exchange for exemption from death \u2014 details that were all used as teaching material by the instructors at the Ren\u2019ai Institute.
\n
\nOn June 16, having completed fifteen years\u2019 imprisonment, he was released.
\n
\nIn winter, at the invitation of Su Tung-chi\uff08\u8607\u6771\u555f\uff09, he took the alias Hsu I-wen\uff08\u8a31\u4e00\u6587\uff09 and went to Yunlin to serve as campaign manager for Su Hung Yueh-chiao \uff08\u8607\u6d2a\u6708\u5b0c\uff09\u2014 wife of the political prisoner Su Tung-chi and a candidate for the Provincial Assembly. Using the campaign as a form of social investigation, he had Su Tung-chi parade through the streets in the prison uniform Shih had brought out of prison, and had Su\u2019s children canvass in hemp garments reading \u201cIs my father guilty?\u201d \u2014 waging a brilliant and much-talked-of campaign.
\n
\nDuring the campaign he met Bettine, an American Princeton graduate student who had come to observe and study in Taiwan; they began seeing each other after the election.
\n

\n

\n \"1977
\n 1977 - Shih Ming Te at his father\u2019s grave<\/span>
\n <\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1978<\/td>Age 37<\/td>In January he wrote the essay \u201cMy Philosophy as a Prisoner.\u201d
\n
\nOn the recommendation of Su Hung Yueh-chiao, he became a reporter at the Taiwan Times in Taichung, covering social news.
\n
\nIn April, under the pen name Hsu I-wen, he published A Proposal for a Fourth National Assembly, coining the term \u201ceternal parliament\u201d to attack the Chiang family\u2019s dictatorial regime and its anti-democratic, anti\u2013human-rights measures; he narrowly escaped arrest. He promptly entered into a political marriage with his American girlfriend Linda Gail Arrigo, prompting American concern and intervention that safeguarded his personal safety.
\n
\nOn October 15, he and Linda Gail Arrigo held their wedding banquet at the China Hotel, presided over by Lei Chen\uff08\u96f7\u9707\uff09, with Tangwai \uff08\u9ee8\u5916\uff09figures gathered together \u2014 a large political assembly rare in the martial-law era, and Lei Chen\u2019s sole and final public appearance after his release from prison.
\n
\nOn November 24, the National Tangwai Campaign Assistance Corps was established, operating around the clock with its office as its home; receiving telephone links from Ms. Chang Yang I-i \uff08\u5f35\u63da\u5b9c\u5b9c\uff09of the American \u201cVoice of Taiwan\u201d broadcast, it opened a bridge of direct communication with the outside world, so that the Tangwai movement was no longer isolated within the island.
\n
\nOn December 5, it held the \u201cNational Tangwai Candidates\u2019 Symposium\u201d at Zhongshan Hall.
\n
\nOn December 16, U.S. President Carter announced that the United States would establish diplomatic relations with China. President Chiang Ching-kuo announced the suspension of election activities. Tangwai figures jointly signed the \u201cStatement of Public Figures on the Postponement of Elections,\u201d drafted by Shih Ming Te.
\n
\nOn December 25, at the Assistance Corps headquarters, Tangwai figures jointly signed the \u201cTangwai Statement on National Affairs\u201d composed by Shih Ming Te; there Huang Hsin-chieh designated five persons \u2014 Hsu Hsin-liang\uff08\u8a31\u4fe1\u826f\uff09, Chang Chun-hung\uff08\u5f35\u4fca\u5b8f\uff09, Lin I-hsiung\uff08\u6797\u7fa9\u96c4\uff09, Yao Chia-wen\uff08\u59da\u5609\u6587\uff09, and Shih Ming Te \u2014 to work out the future course of the Tangwai movement, gradually becoming the five-member decision-making core of the Formosa political group.
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\n

