1652, China’s right - to Formosa AUVRUORUORL mt evict RL ON a clear day looking seaward from the coast of Fukien Province one can discern dim lines of a distant mountain range, The range stretches almost 236 miles from north to south; it has 62 peaks which tower 9,000 feet or higher, and one reaches 12,950 feet above sea level. Its total area is 13,429 square miles (about two-thirds the size of Vancouver Island). - Such is the majestic sky-line of Taiwan (Formosa) — the largest island and the smallest province of China. It was the breath-taking land- Scape and luxuriant vegetation of Taiwan which caused Portu- Suese navigators, who sighted it m 1590 to name it Ilha Formosa, Which means Beautiful’ Island. Besides field and forest crops, Taiwan has considerable- min- eral wealth. There are an esti- Mated 400 million tons of coal in the northwest, oilfields in the - South, sulphur and gold in the extreme north, asbestos on the €ast coast. Deposits of bauxite, the naw material for aluminum, are also abundant. — About 97 percent of the popu- ation» which now exceeds eight Millions, are Chinese whose an- Cestors came from Fukien and ‘Wangtung provinces from the tM!nth century onward. The other 3 percent are 240,- ~~» Members of the Kaoshan na- tional minority, descendants of People of Malay stock, who arriv- In the sixth century. * Harly in the ninth century, when trade in pearls and other Commodities began with Taiwan and the Penghu (Pescadores) Is- lands, a Chinese named Shih Chien-wu ied the first group of Permanent immigrants there. _A regular Chinese administra- On, subordinated to one of the Counties of Fukien province, al- Teady existed on the Pescadores in the 16th century. Garrison Posts were established both there In Taiwan ‘to prevent these areas from being invaded by the Japanese, ‘3 A Spanish force under the _ Command of Don Antonio Car- nlo de Valdes arrived in north- astern Taiwan ‘from the Philip- Pines in 1626 and established its Tule there for 16 years. In 1642, the Dutch invaded Southern Taiwan, drove out the ~paniards and remained on the : and for 38 years. At that time ‘re were more than 100,000 Chinese on Taiwan. , te big peasant revolt against mdi tor tions of the Dutch East iia \ h Ten years later, the national th Cheng Cheng-kung, forced ey, Dutch to surrender and Vacuate. By 1680, the’ Chinese poe ation of Taiwan’ exceeded ? Gut 1885, the island became a ese province in its own right. ea foreign powers had begun ahi More to covet Taiwan — ite Ich the weak, corrupt and acherous ‘Manchu government Could not defend. » In the eighteen fifties Ameri- 4 Company broke out in can ,tradersy. officers and diplo- mats campaigned for its annexa- tion to the United States. Their actions ranged from the tempor- ary hoisting of the U.S. flag over Kaohsiung, to a big naval land- ing. ‘ j . In 1874, the Japanese, with U.S. backing, launched an unsuc- cessful invasion. ° mk Finally, after the first Japanese war Hung-chang, then in charge of China’s foreign relations, signed Taiwan away to Japan. Between 1895 and 1945, the Japanese population, civil and military rose to 320,000. The same half - century witnessed more than 20. revolts against Japan. | Sino- There were new uprisings in 1934 and 1941. Guerrilla forces were organised in 1945 on the eve of Japan’s surrender in the Second World War. In Taiwan, the slogan of the ‘Resistance was always Yreunion of Taiwan with China. For this aim, in the half-century of Ja- panese domination, an estimated 500,000 people on the island gave © their lives. x The Cairo Declaration of De- | cember 1, 1948, signed by the U.S., Britain and China, declar- ed: All the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa and the Pescadores should be returned to China. President Franklin D. Roose- velt, in a broadcast, said that the principle that had been ap- plied was a very simple one — that stolen property should go back to those to whom it be- longed. After the Japanese surrender the Kuomintang regime, then still in power in China, set up an administration in Taiwan. Kuomintang General Chen Yi moved into Taiwan in 1946. The 300,000 Japanese who had been the island’s administrators, en- gineers, landowners and execu- tives went back to Japan. Chi- ang’s boodlers immediately mov- ed in on “90 percent, of the agri- of 1894-95, Li culture and industry,” to quote what the U.E. publication Busi- - ness Week, reported in 1947. What such seizure meant to the Chinese on Taiwan can be realized from these figures: Tai- wan's 1946 population was above 7 million. cent of the inhabitants were farmers, more than 70 percent were tenants. Only 28 percent of Taiwan is arable, and even in 1946 this meant a pressure on the land of 1,700 persons per square mile of crop