Formosa Betrayed

by George H. Kerr

China’s cities were seething with vicious anti-American propaganda; any delay in reversion would inflame China’s anti-for...

were treating five million Formosans as chattel property, to be transferred from one sovereignty to another without reference to their wishes.

General Wedemeyer was directed to arrange with Chiang the immediate post-surrender transfer of Formosa to Chinese control.

A new government at Taipei was to be entirely of Chiang’s own choosing. There were no strings attached, no reservations made, pending the legal transfer of title.

A majority of Formosan exiles had grown to manhood under Japanese rule in its harshest years.

In China again a serious division took place; when they could reach no agreement among themselves on “expatriate” policy or programs some simply settled down to earn a colorless living in the larger cities, some, more ambitious, joined with the Nationalist Party, others threw in their lot with the Communists.

There were dozens of expatriate leagues, parties and societies.

To their chagrin, it was found that laws regulating the Convocation did not provide for representation on behalf of Formosa. It was not considered a Chinese province by the Chinese.

Disappointment was sharpened by the fact that all mainland provinces then occupied by Japanese troops were well represented at the so-called PPC meetings.

Here is an early hint of the discrimination shown toward Formosans by their cousins on the mainland, a legacy from centuries of official and scholarly discrimi...

No prominent Nationalist Chinese gave it the patronage it required.

No Formosan carried weight with the Generalissimo. He had other plans and other candidates in mind who had much larger claims upon his patronage.

Chiang’s personal power within China derived from his consummate skill in playing off one powerful Party or Army faction against another and his family alliance with the leading industrialists and financiers.

These appeared to give the new governor-general more sweeping powers than the Japanese governors had ever enjoyed, but soon other branches of government and other Party factions secured special privileges beyond the governor’s direct control.

We may point to this as one of the revealing and fateful decisions in Chiang’s career.

True, it had been done without Christian missionary guidance, and with no thought for the individual, but this material and social progress was what the missionaries and their friends in the United States for a century had dreamed of achieving for China proper.

The keys to the future of Formosa lay in the choice of personnel to fill the top ranks of the new administration.

Ultimately, of course, he was obliged to shoot Chen Yi in an attempt to appease the Formosans and thus make the island a little more safe for himself, but these two events (in 1945 and 1950) bracketed a fateful period in which Formosa was abused and squeezed in typical Party fashion.

The very wealthy Soong family specialized in brilliant and advantageous marriages.

Soong E-ling’s marriage with Dr. H. H. Kung, a wealthy banker, established a useful link with the oldest and most conservative tradition in China, for Kung is recognized as the “seventy-fifth lineal descendant of Confucius.”

Soong Ching-ling’s marriage to Sun Yat-sen, on the other hand, had established a link with the most dynamic revolutionary ...

Henceforth the Generalissimo’s Party and Army organizations looked after Soong-Kung Family interests within China, and the brilliant leaders of the Soong-Kung Family cultivated and advanced Chiang Kai-shek’s interests abroad — especially in the United States — with astonishing success.

H. H. Kung, T. V. Soong, and the three Soong sisters were all graduates of colleges and universities in the United States, and as representatives of “China’s leading Christian Family” they became the symbols, in American eyes, of all that might be done and must be done to evangelize and transform China.

While the Generalissimo marched up and down the country with only modest success as a military leader, he dominated the Nationalist Party government as Tsungtsai or “Leader,” the Duce or Fuhrer of China.

The key offices were Transport (Communications), Finance, and Industry, with Foreign Affairs becoming important when opportunities came to manipulate the massive foreign aid programs upon which the regime became dependent in its later years.

Soong, Kung and Sun Fo held concurrently seats in the highest councils of the Nationalist Party and were in strong positions to influence appointments throughout the Administration.

Chen Yi was not often spoken of as a direct agent for the Soong Family, but the record suggests that an association did exist through which, for suitable rewards, Chen advanced and protected the Family interests.

Foreign observers reported that the 19th Route Army was the best disciplined and most effective fighting force in China, but it was not one of Chiang’s personal organizations, and its commanders were not his men. Instead of rewarding them and using the 19th Route Army in his further campaigns, he ordered it to disband.

The commanders refused, and retreated into the rugged Fukien coastal regions. At this Chiang sent Chen Yi to Fukien Province as governor (or “Chairman”) with orders to destroy the rebels.

Since they were now cut off from an adequate military supply, Chen found it rather easy to break up the units, and ...

He had powerful patrons and acted for them as “front man” covering clandestine trade between China and Japan, long after the second Japanese invasion of China had been launched in 1937.

The Japanese invasion of China in 1937 was an “incident” and not a declared war.

This was a complex system of state monopolies designed cleverly to drain off local wealth into the pockets of the administrators, with just enough passed to the National Treasury to satisfy officials along the way.

Here was perfected the system which Chen Yi later introduced to Formosa provoking the Formosans to rebellion.

In the period of Chen Yi’s governorship the Province of Fukien was s...

The brutality with which students were tortured and killed in Fukien set something of a record even for China.

I observed in Washington that some of the most ardent “China First” men in the Department of State were shaken by Chen’s appointment to Formosa, for his Fukien record was well known.

Meanwhile in China the announcement provoked an extraordinary outburst of criticism.

It was charged that Chen would “create a hotbed of fascism in Taiwan, leading to future war.”

when war came in 1937, it was alleged, he openly expressed an opinion that China could resist no longer than three months.

When at last the Japanese advanced on Foochow city, Chen had surrendered it without a shot, in exchange for an opportunity to withdraw, unhindered, with his ill-gained wealth and his Japanese mistress.

Chen Yi and the Generalissimo ignored the protests. Nevertheless, in his usual method of operations, Chiang took great care to create checks and balances within the new administration.

In theory the governor-general’s authority was supreme, but in practice he knew that unfriendly eyes were watching him, and that he had to share out the loot.

After 1937 China kept appealing to the United States to “do something” to force Japan to leave China, and cried for economic support and arms. But there was no Chinese declaration of war upon Japan until after Pearl Harbor and after the United States had declared war.

On Formosa Formosans heard this with excitement and happy anticipation.

To them (on August 17) the Emperor addressed a special rescript using terms carefully chosen to suggest that they had not surrendered to “China” but to “Chungking,” where the Chinese and the Americans had their military headquarters.

They would fight to the death. More than 170,000 well-armed, well-fed and rested troops were there to defend the island.

From this moment the island people began to build up profoundly emotional attitudes toward China on the one hand, and toward the leading Allied powers — America and Britain on the other.

Here is one of the keys to our present dilemma in Formosa; we had persistently raised hopes and made promises which we could not fulfill.

This was not an inland province of China cut off from world events, but an island frontier, listening to the capitals of the world.