\n \"1978
\n 1978 - Staff meeting at the Tangwai headquarters<\/span>
\n <\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1979<\/td>Age 38<\/td>On January 21, Yu Teng-fa \uff08\u4f59\u767b\u767c\uff09and his son were arrested; on January 22, the first political demonstration in postwar Taiwan was launched to protest the Kuomintang\u2019s persecution of the Yu father and son.
\n
\nOn March 9, when the \u201cYu case\u201d opened in court, Shih, in the capacity of \u201ccampaign manager,\u201d rallied Tangwai figures to the military court to support the Yu father and son. Huang Hsin-chieh announced that day his intention to run a Tangwai party organ, and Shih Ming Te began to conceive the workings of \u201ca party without a party name.\u201d
\n
\nIn April, U.S. President Carter signed the Taiwan Relations Act. Tangwai figures nationwide issued the \u201cTangwai Statement on National Affairs\u201d drafted by Shih Ming Te, advocating an active return to the United Nations.
\n
\nIn May, the \u201cYu Teng-fa case\u201d verdict became final, and the fabricated \u201cCommunist spy\u201d Wu Tai-an was shot \u2014 absurdly becoming the last such farcical figure to be executed in the White Terror era.
\n
\nIn May, a ninth-floor space was secured in the Bailing Building at No. 3, Section 3, Ren\u2019ai Road, Taipei, and Formosa Magazine was formally established.
\n
\nOn June 1, the \u201cTaiwan Tangwai Elected Representatives\u2019 Joint Liaison Office\u201d (that is, the Tangwai headquarters) was established. The Tangwai headquarters and Formosa Magazine served as each other\u2019s cover, so that if one were banned, the other could continue to operate.
\n
\nIn August, it was resolved with the five-member group that if the Kuomintang did not release Chen Po-wen\uff08\u9673\u535a\u6587\uff09 and Wu Che-lang\uff08\u5433\u54f2\u6717\uff09 of the underground paper \u201cUndercurrent,\u201d they would announce the founding of the \u201cTaiwan Democratic Party\u201d at the Formosa inaugural reception; Shih was responsible for preparing the party platform and charter.
\n
\nOn August 24, the inaugural issue of Formosa Magazine was published.
\n
\nIn September, Formosa Magazine held its inaugural reception at the Mandarin Hotel. It then established \u201cFormosa Magazine service offices\u201d throughout Taiwan; Shih Ming Te said that what he was building was \u201ca party without a party name.\u201d
\n
\nIn November, he took over as director of the Taiwan center of the International League for Human Rights, and it was resolved to hold \u201cWorld Human Rights Day activities\u201d in Kaohsiung on December 10.
\n
\nOn December 9, the \u201cGushan Incident\u201d occurred.
\n
\nOn December 10, Shih Ming Te served as commander-in-chief of a mass rally held before the Kaohsiung service office of Formosa Magazine. Professional thugs hired by the Kuomintang infiltrated the crowd to create disorder, and the rally was finally suppressed with tear gas \u2014 the Kaohsiung Incident that shocked Taiwan and the world.
\nOn December 11, he remained silent all day.
\n
\nOn December 12, that night he handed Linda Gail Arrigo divorce papers, which she refused.
\n
\nOn December 13, the Kuomintang launched mass arrests. In an inspired stroke, Shih Ming Te escaped from his own home in full view of all, vanishing without a trace and beginning a twenty-six-day flight. During this miraculous interval his American wife, Linda Gail Arrigo, campaigned internationally for his rescue, and his American mother-in-law, based in the United States, telephoned every member of the U.S. Congress to appeal for help \u2014 drawing international attention and forming public pressure that compelled the Chiang Ching-kuo regime, unable as before to try and sentence him swiftly and in secret, to hold a public trial open to media coverage.
\n

\n

\n \"1979
\n 1979 - Human Rights<\/span>
\n <\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1980<\/td>Age 39<\/td>On January 8, after a dramatic twenty-six-day flight, he was arrested at the home of his loyal friend Hsu Ching-fu in Ximending.
\n
\nOn February 28, Kuomintang agents carried out the terrorist assassination of four members \u2014 three generations \u2014 of Lin I-hsiung\u2019s family\uff08\u6797\u7fa9\u96c4\uff09; Lin\u2019s mother and two young daughters were killed, and only the elder daughter survived after being stabbed several times.
\n
\nOn March 18, the Kaohsiung Incident military tribunal opened its hearings. Shih Ming Te\u2019s composed and open bearing, and his forceful articulation of his political convictions, became the focus of public attention. \u201cTaiwan should be independent; in fact Taiwan has been independent for thirty years \u2014 its name is the Republic of China.\u201d \u201cThe ban on parties, the ban on the press, martial law, and the eternal parliament are the four great harms to Taiwan\u2019s democratization.\u201d
\n
\nOn March 28, at the final session of arguments in the Kaohsiung Incident trial, Shih Ming Te, grief-stricken by the annihilation of the Lin family on February 28, set aside \u201cShih Ming Te\u2019s Political Will,\u201d the final defense statement he had prepared for over a month, and wept: \u201cSentence me to death! Sentence me to death!\u201d The entire court \u2014 judges, lawyers, and gallery alike \u2014 was in tears.
\n
\nOn April 29, Shih Ming Te was sentenced to life imprisonment without commutation or parole, his property confiscated.
\n
\nIn July, he was transferred alone to imprisonment on Green Island.
\n

\n

\n \"1980
\n 1980 - The Formosa Military Trial<\/span>
\n <\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1981<\/td>Age 40<\/td>In prison Shih Ming Te learned of the Chen Wen-chen Incident \uff08\u9673\u6587\u6210\u4e8b\u4ef6\uff09\u2014 connected to the fact that Chen Wen-chen had once telephoned Shih Ming Te to make a donation to Formosa Magazine \u2014 and in indignation held a month-long hunger strike to protest the Kuomintang\u2019s terror policies.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1982<\/td>Age 41<\/td>His ankylosing spondylitis flared up; tormented by severe pain, he struggled against the prison authorities, demanding medical treatment at his own expense.
\n

