Formosa Betrayed

by George H. Kerr

Too many people around the world believed that we meant to guarantee Utopia and to pay for it.

The Japanese on Formosa had a much more immediate reason to hope that the United States would take part in the formal surrender at Taipei.

This might be their only guarantee of personal safety.

It was evident only that the Formosans were prompted to petition China for a special status for Formosa including a proposal that Japanese residents and Japanese technical and economic interests should be given special consideration “in order to assure the continued prosperity of the island.”

It has been alleged, without documentary proof, that General Ho wanted to isolate Formosa, not unaware that the island would be an exceedingly rich prize for the men who held it if Japan’s exit from China prompted a renewal of the mainland civil war.

Throughout September the interim “lame-duck” Japanese government at Taipei functioned with remarkable efficiency.

Formosan villagers here and there took revenge on hated individual local Japanese policemen, but these isolated beatings were not numerous and none was fatal. Public order was well maintained.

Economic controls remained in force, keeping a tight rein on inf...

High employment rates were ensured by shifting mobilized wartime labor forces to the immense tasks of reconstruction.

City Planning Commission engineers and draftsmen worked long hours overtime to perfect blueprints for projects which could be undertaken as fast as the rubble could be cleared away, public services restored, and homes reconstructed.

The railroads were soon in operation, keeping to r...

A major effort was made to clear the waterfronts at Keelung and Kaohsiung and to restore service...

It was soon established that the Americans were working with the Generalissimo’s dread Bureau of Investigation and Statistics or BIS, known to Americans in wartime China as “Chiang’s Gestapo.”

Under General Tai Li the BIS investigations were known to be sometimes very brief and at bayonet point.

On the mainland Tai Li’s first duties were to eliminate Chiang’s personal enemies and more important critics and to weaken political ...

As a wartime measure President Roosevelt had approved a secret agreement enabling certain American cloak-and-dagger gr...

The latter were probing the local political situation, noting the names and records of Formosan leaders who had shown themselves bold enough to demand a voice in local government under the Japanese administration.

Such men would bear watching.

They were also taking notes on wealthy Formosans who might be worth blackmailing at a later date under charges of...

The subchaser shuttled back and forth between Keelung and the mainland for a period of weeks delivering cargo to starved Chinese coastal markets.

There such commodities commanded astronomical prices at the time.

When local Taipei prices began to soar Japanese officers charged with rationing and price controls lodged a protest with the young Americans but were simply laughed off; they were “enemy ...

The Japanese leaders awaited word on surrender procedures, but none came from the Allied High Command at Tokyo or from the China Theatre Headquarters on the mainland. Formosa had become a lost island.

The OSS team came well supplied with barter goods — American canned goods, cigarettes, beer, vitamin pills and Atabrine tablets — which were extremely valuable in trade for intelligence data.

Soon team members were scouring Formosa for political information, especially anything concerning Communists.

Formosans who could speak a little English and Japanese eager to curry favor, began at once to supply notes for OSS reports to Washington. Since genuine Communists were rare (they were still ...

Many personal scores were paid off in this way.

Unchecked informants were happy to draw attention to any dissident Japanese or Formosan who had been labeled “communist,” “radicalor “subversive” under the old regime.

In certain noteworthy cases, I later discovered, the Americans were being guided along basic lines of inquiry drawn from wartime reports obtained at Chungking, and prominent among them were reports ...

For a full six weeks Formosa was in limbo; Formosan leaders cooperated with the leading Japanese and both community groups got ahead with the stupendous task of clearing up the rubble and getting factories, railroads and power lines into operation once more.

The markets were open and food was coming into the towns without interruption.

The Japanese policeman — a very polite fellow these days —...

At Chungking General Wedemeyer was preoccupied with the enormous problems of Manchuria and North China where the Russians had begun to loot the factories and the Chinese Communists were taking over with Russian help.

China had no ships and few planes — and there were those well-disciplined Japanese to be faced.

As an Assistant Naval Attache reporting to the United States Embassy in China, I was assigned to this group.

It soon became apparent that the Chinese members of the group found these texts invaluable.

No such encyclopedic data — more than 1300 pages — could be found in Chinese references.

He found the Japanese not only docile but eager to establish a basis for government.

In his first public address General Keh directed the Japanese to “carry on as usual,” set October 25 as the date for the formal surrender ceremonies, and then set the tone for the Chinese occupation of Formosa.

Formosa is (he said) a “degraded territory” and the Formosans are “a degraded people.”

The island was “beyond the passes” (kuan wai), beyond the pale of true...

Formosans noted this loud echo from the 19th century but its chilling implications were obscured in the general elation with which everyone welcomed the war’s...

The day of Home Rule wa...

It is difficult to convey in print the atmosphere of great expectation which enveloped the island.

This was much more than the end of four years of global war, or of eight years of war in China; it was the end of fifty years of humiliation.

General Keh’s face-saving bombast could be ignored, for it was obvious to one and all that the Chinese were utterly ...

Whatever came to pass hereafter would be attributed by the Formosans to American policy.

Elements of the United States Seventh Fleet escorted troopships into Keelung and Kaohsiung on October 15.

Aboard were the 62nd and 70th Divisions of the Chinese Nationalist Army, numbering in exc...

They were acutely conscious of the presence of Japanese troops concentrated inland ...