Formosa Betrayed

by George H. Kerr

They flatly refused to ...

At Keelung Chinese officers begged the astonished Americans to send an advance unit overland — an American unit, of course — through the narrow valleys l...

Only a rancorous argument forced the Chinese to accept their ...

At Kaohsiung the Americans, eager to empty the transports, had to threaten bodily ejection of the Chinese troops before their reluctant passenger...

It was an inauspicious beginning, made the more so because these incidents were wi...

Formosans along the way laughed at the shambling, poorly disciplined, and ver...

It was evident, they said, that the “victors” ventured into Formosa only because the United States stood betwee...

Much evil and many individual tragedies were to spring from these expressions of open scorn, for the mainland Chinese were lo...

Agents reported to General Chen Yi that a minor crisis had already developed at Taipei between the Chinese military and the American supporting group.

Again it was a question of face.

General Keh had found the Japanese Army leaders were preparing to transfer lands, buildings, equipment and foodstocks to the Chinese Army, and the Japanese Navy offices were making ready to relinquish properties to the Chinese Navy, which th...

But the Japanese had no separate Air Force, hence there were no properties lying about to be transferred to the Chinese Air Force, China’s...

The Chinese Air Force officers at Taipei we...

To remedy the deficiency they simply posted notices that the CAF was taking physical possession at once, of the northern quarter of Taipei City, lying near the airport — a huge block of urban real estate — plus hundreds of acres of suburban and rural land ne...

It is possible that the Air Force could have had its way somewhere inland in China proper among an illiterate, unorga...

Here they took the view that Formosa was enemy territory; had not General Keh himself said that the Formosans wer...

At Taipei these arrogant young officers met instant and...

General Keh professed astonishment a...

Formosans swarmed in to appeal to him and to the American off...

The Americans foresaw trouble, they had already had their fill of Chinese Air Force arrogance, and they saw the basic injusti...

They strongly recommended prompt cancellation o...

General Keh compromised, denied the Air Force colonels the coveted, crowded urban real estate, but left them temporarily in control of a vas...

Thwarted young officers angrily and loudly denounced “A...

From the very beginning the problem of face bedeviled the Nationalist Chinese.

It was apparent to all — including all Formosans — that the Nationalists were totally dependent upon the United States.

The Air Force incident set the pattern for many more to come.

American indifference to the importance of Formosa was reflected in the casual way in which we were sent off to witness the surrender at Taipei.

From the moment our plane touched down at Taipei Chen Yi and his men pursued a course designed to lower the United States in public esteem wherever it could be done.

Leading Formosan citizens were on hand to greet the General, office workers were lined up with appropriate banners, and hundreds of school children had been turned out to welcome the “liberators.”

But when the Americans at last came along, tailing the procession, there was a prolonged roar of applause and acclaim.

Along the way our battered conveyance failed us, stopped, and had to be abandoned.

The Colonel thought it all very typically Chinese (“What do you expect?”) but I sensed in this small incident — a small unnecessary official discourtesy — the presence of a desire to cause the Americans a public loss of face at every opportunity.

I was asked to check the English text, and politely called the interpreter’s attention to the fact that although the speech hailed China’s triumph in defeating Japan and recovering Formosa, there was no mention, at any point, of the part played by the United States in this affair.

With some hesitation, a sentence was introduced into the English version, acknowledging American participation.

General Ando was sent under arrest to Shanghai to be tried as a war criminal, and there, in prison, he committed suicide.

MANY thoughtful Formosans greeted the surrender with deep emotion — a mixture of elation, relief, and extraordinary anticipation of good things to come.

Now the dream was going to come true, but even better, it would be Home Rule within the framework of “New China,” thanks to the United States government and the American people.

There was a high literacy rate, a varied press, and some fifty thousand radio receivers, many of them attached to community public address systems.

Just before World War II news concerning the United States came second only to news of Japan proper in the daily press, and far ahead of coverage for news of China and the rest of the world.

The Formosans commented on this “evidence” that Formosa had been liberated by the Western Allies and not by the Nationalist Chinese, whose military virtues they were inclined to belittle.

Their dislike of the bedraggled, undisciplined Nationalist garrison forces was unconcealed.

With an amused “Big Brother” tolerance the Commanding Officer took the view that we were working with a rather childish people; if the silly Chinese wanted to pretend that they had “won the war” it really did not matter very much.

In that period Chinese generals and colonels and civilian officers of the new regime had staked out claims upon scores of large properties.

Some were official residences attached to departments of government or the large corporations.

Some were handsome priv...

Relations between the American military group and the Chinese Nationalist military organization were officially polite but strained, and a series of ugly after-hours incidents left no doubt that our presence was most unwelcome to Chen Yi’s men.

Months later we learned that the mysterious “colonels,” Huang and Chang — General Tai Li’s dread Gestapo agents had approached responsible Formosan leaders at about this time, proposing a general massacre of the Japanese civil population.

An UNRRA team in China discovered them starving, wounded and diseased. A long, complicated negotiation at last secured homeward passage for some two thousand. But when UNRRA notified the Chinese at Taipei, there was a harsh reaction.

When at last they did reach home (thanks to UNRRA) they had nothing but ill to say of their “mainland cousins” and the Nationalist government.

When the uprising came in 1947 Chen Yi’s men (and Chiang Kai-shek himself) again and again named these conscript repatriates as “Communists” and “troublemakers poisoned by the Japanese.”