\n

\n \"1982
\n 1982 - Shih Ming Te on Green Island (\u201cFire Island\u201d)<\/span>
\n <\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1983<\/td>Age 42<\/td>The Nobel Peace laureate Lech Wa\u0142\u0119sa nominated Shih Ming Te for the Nobel Peace Prize.
\n
\nLu Hsiu-yi was arrested and sentenced to three years of \u201creform through education.\u201d
\n
\nOn November 30 he wrote \u201cReflections on the Twentieth Year of Imprisonment.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1984<\/td>Age 43<\/td>Lin I-hsiung was released on parole.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1985<\/td>Age 44<\/td>On January 15, it emerged that the U.S. CIA had uncovered the murder of the U.S.-based dissident writer Liu Yi-liang\uff08\u5289\u5b9c\u826f\uff09 (pen name \u201cChiang Nan\u201d) \u2014 carried out on the orders of Chiang Ching-kuo, through Wang Hsi-ling, director of Taiwan\u2019s Military Intelligence Bureau, and executed by Chen Chi-li and others \u2014 the first solved case of terrorist assassination in the White Terror era. Shih Ming Te announced an \u201cindefinite hunger strike\u201d beginning April 1, demanding the lifting of martial law; the release of all Kaohsiung Incident political prisoners other than himself; a halt to all terrorist assassinations; recognition of the lawful status of opposition forces; and the normalization and institutionalization of democratic politics in accordance with the constitution. He said that this was his own one-man war for peace, that the prison could not make a resister cease his action, and that the hunger strike was his final weapon.
\n
\nWhen the authorities sent Liang Su-jung \uff08\u6881\u8085\u620e\uff09to Green Island to persuade him, without success, he was \u2014 after more than twenty days of fasting \u2014 transferred to confinement at the Tri-Service General Hospital on Tingzhou Road and force-fed through a nasogastric tube twice daily for four years and seven months, the tube inserted more than three thousand times in all.
\n
\nAnnette Lu (Lu Hsiu-lien\u5442\u79c0\u84ee) was released on medical parole.
\n
\nThe Kuomintang agreed to the demands to release prisoners and to permit the forming of a party; Shih set a deadline of February 28, 1986, for their fulfillment. After resuming eating, he was returned to the military-law prison.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1986<\/td>Age 45<\/td>On January 6, Chen Chu\uff08\u9673\u83ca\uff09 was released.
\n
\nOn February 28, only Chen Chu had been released. Liang Su-jung explained that releasing the other political prisoners would take time, and Shih agreed to a one-month extension.
\n
\nOn March 28, the Kuomintang had still released no political prisoners. Shih resumed his hunger strike and was again sent to the Tri-Service General Hospital.
\n
\nOn July 3, Shih\u2019s hunger strike having exceeded three months, the Ministry of National Defense subjected him to forced nutrition.
\n
\nDuring the hunger strike he wrote letters urging Hsu Hsin-liang \uff08\u8a31\u4fe1\u826f\uff09to announce in the United States the establishment of the \u201cTaiwan Democratic Party\u201d and to move the party back to Taiwan; Hsu founded it in New York in May. The Kuomintang immediately set its own people in motion, and the so-called generation of defense lawyers founded the Democratic Progressive Party at Yuanshan on September 28.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1987<\/td>Age 46<\/td>On January 20, Yao Chia-wen\uff08\u59da\u5609\u6587\uff09 was released on parole.
\n
\nOn May 30, Huang Hsin-chieh \uff08\u9ec3\u4fe1\u4ecb\uff09and Chang Chun-hung \uff08\u5f35\u4fca\u5b8f\uff09were released on parole.
\n
\nOn July 15, Taiwan formally lifted the martial law that had been in force for thirty-eight years since 1949.
\nShih Ming Te declared himself innocent and refused Chiang Ching-kuo\u2019s amnesty.
\n
\nOn July 19 Shih Ming Te said: \u201cChiang Ching-kuo is a schemer. On the very day the National Security Act was passed, he announced the restoration of rights and the reduction of sentences, using the National Security Act to strip political prisoners of the constitutional right to appeal after the lifting of martial law. Chiang Ching-kuo\u2019s method is the rape of constitutional government!\u201d
\n
\nHe published Shih Ming Te\u2019s Political Will: The Final Defense at the Kaohsiung Incident Military Trial, which was soon banned.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1988<\/td>Age 47<\/td>In May, he again refused a commutation from President Lee Teng-hui \uff08\u674e\u767b\u8f1d\uff09.
\n
\nOn August 22, his eldest brother Shih Ming-cheng\uff08\u65bd\u660e\u6b63\uff09, who had quietly begun a hunger strike outside prison in support of Shih Ming Te, died four months later of cardiopulmonary failure brought on by malnutrition.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1989<\/td>Age 48<\/td>He published Spring in the Prison Cell, giving the royalties to Ms. Linda Gail Arrigo in gratitude.
\n
\nOn April 7, shocked by the self-immolation of Cheng Nan-jung (Nylon Cheng\u912d\u5357\u6995), he shaved off his beard in grief and indignation.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1990<\/td>Age 49<\/td>On May 20, President Lee Teng-hui declared the \u201cKaohsiung Incident verdicts void,\u201d and Shih Ming Te, restored to freedom as an innocent man, ended a hunger strike lasting four years and seven months. On his release he said to all the world\u2019s suffering: \u201cEndurance is not enough; there must be forgiveness.\u201d