area. This climate, -how- ever, permits of two rice crops and one of wheat per year on the same acreage, accounting for the fame Taiwan once enjoyed as “China’s granary.” The Taiwan Chinese watched the looting of industry and the seizure of land that belonged to them. They watched corruption mushroom under Chiang’s avar- icious agents. Tenant . farmers groaned under new and higher levies on what they produced. Farmers. with land. suffered mounting seizures for taxes. Ten- sion on the island mounted to the breaking point. The break- ing point came early in 1947. * As Peggy Durdin later related the precipitating event in The Nation, a Chiang policeman saw a woman selling smuggled cigar- ettes on the streets of Taipeh, the island capital. This infring- ed on the Chiang gang’s tobac- co monopoly. “When (the cop) tried to seize her tray and money, she pulled away and he struck her a crash- More than 50 per- — ing blow on the head with his revolver butt.” A protesting crowd gathered. Other police who had come on the run fired into the mass of killing one, wounding. people, others. “Forthwith ‘a year and one- half of gathering hatred for an inefficient, autocratic, corrupt administration exploded into unarmed demonstrations,. . .” Fear-crazed cops fired wildly into the demonstrating crowds. Chiang’s officials locked them- Under the protection of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, Chiang Kai-shek _(shown here reviewing troops) has been enabled to establish himself as the petty military dictator of Formosa, a puppet of the United States. His army has been armed by the U.S. His planes are supplied by the U.S. The precarious economy is bolstered by U.S. loans. selves into their offices. The peo- ple took over first the streets, then the administration of most of Taiwan’s cities. General Chen Yi temporized. By March 2 ‘he was promising compensation to the families of all those whom his police had killed. He appointed an investi- gating commission composed of prominent Taiwan Chinese and > Chiang representatives from the mainland. : : On March 8 Chen Yi was done with stalling. The Chiang troops he had been awaiting from the mainland entered Keelund and Taipeh. Streets were cleared to protect their arrival by means of gun-fire. Most Taiwan members of the joint commission wer shot forthwith. Peggy Durdin described the massacre in these words: “In the next five days more than a thousand Taiwanese in the Keelung-Taipeh area alone were massacred. Bodies floated ‘thick in Keelung harbor and in « the rivet which flows by Tai- peh. Twenty young men were castrated, their ears cut off, and their noses slashed . . .?_ When Chiang was forced to remnants of his defeated armies in 1949, the people. of Taiwan received him reluctantly. They were not strong enough: to expel him themselves but théy looked confidently to the day when the island would be liberated from the mainland. Rok : “Yet even at that time, the United States did not dare to deny that Taiwan was an integral part of China. President Truman declared in January 1950: “The United States has no - intention of utilising its armed forces to interfere in the present situation. The United States Government will not pur- sue a course which will lead to involvement in the civil con- flict in China.” : He stressed specifically that no “military aid -or advice” would be provided to Chiang Kai-shek. Secretary. of State Dean Ache- son followed with a statement that “when Formosa was made a province of China nobody rais- ed any lawyers’ doubts .. .” Under the protection of the US. Seventh Fleet, Chiang has been enabled to establish him- self as the petty military dictator of Formosa, a puppet of the United States. His army is arm- ed by the U.S. His planes are supplied by the US. The: pre- carious economy is bolstered iby US. loans. Chiang’s henchmen have seiz- ed control of Taiwan’s wealth for themselves, but in many in- stances they are merely acting as agents for US. interests. Westinghouse International to- day operates the 3 million h.p. hydro-electric development on Sun-Moon Lake built by the Ja- _panese. flee the: mainland with the _ A group of U.S. chemical com- Panies monopolizes the produc- tion and sale of. artificial fertil- izers on’ Taiwan. The situation on Taiwan to- ‘day was best summarized by Li Tsung-jen, once a leading mem-. ber of Chiang’s ruling group, who said ‘in December 1951: “Chiang is repeating . . .. ex- actly what he did on the main- land . . . Corruption and. graft — are now practiced on a smaller — scale simply because the ter- ne ritory under Chiang’s contro! is now much smaller.” : This is the regime for whose _ protection the U.S. is prepared to provoke war. : : PACIFIC TRIBUNE — FEBRUARY WT, 1955 — PAGE 9 .