Formosa Betrayed

by George H. Kerr

that the Ambassador’s private secretary was not an American citizen, but a national of the country to which the Ambassador was accredited.

He was a man answerable to the Generalissimo and not to the American government.

the legal status of the island might be challenged and China’s qualifications as an interim trustee might be called into review by the United Nations.

I noted that all Formosan leaders who sought intervention by the United States or the United Nations were very keenly aware of Formosa’s unsettled legal status, and would continue to raise the issue at every opportunity.

As for Communism, my comment on our failure to discover any significant Communist leadership or organization, and the universal lack of sympathy or interest in Communist propaganda would of course have been most unwelcome to the Generalissimo, for it contradicted fundament...

Its loss to us now by default may cost us heavily if we should need to occupy Formosa in the future.

The most extreme proposal called for creation of a United Nations trusteeship or protectorate. This should be set up for a stated period of time, and subject to review at a reasonable interval before the proposed terminal date, or until a local plebiscite would afford the Formosans themselves an opportunity to determine their permanent status.

Formosa, it seemed to me, was the Achilles’ heel.

If we wanted to maintain American and United Nations interests along the Western Pacific frontier, Formosa would have to be in friendly hands to complete the chain.

This might be admissible if Chiang and the Nationalists enjoyed the support of the Formosans, but the March affair had embittered relations with the mainland beyond hope of recovery.

Why not intervene while we had a legal basis for doing so?

The Navy was concerned lest this large island slip under Communist control, for it could dominate the seas lying between our bases in Japan, Okinawa, and the Philippines.

In naval offices we recalled with regret the Navy’s proposal to place the island under an American naval administration before Japan’s surrender.

From the Pentagon Formosa looked like an excellent offshore base, protected by a “moat.”

Here, too, there was regret that the United States was not taking advantage of Formosa’s unsettled legal status to insist upon an American or United Nations share in the local administration.

I found that it was not possible to suggest that America’s long-range interests should take precedence over tender consideration of Chiang Kai-shek’s face, and over Chinese interests in general. It was my view that a friendly, non-Communist and non-Nationalist Formosan population would serve our interests best.

Now some thought it a good time to leave China altogether — a hard decision to make — moving on to Hong Kong, America, or Europe to begin life anew. Obviously Formosa was destined to go the way the rest of China had gone under Nationalist Party rule.

within my life I have watched the Formosans drift away from us as a result of Japanese education and propaganda. The gap widened to such an extent that in 1941 I could scarcely pick out the Formosans who came across with the Japanese Army.

The main thing is to suppress undesirable news, and show a strong hand on every occasion.

These comments illustrate the failure of well-educated mainland Chinese to comprehend the changes which had taken place among Formosans during three hundred years of frontier island life, and half a century of orderly technological development. They continued to treat Formosa as a backward hinterland province.

For any infringement of the law, or for acts deemed offensive to the Army, the Party, or the government, punishments were graduated to suit the occasion. These ranged from a mere public tongue-lashing (loss of face) through fines, confiscation of property, imprisonment and torture, to the extreme penalty, death. Thus the entire community could be squeezed without mercy to yield up information concerning an individual member wanted by the authorities.

Chen Yi brought the system to new refinement now by altering the base unit from ten to five households, thus making twice as many household heads immediately responsible in every community. This, coupled with the reward-system for stoolpigeons, made it extremely difficult for Formosan leaders who had gone underground to rally their forces.

Majority of people become very timid after the “blood bath”. I hope they will quickly forget it. But the hatred is 100%.

Mainland Chinese who had been thwarted in buccaneering exploits in 1946 now sometimes enjoyed bloody reprisals.

Similar incidents elsewhere led the UNRRA observers to believe that confiscations were intended to deny supplies to refugees in the high mountains, and to enable the newly arrived troops to live off the land.

All criminal acts — including the depredations of Nationalist soldiers — were now blamed upon Formosans, diversifying excuses for arrest and execution.

The cruelty of it was, the two men’s families were fetched and they had to attend the execution….

It was widely speculated that this might perhaps represent Chen Yi’s final payoff insofar as Formosa was concerned.

Chiang Kai-shek showed his supreme indifference to public opinion.

As window dressing, seven Formosans were named commissioners, representing half of Dr. Wei’s “cabinet.”

The titles were nominal, for none of the Formosan commissioners was free to name his own subordinates, and in each case the vice commissioner was a mainland Chinese, the effective “boss.”

At the fourth level of administration many Formosans were named “vice directors,” but each was in turn surrounded by mainland Chinese to...

Many of his attempts at economic reform and social readjustment failed. The raw material stockpiles were depleted, and the technical organizations were disrupted by the post-Incident emigration of well-trained men. Unemployment increased as industrial production declined. Bank loans continued to be made principally for commercial purposes.

Taipei had authority to adjust exchange rates for the local currency (Taiwan yen) against the wildly fluctuating Chinese National Currency (CNC), but it was extremely difficult. There could be no stabilization of economy on Formosa until the island was cut off from mainland chaos.

By December, 1948, the Formosan economy as a whole had reached the lowest point of production per capita known since the island was ceded to Japan in 1895.

In this sense, indeed, it had rever...

The great Japanese sugar industry had passed into mainland Chinese hands, and now rice acreage was being reduced to make room for larger cane plantations.

Formosa was slipping back toward old Chinese habits of thought and behavior as well.

The Formosan shopkeeper complained that he was no longer able to keep reasonably accurate accounts, for the immigrant Chinese refused to a...

There were no limits to “squeeze” — the payments that had to be made to officials of Army, Party or government to obtain licenses, privileges, or bare security in business.

Costly traditional religious practices long banned by the Japanese were resumed. These had often led families to bankrupt themselves providing ostentatious display for weddings, divination rites and costly funerals. Upon these expenditures the Japanese had placed limits which the older generation resented, but the younger generation — say those born after 1900 — had recognized them as an economic benefit.

On the contrary the newcomers encouraged a return to traditional rites and ceremonies as a sign of “re...

but it represented a marked retrogression, a return to 19th century Chinese standards.

that the government seriously considered abandoning the entire East Coast region south of Suao anchorage as “too difficult, too costly to administer, and populated only by aborigines.”

It was proposed to maintain contact with Hualien town by sea, but to give up the dangerous cliffside coastal road which the Japanese had constructed years ago to facilitate administration.

On his second day in office (May 15, 1947) Governor Wei announced that martial law was lifted forthwith, and that there would be no more arrests in connection with the February Incident. This again was window dressing, the gesture of reform which Washington expected.

Arrests and executions continued. The civilian Dr. Wei had very little influence with either the Nationalist Army or the Nationalist Party goons.

Heaviest pressure was brought to bear on Formosa’s emergent middle class, the small landholders who had hitherto enough surplus to send sons and daughters to the higher schools on Formosa and the universities in Japan proper, and to invest in small business enterprises in ...

The government was particularly concerned with the higher schools, known to be center...

The hunt for student plots and for underground organizations was relentless. Stories were put about — but never verified — that the government had uncovered a conspiracy calling for island-wide retaliation upon mainland Chinese, an uprising to take place on August 22 (i.e. “8-22” the reverse of “2-28,” the February 28 Incident).