\n
\nOn October 11, at the invitation of the U.S. Congress, he attended a hearing of the Foreign Affairs Committee and delivered testimony \u2014 I Bring Only Faith.
\nHe was awarded the Nylon Cheng Memorial Prize and the Kuo Yu-hsin Memorial Prize by the Formosan Association for Human Rights.
\n
\nIn December, he became president of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.
\n
\nOn December 10, the eleventh anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident, students from National Taiwan University and Soochow University staged a sit-in at the NTU gate protesting the Kuomintang government\u2019s arrest of the political prisoner Huang Hua; in the crowd Shih Ming Te met Jessica Gina Chen, a student at Soochow University, and fell in love at first sight. He recalled: \u201cIn one glance, I knew she was the woman of my life.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1991<\/td>Age 50<\/td>In autumn he returned to Taiwan and ran in the election for chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, specially bringing Jessica Gina Chen Shih to help campaign two weeks before the vote. In this indirect election Shih lost to Hsu Hsin-liang.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1992<\/td>Age 51<\/td>On January 23, Jessica Gina Chen left to study in France, and the two began a long-distance relationship sustained by letters and the ordinary telephone.
\n
\nIn spring, he advocated that the goal of building the nation was to make Taiwan into a welfare state.
\n
\nOn April 19, Shih Ming Te, together with Huang Hsin-chieh, Hsu Hsin-liang, and Lin I-hsiung, led tens of thousands in a march and sit-in demanding direct presidential election.
\n
\nOn May 10, the \u201cNew Taiwan Reconstruction Committee\u201d was established to promote a new constitution, a new state, and direct presidential election.
\n
\nOn December 19, he was elected in Tainan to the first fully re-elected Legislative Yuan.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1993<\/td>Age 52<\/td>In spring, he served as the DPP caucus convener in the Legislative Yuan, with Chen Shui-bian as secretary-general.
\n
\nOn April 26, he led DPP legislators to Singapore to observe the first Koo\u2013Wang Talks, expressing to the international community the Taiwanese people\u2019s opposition to unification.
\n
\nOn December 10, he led a delegation to Thailand to attend the founding conference of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats.
\n
\nOn December 4, Hsu Hsin-liang resigned to take responsibility for the party\u2019s defeat in the local elections, and Shih Ming Te succeeded him as DPP chairman.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1994<\/td>Age 53<\/td>In April, he was elected chairman of the DPP.
\n
\nOn October 26, he announced a resolution of the DPP Central Standing Committee advocating the \u201cdemilitarization of Kinmen and Matsu.\u201d
\n
\nOn October 28, Shih took the front line himself, holding a press conference at the Legislative Yuan and answering reporters\u2019 questions.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1995<\/td>Age 54<\/td>In spring, he ended his seventeen-year political marriage with Linda Gail Arrigo.
\n
\nOn September 14, he led the DPP\u2019s \u201cTaiwan National Security Delegation\u201d on a visit to the United States, and at the \u201cTaiwan National Security Conference\u201d held by the East Asia research center of George Washington University stated that safeguarding the security of the Far East and Southeast Asia was not Taiwan\u2019s responsibility alone. Shih emphasized: \u201cIf the DPP comes to power, it need not and will not declare Taiwan independent, because Taiwan has already been independent for half a century; next year\u2019s (1996) election will amount to a public declaration to the whole world that Taiwan is already a sovereign, independent state.\u201d
\n
\nOn October 24, in his general interpellation of the premier during the sixth session of the second Legislative Yuan, he stated that the DPP was willing to view the future structure of government with \u201ca mindset of grand reconciliation,\u201d seeking to forge a reconciled structure of power for a divided and fractured society.
\n
\nAs a victim of persecution and an opposition leader, Shih proposed \u201csocial grand reconciliation, political grand coalition.\u201d
\n
\nIn November, he was elected chairman of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats.
\n
\nOn December 14, Shih Ming Te, Lin Cho-shui\uff08\u6797\u6fc1\u6c34\uff09, and Chou Po-lun\uff08\u5468\u4f2f\u502b\uff09 met historically with New Party conveners Chen Kuei-miao\uff08\u9673\u7678\u6dfc\uff09, Jaw Shaw-kong\uff08\u8d99\u5c11\u5eb7\uff09, and Chou Chuan\uff08\u5468\u8343\uff09 in the Legislative Yuan caf\u00e9, opening an \u201cera of grand reconciliation\u201d whereby the hitherto irreconcilable DPP and New Party could join hands to advance legislation, check the Kuomintang, and change the political structure of lawmaking.
\n
\nHe was elected legislator for Tainan.
\n

