Chen Yi (Chinese: 陳儀; pinyin: Chén Yí; courtesy names Gongxia (公俠) and later Gongqia (公洽), sobriquet Tuisu (退素); May 3, 1883 – June 18, 1950) was a Chinese military officer and politician who served as the chief executive and garrison commander of Taiwan Province after the Empire of Japan surrendered to the Republic of China.

In June 1948, he was appointed Chairman of Zhejiang Province, but was dismissed and arrested when his plan to surrender to the Chinese Communist Party was discovered.

After 1927, he worked in the Military Affairs Department (軍政部), as director of the Shanghai Arsenal, viceminister of war and since 1934 as chairman of the Fujian province, and Secretary-General of the Executive Yuan.

As a result of the conflict, Chen had to spend considerable effort and political capital fending off accusations of maladministration made against him by the influential Tan.

Chen publicly expressed his admiration with jealousy about the advanced life quality Taiwanese people enjoyed compared with the Chinese mainlanders who suffered from prolonged war incurred destruction and lack of further modernization.

Native Taiwanese, who were generally anti-Communist and supportive of the KMT, cheered the retrocession, believing their exports could now be directed to help China rather than Japan.

[7]: 924  In addition, new policies announced in early 1947 further enraged locals: direct elections would be delayed until late 1949, despite the adoption of the Chinese Constitution in 1947; land and properties seized by the Japanese fifty years earlier would only be available to wealthy individuals who were connected to the government rather than those families whose lands had been seized; and monopolistic control would be concentrated among a few government officials.

[7]: 927  Riots spread to the rest of Taiwan over the next few days;[10] in Taipei, civic leaders formed the "Committee to Settle the February 28th Incident" to meet with the Governor-General, urgently requesting that martial law be lifted to reduce the consequences of protests.

[10] During the address, troops and police continued to shoot unarmed civilians in several incidents witnessed by American consulate officials, killing approximately thirty.

[7]: 927  In the wake of the radio address, Chen promised to withdraw government forces by the evening of March 3, and a "Loyal Service Corps", consisting mainly of students under the authority of the Committee, patrolled the streets to keep order.

[7]: 928  [10] The committee's recommendations, submitted on March 7, were intended to upgrade the status of Taiwan from a colony to a province of China and give the native Taiwanese a greater role in their own governance,[7]: 933–935  which Chen had already mostly agreed to.

[10] Unexpectedly, since its formation, the [Committee to Settle the February 28th Incident] has given no thought to relief work such as medical care for the wounded and compenstation to the killed and so forth.

On March 8, local forces cleared the streets of Keelung and Taipei with machine gun fire, allowing 8–10,000 police and troops from the Twenty-first Division to land.

[2] According to reports from foreigners in Taiwan, leaflets signed by Chiang promised leniency for those who had fled the initial wave of killings and urged them to return; many of those who did so were imprisoned or executed.

[11] After the initial indiscriminate killing and looting, troops selectively targeted 'elites' such as students, intellectuals, civic leaders, people identified as previously critical of government policies, and prominent businesspeople to eliminate resistance.

In January 1949, Chen Yi thought the KMT position was untenable, so to rescue the 18 million residents of the Nanjing-Shanghai-Hangzhou region from a meaningless war, he attempted to defect to the Chinese Communist Party.

In May 1950, alleged for espionage case, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the Taiwan military court to sentence Chen Yi to death.