How Autocracies Abuse Historical Narratives
© Jamesonwu1972 (https://www.threads.net/@jamesonwu1972)
On February 28, 1947, gunfire erupted on the streets of Taipei. What began as a protest against government corruption turned into a brutal crackdown by Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) forces. Over the following weeks, thousands of Taiwanese civilians were executed, imprisoned, or disappeared in what became known as the 228 Massacre. For decades, discussion of this tragedy was suppressed under martial law. Only in the 1990s did Taiwan begin openly confronting its past, acknowledging the victims and reckoning with historical injustices. The struggle for historical truth in Taiwan is not just about the past—it is a fight for identity, memory, and the right to self-determination.
This fight is now being challenged by a new front: foreign regimes rewriting Taiwan’s history to serve their political interests. A recent essay by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev exemplifies this dangerous trend. In “National Identity and Political Choice on the Example of Russia and China”, published in December 2024, Medvedev claimed that both Ukrainian and Taiwanese identities were artificially created by Western powers. [1] This attempt to delegitimize these identities aligns closely with both Moscow’s and Beijing’s authoritarian narratives, aimed at justifying territorial claims and suppressing the aspirations of independent peoples. But history tells a different story.
History as a Weapon: China’s and Russia’s Autocratic Playbook
Autocratic regimes have long manipulated history to legitimize their rule. In Russia, already Ivan the Terrible (1530–1584), first Tsar of his dynasty, fabricated a narrative linking his rule directly to the last dynasty of Kyivan Rus’, the Ruriks.[2] Later, dictator Joseph Stalin used historical revisionism to justify purges, for example by publishing a distorted “Short Course” on the history of the Soviet Union that became required reading for cadres across the USSR and even for the Chinese Communist Party until the 1950s.[3]
In ancient China, history has also been wielded used as a political tool. Scholars in imperial courts selectively cited historical precedents to justify policy, rather than openly debating ideas.[4] Today, the Communist Party criminalizes interpretations that contradict its official line under the charge of “historical nihilism” (历史虚无主义). This is especially evident in the Party’s rigid control over narratives about Taiwan. According to Beijing, Taiwan has been an inseparable part of China since ancient times – a claim that erases centuries of Taiwan’s distinct history.
Medvedev: Twisting the Past to Please China
Medvedev’s December 2024 essay appears tailored to court favor with China, Russia’s most important strategic partner. The publishing was timed to his visit with Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping.[5] In it, he echoes Vladimir Putin’s infamous “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” (2021), which denied Ukrainian statehood and identity.[6] Medvedev extends this false logic to Taiwan, claiming that western powers artificially created a separate Taiwanese identity, distinctly from China. For example, the west conducted allegedly a tactic of “linguistic separatism” i.e., over-emphasized the differences in the languages between Taiwanese and Chinese mainlanders. Tactics like these apparently successfully fostered a distinct Taiwanese identity, or so this essay goes. This narrative matches with Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is merely a province in need of reunification.
Yet Medvedev’s history is deeply flawed. Taiwan’s identity did not emerge from Western “divide and rule” tactics as he claims but from its unique and complex past.
The Historical Complexities That Medvedev and Beijing Ignore
For thousands of years, Taiwan was home to indigenous Austronesian peoples who had no connection to any Chinese empire.[7] The few early Chinese visitors to Taiwan consistently regarded Taiwan as foreign territory. The earliest encounter may have occurred under the rule of Chinese emperor Sun Quan (孫權 182 – 252) of the Eastern Wu. A military expedition is said to have reached a land called Yizhou 夷洲 – literally meaning “Barbarian Isle”. Barbarian, or Yi 夷 is a term that ancient Chinese used to describe non-Chinese people. However, scholars debate whether Yizhou actually refers to Taiwan or to the Japanese Ryukyu Islands. Even if the expedition did land in Taiwan, simply knowing of a place does not equate to governing it.[8]
Also, the discoverer Wang Dayuan (汪大淵, 1311–1350), described Taiwan as “the apparent beginning of oversea territories” (海外諸國，蓋由此始).”[9] Even during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Taiwan was outside Chinese control; The diplomat and explorer Zheng He (鄭和, 1371–1433) recorded its existence, where he merely encountered Japanese traders and indigenous communities and reportedly no Chinese settlers.[10]
In the 17th century, Dutch and Spanish colonial powers were the first to colonialize Taiwan when they installed trade posts. The decaying Ming court of ancient China showed no interest in the island, with notable exception of the Peng Hu islands, a group of islands between the main island of Taiwan and the Chinese coast. The Dutch, by than the only remaining western power of Taiwan, respected that claim and moved to Taiwan.[11] Koxinga (鄭成功, 1624–1662), a half-Japanese warlord who opposed the Qing dynasty (the dynasty that followed the overthrown Ming in 1644), defeated the remaining Dutch and installed a short-lived regime in Taiwan. The Qing court was initially not interested in annexing Taiwan, considering it a land of savages. However, after they defeated Koxinga in 1684, there was a security interest to prevent foreign powers, such as the Dutch, from settling there again. Thus, after heated debates in the Qing court, the emperor Kangxi decided to integrate Taiwan into the Chinese empire.[12]
The idea that Western powers instigated Taiwanese identity is further contradicted by events in 1895. In the first Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, the Japanese empire defeated the Qing dynasty in a war over Korea. As a consequence, China ceded Taiwan to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Local Taiwanese residents opposed another colonial power and in response, local leaders declared the establishment of the Republic of Taiwan (台灣民主國) – the first attempt at an independent Taiwanese state. The Taiwanese state lasted only for slightly longer than 100 days, until it was defeated by the next colonial power, Japan.