\n

\n \"1995
\n 1995 - Shih Ming Te as Chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party<\/span>
\n <\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1996<\/td>Age 55<\/td>In February, as grand reconciliation had altered the political ecology of the Legislative Yuan, the DPP and New Party jointly nominated Shih to run for Speaker of the Legislative Yuan; but because his own party\u2019s Chen-faction legislators Chang Chin-cheng and Chu Hsing-yu, along with Li Ying-yuan, cast defecting votes, the effort failed at the last, losing by a single vote \u2014 eighty-one to eighty-two \u2014 to the Kuomintang\u2019s nominee Liu Sung-pan, in what became known as the \u201cFebruary Reform.\u201d
\n
\nOn March 8, in response to China\u2019s surface-to-surface missile exercises in Taiwan\u2019s waters, he took a fishing boat to the firing zone to express his stance against intimidation and in pursuit of peace.
\n
\nOn March 21, after the DPP\u2019s defeat in the presidential election, he resigned as DPP chairman.
\n
\nOn June 6, the anniversary of the Normandy landings of the Second World War, he married Jessica Gina Chen Shih.
\n
\nOn December 26, he launched the \u201cKaohsiung Incident Oral History Project,\u201d with the full support of his older friend Yu Chi-chung \uff08\u4f59\u7d00\u5fe0\uff09 of the China Times.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1997<\/td>Age 56<\/td>On February 25, on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the February 28 massacre, under Shih\u2019s leadership, legislators of three parties and one faction jointly proposed and passed the redesignation of February 28 Memorial Day as a national holiday \u2014 the only holiday established through legislative procedure.
\n
\nOn April 1, for promoting direct presidential election he was sentenced to fifty days\u2019 detention; refusing to pay a fine in lieu, he served the sentence as a sitting legislator.
\n
\nOn the return of Hong Kong to China, Shih Ming Te said that he was not anti-China, still less anti-Communist; he was against war. So long as China did not renounce the use of force against Taiwan, he would not set foot on Chinese soil \u2014 avoiding even its airspace \u2014 not visiting Hong Kong after 1997, nor Macau after 1999.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1998<\/td>Age 57<\/td>On March 16, his elder daughter Shih Mino was born.
\n
\nOn May 28, seeking to heal the wounds of the White Terror, he led cross-party consultations to promote the \u201cCompensation Act for Wrongful Trials for Sedition and Espionage During the Martial Law Period,\u201d while recusing himself, on grounds of conflict of interest, from receiving any compensation. After the act passed, he immediately had someone seek out the wife and daughter of Han Jo-chun, a political prisoner shot thirty-six years earlier, and located in Vienna Han Jo-chun\u2019s daughter \u2014 a pianist who had been renamed Ching-Ling Cheng \u2014 so that, wholly unaware, she might receive the compensation.
\n
\nIn winter, he was elected legislator for Taipei.
\n
\nOn December 10, the nineteenth anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident, before the Green Island prison, Shih said: \u201cThose in power have not asked the victims to relinquish their right to grief; yet the victims bear a noble duty they must perform \u2014 to light the fire of forgiveness!\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1999<\/td>Age 58<\/td>In July, he served as convener of the National Alliance for the Abolition of the National Assembly.
\n
\nIn autumn, he returned his party membership card to Lin I-hsiung, then DPP chairman, and was no longer a DPP member, though he agreed not to make this public.
\n
\nOn September 30, his younger daughter Shih Chia was born.
\n
\nThe \u201cKaohsiung Incident Oral History Project\u201d completed nearly six million characters of oral-history transcripts and, distilling six hundred thousand characters, published through the China Times the four-volume Treasuring Formosa: Vol. I, Toward Formosa \u2014 The Postwar Awakening of Dissent; Vol. II, A Party Without a Name \u2014 The Rise of the Formosa Group; Vol. III, Violence and Poetry \u2014 The Kaohsiung Incident and the Military Trial; and Vol. IV, History Congealed \u2014 A Photographic History of Taiwan\u2019s Democracy Movement, 1977\u20131979.
\nOn December 10, the twentieth anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident, Shih said: \u201cForgiveness is the most beautiful full stop to the end of suffering.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2000<\/td>Age 59<\/td>On March 4, Lin I-hsiung \uff08\u6797\u7fa9\u96c4\uff09and Yeh Chu-lan\uff08\u8449\u83ca\u862d\uff09 accompanied presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian \uff08\u9673\u6c34\u6241\uff09to meet Shih Ming Te, reaching the following conclusions:
\nLin I-hsiung: Today there are perhaps a few conclusions. First, on the principle of upholding Taiwan as a sovereign, independent state, there can be absolutely no concession. Second, decisions on personnel and policy after the election should establish a consultative mechanism. Third, the party\u2019s institutions should be reformed toward \u201cinternalization,\u201d and the legislative caucus toward a \u201cresponsibility system\u201d and a \u201cseniority system.\u201d
\nChen Shui-bian: After winning, we must form a majority governing coalition; if we cannot rely on Chairman Shih, how are we to negotiate with others? It cannot be done. Rely on Pao-ching? Impossible. Everything must be entrusted to the Chairman.
\n
\nOn March 18, Shih Ming Te spoke at Chen Shui-bian\u2019s election-eve rally in Kaohsiung.
\n
\nChen Shui-bian was elected president \u2014 the first peaceful transfer of power in the Chinese-speaking world. That night he telephoned Chairman Lin I-hsiung, saying that his youthful dream of ending Taiwan\u2019s fate as a colony had been realized; he therefore announced his departure from the DPP and his return to being simply Shih Ming Te of Taiwan.
\n
\nIn June, he went to Warsaw, Poland, to attend the first World Forum for Democracy, exchanging views with those from around the world long devoted to democracy and human rights.
\n
\nOn July 17, at the invitation of Japan\u2019s Economic Security Research Association, he went to the Japanese House of Councillors to deliver an address, \u201cTaiwan in the Taiwanese Mind \u2014 Taiwan Is a Sovereign, Independent State.\u201d
\n
\nIn December, he served as second-term president of the ROC\u2013U.S. Inter-Parliamentary Amity Association.
\n

