Formosa Betrayed

by George H. Kerr

Here expediency led the three Heads of State to ignore distasteful facts; treaties again had become “mere scraps of paper.”

The published record suggests that neither the President nor the Prime Minister took Cairo very seriously, and as Robert Sherwood put it “The agreement … did not stick for more than ten days.”

Roosevelt, Churchill and Chiang had “divided up the bearskin before the bear was dead.”

Once there, our men, planes and supplies were swamped in the morass of Chinese factional policies and corruption.

It is little less than a miracle that we were able to achieve what we did.

Our detailed studies revealed how rich “ISLAND X” was, and how highly organized.

If Chiang insisted on exclusive control of the civil administration, he would intrude just as attacks upon Japan were rising to a climax, and Formosa itself would be under heavy counterattack from Japan proper.

At most, no more than a token Chinese participation could be tolerated.

True enough the Nationalists had many admirals on the payroll in the mountains, but they had no navy on the sea. No Chinese could reach Formosa unless we agreed to take him there.

President Roosevelt, the Commander-in-Chief, must approve the decision, and this was an election year. MacArthur’s not inconsiderable personal following would count heavily at the polls.

Chiang was clamoring for more supplies and more money, but it was clearly evident that he was not using to our advantage what he received by the long, hard route over the Hump.

We flattered him with titles — he was “Supreme Commander” of Allied Forces in China — and we put him forward as the leader of a World Power, but there was accumulating evidence of his reluctance to push the land war against the Japanese.

His policy was to “trade space for time” while waiting for the United States to defeat Japan ...

Our relations with Chiang went from bad to worse, the Generalissimo’s excuses — his doctrine of “defense-in-depth” — were wearing very thin.

Said one, “defense-in-depth meant simply running away until the enemy is tired out chasing you….”

Meanwhile Tokyo was well aware of the crisis in Sino-American relations.

If Chiang were a neutral, he would have to deny bases to the Americans.

Moreover, Tokyo was much more concerned with the Chinese Communists than with the Nationalists, who were “paper tigers.” A China divided was to Japan’s ultimate advantage.

In a dramatic move to woo Formosan allegiance at this late hour Tokyo announced that, by Imperial Grace, the island would become a prefecture of Japan proper and that prominent Formosans were nominated to the House of Peers at Tokyo. Elections in 1945 would give Formosans full representation in the National Diet.

Formosa’s skies were seldom free of hostile planes after the great November raid.

Industrial targets, on the other hand, were only lightly touched.

Hundreds of thousands of leaflets were scattered over the island.

This cynical “declaration of war” five days before Japan accepted unconditional surrender gave the Japanese new cause to hate, fear, and distrust Russia as never before, but it gave the Russians a legal claim upon territories which Roosevelt had promised them, and it gave Moscow a place in the councils, commissions and conferences which would determine the fate of the Japanese Empire.

Technical installations and port facilities on Formosa had been badly hit, but the wealth of forests, fields and mines lay undisturbed.

There was no threat of famine, for huge stockpiles of unshipped rice and sugar had accumulated during the last twelve months of war.

The island was not ove...

The normal economy was temporarily disrupted, but the people were well disciplined, well o...

By all Asian standards these were a modern people, eager to resume work within a moder...

Best of all, for a half century the island had been cut off from the confusion of civil war on the Chinese mainland.

There were no “hungry masses” to which the Communists might appeal.

When surrender took place there was an upsurging good will in Formosa, an emotional anticipation of return to China, but it was expected to be the “New China” of our propaganda sheets, a China delivered from the past by American power, and guided now by an American alliance.

Formosans expected that henceforth the island would elect its own government, and that elected representatives would represent the island in the national central government at Nanking.

The Formosans had not been allowed to develop well-organized political parties.

There was a minimum of faction at the time of surrender.

Japan was surrendering her empire to the Allies and not to China alone.

Formosa was Japan’s sovereign territory, and sovereignty could not be transferred until a peace treaty could be worked out, agreed upon, and signed.

Many fundamental decisions of long-range political consequence were made within a military rather than a political frame of reference.

In the Far East General MacArthur’s decision to allow the Chinese to occupy Formosa offers a close parallel.

The separatist tradition had been given form and direction by Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the doctrine of self-determination for minorities.

For a century or more the American people had been enamored with China; China’s woes had become the White Man’s Burden — at least America’s burden — in a very special way.

Again and again when China’s interests were weighed against America’s interests, China came out the winner.

Although the Generalissimo was not a very distinguished military figure, by any standard, he controlled the Nationalist Army and maintained at least the outline of an organization.

Military men wanted to keep the lid on the Chinese civil war until Japan’s defeat.

The Chinese had demanded immediate and exclusive control of the island, insisting that the Cairo Declaration automatically restored sovereignty to China.

When surrender came on August 14, 1945, no significant voice was raised in the State Department to dispute the Chinese claim.

Well-informed senior naval officers were reluctant to see the United States abandon, without reservation, all Allied rights and interests in Formosa pending a general settlement, but the War Department and the White House...

Fathers and mothers believed the war was over, Congress agreed with them, and it would have been impossible to win support on Capitol Hill for the development of a n...

Overseas commitments were to be reduced,...

Faced with the immense problems of the occupation in Japan, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers at Tokyo, MacArthur, was glad enough to assign to o...

The island was promised to China anyway, so the sooner we rid ourselves of ...