二二八事件前的一九四六年，臺灣官民雙方曾在報紙期刊展開歷時一整年的激烈論戰。官方指控受日本殖民統治五十年的臺灣人已經「奴化」，非得經過「中國化」，不能享有同等對待。臺灣人知識份子則強力反擊，認為官方以此為藉口掩飾統治失敗，並對日本統治功過重新評價。 本文旨在檢視此項「臺人奴化」論戰的過程與內容，並指出，戰後陳儀當局的統治帶有嚴重的政治歧視，其「中國化」政策的思維方式與舊殖民者無異，對臺灣人而言，祖國的「光復」只不過是同族的「再殖民」。其次，「奴化」的指控對臺灣人尊嚴傷害至深，受挫的臺灣精英企圖自我防衛，乃從過去被殖民經驗中尋找「我者」與「他者」的區別，亦即，「日本統治近代化論」其實可以說是「臺人奴化論」的反論。 最後，本文也指出戰後臺灣人知識份子對臺灣文化主體性的主張，而對中國的失望與自主、自治意識的增強，在二二八事件之前，臺灣人的祖國認同已逐漸消褪。

Before the 228 Uprising, there were many fierce debates among officials and Taiwanese people in newspapers and journals throughout the year of 1946. the authority censured that Taiwanese had been “enslaved” from fifty years of colonization by Japanese, and they further insisted that Taiwanese should not be treated equally before being “ Chinesized”. Taiwanese intellectuals strongly counterattacked and deemed that the officials were making an excuse for their maladministration. At the same time, the intellectuals reevaluated the legacy of Japanese rule over the island. This artilc examines the process of the debate over “T’ai-jen nu-hua” and argues that, fisrt, Chen Yi’s postwar governing policies implicated huge discrimination. The “Chinesization” policy was just another appearance as the same thinking mode as the old colonizer. To Taiwanese, all this meant that “restore to the mother country” was nothing but being “recolonized by a compatriot”. Second, the censure of “T’ai-jen nu-hua” seriously hurt Taiwanese people’s dignity. Humiliated Taiwanese elites intended to therefore acknowledge the difference between “us” and “them” from then colonized past. Namely, the discourse of “modernization through Japanese ruling” became a counter-argument to the condemnation of “T’ai-jen nu-hua”. This article also points out Taiwanese intellectuals’ assertion about the subjectivity of Taiwanese culture. In despair of mainland Chinese governing and thus the enhancement of a self-governing consciousness, the island’s Chinese identity withered away before the 228 Uprising.