\n

\n \"2000
\n 2000 - Shih Ming Te campaigning for Chen Shui-bian\u2019s presidential bid<\/span>
\n <\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2001<\/td>Age 60<\/td>On March 8, he received the Outstanding Democracy Award from the Chinese Democracy Education Foundation in California.
\n
\nOn June 8, to meet the challenges of globalization he founded the \u201cMountain\u201d Alliance and served as its convener.
\n
\nIn summer, he met the visiting Chinese democracy activist Wei Jingsheng\uff08\u9b4f\u4eac\u751f\uff09, and the two spoke at length about the development of democracy and human rights on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
\n
\nIn winter, running as an independent for the Taipei City legislature, he polled first or second in the surveys yet lost \u2014 with a high vote \u2014 squeezed out in the two-party contest.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2002<\/td>Age 61<\/td>He advocated that Kaohsiung should become a free port \u2014 Taiwan\u2019s Hong Kong and Amsterdam \u2014 with direct sailings to major Chinese port cities, to meet the economic transformations of globalization. This was a far-sighted plan: at the time Kaohsiung was still the world\u2019s third-largest port, and, facing China\u2019s rapid rise, politics should return to Taipei and the free economy to Kaohsiung \u2014 Taipei becoming the Washington that maneuvered with China, and Kaohsiung the New York that dealt with the world. Running as an independent for mayor of Kaohsiung, he was defeated, squeezed between the two parties.
\n
\nIn October, he published the essay collection The Selfless Devotee, the Ardent Revolutionary.
\n
\nIn November, he published The Eternal Theme: Dialogues Between Shih Ming Te and Wei Jingsheng.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2003<\/td>Age 62<\/td>In spring, in response to the Chen Shui-bian government\u2019s use of the \u201cKaohsiung Incident Archives Exhibition\u201d to wage a political struggle against Vice President Lu Hsiu-lien of the Kaohsiung Incident generation \u2014 its crude manner of display gravely violating the privacy and dignity of the political victims \u2014 he filed a state-compensation lawsuit asserting the victims\u2019 right to be informed, with Li Nien-tsu serving as pro bono defense counsel. His wife, Jessica Gina Chen Shih, began her research into the White Terror national archives.
\n
\nIn summer, he learned to drive and obtained his license.
\n
\nIn autumn, at the invitation of George Mason University to serve as a visiting professor, the family moved to the United States. Shih Mino entered the first grade of elementary school there, and Shih Chia attended kindergarten.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2004<\/td>Age 63<\/td>On February 28, he held a church wedding with Jessica Gina Chen in Washington, D.C.
\n
\nOn March 19, the March 19 Shooting Incident occurred.
\n
\nIn August, returning to Taiwan from the United States, Shih Ming Te put forward a new proposition on cross-strait affairs \u2014 the \u201cEU-ization of One China\u201d \u2014 hoping to break the cross-strait impasse, and founded the \u201cAssociation for the Promotion of a Parliamentary System,\u201d committing himself to the movement for constitutional reform.
\n
\nIn winter, running as an independent for the Taipei City legislature on a platform of \u201cthe parliamentary system\u201d and \u201cblue\u2013green reconciliation,\u201d he again polled first or second yet again lost, with a high vote, squeezed out in the party contest.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2005<\/td>Age 64<\/td>On October 6, the Department of Political Science of National Taiwan University, \u201cin recognition of Mr. Shih Ming Te\u2019s outstanding contributions to Taiwan\u2019s democratic development,\u201d specially established the \u201cShih Ming Te Lecture,\u201d with the aims of promoting ethnic harmony, political reconciliation, and cross-strait peace.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2006<\/td>Age 65<\/td>In May, he held a dialogue with the Nobel Peace laureate and former South African president F. W. de Klerk on \u201cReconciliation: The South African Experience, the Taiwanese Vision.\u201d
\n
\nIn July, an early health examination discovered a one-centimeter liver cancer, successfully treated by radiofrequency ablation.
\n
\nThe corruption and abuse of power of the Chen Shui-bian administration, firmly evidenced, had roused public indignation to its height.
\n
\nOn August 7, Shih published in the China Times \u201cAn Open Letter to President Chen Shui-bian,\u201d which said:
\nThe president is the brightest beacon of the nation\u2019s morality. The president is the bodily embodiment of national sovereignty. The president is the cornerstone of a stable regime. When the beacon is tarnished, when the body is defiled, when the cornerstone tilts, what can the people still hope for?
\nBrother Bian, we were wrong. After coming to power, we did not lead this party well; we did not lead Taiwan toward an honest and capable society. We must courageously admit our error; we should bow and step down. To admit error frankly will earn the people\u2019s understanding. Stubbornness and sophistry will only bring greater humiliation and retribution.
\n
\nThe value of democratic politics lies in not fearing to change the nation\u2019s helmsman! The gravest crisis of the nation lies in the people losing confidence and trust! Set an example! To show weakness is the virtue of the strong! Only the truly strong dare to admit error and dare to let go!
\n
\nOn August 12, Shih launched the \u201cMillion Voices Against Corruption, President Chen Must Go\u201d campaign, at one hundred NT dollars per person; within seven working days it drew a million pledges of support.
\n
\nOn September 9, a peaceful sit-in demonstration formally began on Ketagalan Boulevard before the Presidential Office, demanding that the corruption-implicated President Chen Shui-bian step down.
\n
\nOn September 15, the \u201cSiege\u201d action peacefully and successfully led a million people once around the Presidential Office; the crowd moved from Ketagalan Boulevard to the railway station to continue the peaceful sit-in. That night, having peacefully relocated and delivered his address, Shih knelt in emotion and said to heaven: \u201cThank you, dear people of Taiwan; we have the confidence to defend Taiwan\u2019s democracy, freedom, human rights, and sovereignty.\u201d
\n
\nOn October 10, in the \u201cNationwide Siege,\u201d the crowd peacefully and ardently encircled the National Day ceremony at the Presidential Office; fearing that the crowd might lose control, Shih led them away from the Presidential Office and marched eastward along Zhongxiao East Road.
\n
\nIn December, as the anti-corruption headquarters hoped the crowd would return to normal life, commander-in-chief Shih Ming Te announced his \u201cself-confinement\u201d at the movement headquarters on Jinan Road.
\n

