Chungli Incident

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Chungli Incident (中壢事件) is an one of the most significant event in the democracy movement in Taiwan. It was caused by an election scandal in the 1977 magistrates' election in Taoyuan County. The election supervisor of the town of Chungli was caught while attempting to turn some votes of independent candidate Hsu Hsin-liang into invalid votes, which provoked a confrontation between the election staff and the voters; shortly after, the police rushed to the scene and took the election supervisor under protection. More than ten thousand people, disappointed by the police's action, surrounded the Chungli police station and demanded the police to explain their action, which was ignored by the police. The mob stormed and torched the police station, and virtually razed the entire structure as well as many police vehicles; two men were shot dead by the police during the storming of the police station. The authority sent several military detachments into the town to maintain order, but order the soldiers not to fire under any circumstance in fear of triggering an island-wide uprising. The military withdrew after order was restored. After recount, the authority declared Hsu Hsin-liang the winner of the election, and this has been seen by the democracy activists as a major victory.

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