Still, this declaration illustrates that the history has far more complicated twists and
turns than such a politized essay as the one from Medvedev suggests.
Ironically, even the early Communist Party of China (CPC) supported Taiwanese independence. In 1936, Mao Zedong told journalist Edgar Snow that Taiwan had the right to self-determination.[13] In 1947, during the 228 Massacre, Mao’s forces broadcast messages supporting Taiwanese resistance against KMT rule, declaring “we support Taiwan’s independence”.[14] Only after the Nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949 did Beijing reverse its stance, now claiming Taiwan as an inseparable part of China.
Vergangenheitsbewältigung vs. Historical Amnesia
© Wikicommons / Fred Hsu
In Germany, the process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung – coming to terms with the past -has been central to its post-war identity. Germany acknowledges its darkest historical chapters, ensuring that memory remains open to scrutiny and debate. Taiwan, too, has embraced this approach, critically examining the 228 Massacre and other atrocities of the White Terror Period during the KMT’s past authoritarian rule.
By contrast, China and Russia suppress historical reckoning. In Russia, discussing Stalin‘s crimes is increasingly taboo. In China, historians risk imprisonment for challenging Party-approved narratives. This difference matters: a society that freely debates its past is less vulnerable to political manipulation.
As George Orwell warned, “who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Autocracies rewrite history not just to shape narratives but to justify wars and domestic repression. The fight for historical truth is therefore more than a scholarly pursuit. It is a defense of democracy itself. Germany and Taiwan demonstrate that reckoning with history strengthens societies rather than weakens them. The world must resist authoritarian attempts to rewrite the past, because in doing so, we protect the future of free and open societies.
Taiwan’s history belongs to its people, not to autocrats rewriting the past for political gain.
[1] Medvedev Dmitry, “О национальной идентичности и политическом выборе: опыт России и Китая” [National Identity and Political Choice on the Example of Russia and China], The International Affairs, 13.12.2024, https://interaffairs.ru/news/show/49351 english: https://germany.mid.ru/de/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/article_by_dmitry_medvedev_deputy_chairman_of_the_security_council_of_russian_federation_national_id/. Simplified Chinese: https://pekin.mid.ru/zh/news/18274685481275418/
[2] Orlando Figes, The Story of Russia (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2022), 57.
[3] Hua-Yu Li, China Learns from the Soviet Union, 1949-Present (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010), 107–30.
[4] Jonathan Unger, Using the Past to Serve the Present: Historiography and Politics in Contemporary China, Illustrated edition (Armonk, N.Y: Routledge, 1993).
[5] “Xi Jinping Meets with Chairman of the United Russia Party of Russia Dmitry Medvedev_Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China,” Presidential Executive Office, December 12, 2024, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xw/zyxw/202412/t20241218_11496601.html.
[6] “Article by Vladimir Putin ”On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” n.d., http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181.
[7] Denny Roy, Taiwan: A Political History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 11–12.
[8] 周婉窈 [Zhou Wanyao] 台灣歷史圖説 [Illustrated History of Taiwan] (Taibei: Academia Sinica, 1998)
[9] Wang Dayuan, 島夷志略 [A Short Account on the Islands of the Barbarians], accessed February 18, 2025, https://archive.ph/nb2l3#selection-457.153-457.162.
[10] Roy, Taiwan, 11.
[11] Roy, 15.
[12] Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York London: W. W. Norton, 1991), 56.
[13] Edgar Snow, Red Star over China: The Classic Account of the Birth of Chinese Communism (New York: Random House, 1944), 96.
[14] Dehao Fang, “毛澤東：我們贊成台灣獨立” [Mao Zedong: We Are in Favour of Taiwan’s Independence.], 2021.07.29, https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/ear/history-mao-07292021060149.html.