\n

\n \"2006
\n 2006 - September 9: The opening of the \u201cMillion Voices Against Corruption, President Chen Must Go\u201d campaign<\/span>
\n <\/div>
\n
\n

\n \"\u767e\u842c\u4eba\u6c11\u5012\u6241\"
\n <\/span>
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2007<\/td>Age 66<\/td>On April 1, he announced the end of his \u201cself-confinement.\u201d
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\nOn August 3, Shih Ming Te and fifteen others \u2014 sixteen in all \u2014 were indicted by the Taipei District Prosecutors Office for violating the Assembly and Parade Act in leading the Red Shirt Movement\u2019s Nationwide Siege.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2008<\/td>Age 67<\/td>On September 5, the Reverend Kao Chun-ming\uff08\u9ad8\u4fca\u660e\uff09 apologized to Shih Ming Te for remarks attacking him during the Red Shirt period, repented of his improper words, and the two reconciled publicly.
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\nFor publicly opposing the corrupt DPP president, he suffered the most merciless and venomous slander and abuse from former comrades and even kin \u2014 a Cultural-Revolution-style campaign of annihilating attack, which caused him profound anguish.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2009<\/td>Age 68<\/td>In February, the sixteen Red Shirt figures charged with violating the Assembly and Parade Act were acquitted.
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\nOn the third anniversary of the Red Shirt Movement, he published The Commander-in-Chief\u2019s Confession.
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\nHe protested that the Ma Ying-jeou\uff08\u99ac\u82f1\u4e5d\uff09 government, at the thirtieth-anniversary commemoration of the Kaohsiung Incident, had honored Wang Hsi-ling \uff08\u6c6a\u5e0c\u82d3\uff09 \u2014 the former Military Intelligence Bureau director who had masterminded the terrorist assassination in the Henry Liu case.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2010<\/td>Age 69<\/td>On the thirtieth anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident military trial, he published Sedition \/ Will.
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\nOn August 10, Shih Ming Te solemnly warned the leaders on both sides of the strait, publishing in the United Daily News, the Liberty Times, the Apple Daily, and other papers \u201cAn Urgent Appeal from Shih Ming Te\u201d: hoping to remind President Ma Ying-jeou, the Taiwanese people, and the government of the People\u2019s Republic of China to face squarely the crisis of Taiwan\u2019s destruction implicit in the People\u2019s Republic\u2019s \u201cusing commerce to coerce politics\u201d against the Republic of China through the unilateral-termination clause of Article 16 of the ECFA.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2011<\/td>Age 70<\/td>In summer, he published the work Common Sense: What Every Taiwanese Should Know. Its preface reads:
\nThis book of mine, Common Sense, is about the fact that we already live in a sovereign, independent state, and yet our countrymen still absurdly argue over whether \u201cour country\u201d is independent, and over which country\u2019s people we are. So I can only, as if telling a story, tell everyone some common sense, so that Taiwan\u2019s twenty-three million people may unite, know themselves clearly, meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, and no longer linger in the confrontation and hatred of the twentieth.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2012<\/td>Age 71<\/td>In December he launched the \u201cTaiwan Shrine of Remembrance and Tribute.\u201d To honor the contributions of those who came before, Shih Ming Te, together with figures from the academic and cultural worlds, planned the founding of the Taiwan Shrine of Remembrance and Tribute, hoping to enshrine those worthy to stand as exemplars of the Taiwanese spirit.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2013<\/td>Age 72<\/td>On June 21, Shih Ming Te held a ceremony \u201cin homage to the martyrs\u201d in the auditorium of the Legislative Yuan, the nation\u2019s highest representative body, in distant memorial to the Five Martyrs shot in the Taiyuan revolutionary uprising of 1970 \u2014 Chiang Ping-hsing, Chen Liang, Cheng Chin-ho, Hsieh Tung-jung, and Chan Tien-tseng. Choking with emotion, Shih said: \u201cDemocracy and freedom are the spoils of those who resist \u2014 never the bestowal of rulers. In my own incapacity, it took forty-three years to carry the Five Martyrs of Taiyuan into the Legislative Yuan, so that they might rest in peace.\u201d
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\nHe published \u201cHeritage and Vision: Taiwan, Please Love Everyone,\u201d supporting the restitution to homosexuals of the natural human rights that are their due.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2014<\/td>Age 73<\/td>On May 27, Shih Ming Te, together with figures from Taiwan\u2019s blue and green camps experienced in international and cross-strait affairs \u2014 Cheng Chien-jen\uff08\u7a0b\u5efa\u4eba\uff09, Hung Chi-chang\uff08\u6d2a\u5947\u660c\uff09, Chang Wu-yueh\uff08\u5f35\u4e94\u5cb3\uff09, Su Chi\uff08\u8607\u8d77\uff09, Chen Ming-tong\uff08\u9673\u660e\u901a\uff09, and Chiao Jen-ho \uff08\u7126\u4ec1\u548c\uff09 \u2014 after several months of discussion reached a consensus and issued \u201cOur Appeal: Five Principles for Cross-Strait Relations,\u201d to jointly defend Taiwan\u2019s sovereignty.
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\n1. Respect the status quo, and do not unilaterally change it.
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\n2. The status quo is that the Republic of China and the People\u2019s Republic of China have coexisted since 1949, and that the two governments have already shifted from \u201cbelligerent governments\u201d to \u201cgovernments of divided rule.\u201d
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\n3. The \u201cOne China Principle\u201d has been narrowed and hardened by some into a synonym for \u201cthe People\u2019s Republic of China\u201d; it can neither represent the cross-strait status quo nor is it any longer acceptable to the twenty-three million people of the Republic of China on Taiwan. It is proposed that it be replaced by the \u201cGreater One China\u201d framework, so as to conform to the status quo and advance toward reconciliation.
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\n4. The \u201cGreater One China\u201d framework is intended to have the \u201cRepublic of China\u201d and the \u201cPeople\u2019s Republic of China\u201d jointly constitute, above them, an incomplete international legal person that handles matters of mutual concern by consensus \u2014 a transitional arrangement for the present stage of cross-strait relations.
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\n5. Under the \u201cGreater One China\u201d framework, the two sides should eliminate hostility and jointly safeguard the peace and security of the region. Both sides pledge not to use force against each other, and not to conclude with any state a military accord detrimental to the other; both enjoy the right to participate in the United Nations and other international organizations and to establish normal relations with other states.
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2016<\/td>Age 75<\/td>On May 21, Shih Ming Te announced that he would enter the citizens\u2019 petition process as an independent candidate, raising high the banner \u201cReconciliation Is Taiwan\u2019s Only Road,\u201d putting forward the proposition of a \u201ccoalition government,\u201d working to integrate all parties and factions, adopting the parliamentary system as the central governmental structure, and amending the constitution by referendum.
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\nShih Ming Te advocated the \u201cGreater One China\u201d framework, whereby the Republic of China and the People\u2019s Republic of China would jointly constitute, above them, an incomplete international legal person to handle matters of mutual concern by consensus.
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\nShih Ming Te declared: \u201cFrom the age of sixteen, when I resolved to sit the examination for the military academy and overthrow the dictatorial regime, I have not for a moment dared to forget \u2018Country, Duty, Honor\u2019; I have held \u2018Liberty, Equality, Fraternity\u2019 as a mirror, and dared not betray them.\u201d As he was unable to gather sufficient petition signatures, he announced his withdrawal.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2020<\/td>Age 79<\/td>He published Death Row \u2014 Memoirs of Shih Ming Te, Vol. I, 1962\u20131964.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2021<\/td>Age 80<\/td>The two things Shih Ming Te most wished to accomplish in the last of his life were to build a Wailing Wall and the Taiwan Shrine of Remembrance and Tribute. On December 24 he disclosed that, when Chen Chu was secretary-general of the Presidential Office, President Tsai Ing-wen\uff08\u8521\u82f1\u6587\uff09 had entrusted the construction of the Taiwan Shrine of Remembrance and Tribute to Premier Su Tseng-chang\uff08\u8607\u8c9e\u660c\uff09, but that Su Tseng-chang had shelved it.
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\nHe republished Shih Ming Te\u2019s Political Will: The Final Defense at the Kaohsiung Incident Military Trial.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2022<\/td>Age 81<\/td>On January 8 \u2014 the same day on which, forty-two years earlier, Shih Ming Te had been arrested after his twenty-six-day flight following the Kaohsiung Incident \u2014 the Chinese Association for Human Rights, in recognition of his contributions to Taiwan\u2019s human-rights movement, conferred on him the Lifetime Achievement Award for Human Rights.
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\nHe published The Military Trial \u2014 Memoirs of Shih Ming Te, Vol. III, 1980.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2023<\/td>Age 82<\/td>He published Kinmen and Matsu: Fuse or Bait? \u2014 An Olive Branch to General Secretary Xi.
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\nA one-centimeter tumor was again found in his liver; on November 13 he was again treated by radiofrequency ablation, which triggered a series of complications, and he was then admitted to intensive care for forty-seven days in all.
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\nIn the ward he received the new book his wife, Jessica Gina Chen Shih, had published, brought over by the publisher \u2014 The Age of the Secret Agent and His Life \u2014 a book dedicated to him.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2024<\/td>Age 83<\/td>On January 15, his eighty-third birthday, at 1:47 a.m., in the embrace of his wife and the company of his daughters, he departed this life. In accordance with his wishes, the family declined a funeral ceremony, a memorial service, and a commemorative gathering; his coffin lay in repose at home for one hundred days, after which he was cremated and given a flower burial, his ashes enshrined in the family shrine at home.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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