Between early 1946 and 1947, Chen Yi’s administrative controls were extended to the private sector of food grain production and distribution. In March 1946, a Food Grain Bureau with departments in every district in Taiwan began monitoring the purchase, storage, and distribution of rice and other products all over the island. Farmers and landlords were forced to sell their grain to agents of bureau warehouses at fixed prices rather than to private merchants. Strict punishment would follow if they did not obey the rules.26 In a report issued that same month, officials in Washington stated that the island was not too badly off after the war but had suffered considerably from “maladministration and corruption” by the Nationalist authorities and the behavior of Nationalist troops. American prestige was high among the Formosans, whereas the Chinese officials were hated. Meanwhile, Washington observed warily that “revolutionary moves on the island are afoot,” although moderate elements were still waiting to see whether Chiang Kai-shek would send a more efficient administration to Taiwan.27 George Kerr, who at this juncture was summoned to the State Department to brief Taiwan’s recent situation, did not hesitate to make his ideas known that the United States was “throwing away in advance the legal right to intervene on Formosa if in the future the Allies should need the island as a policing base.” Extremely annoyed at Chen Yi’s rule in Taiwan, Kerr complained bitterly to his superiors that Washington was ignoring a moral obligation to see that “the liberated Formosan people were given just treatment and a guarantee of basic human rights.” Kerr’s advice, however, stirred almost no immediate response within the department.28
Chiang Kai-shek at this point evidently had no intention to replace Chen Yi, who he thought instead had done a decent job by effectively stretching the state control further into former Japanese military and military-related commodity stores all around the island. By June 1946, the first batch of around 100 tanks and other former Japanese army vehicles from Taiwan were handed over to Nationalist troops stationed in Peking and Xuzhou.29 Toward the end of 1946, as one piece of contemporary scholarly work argues, Chen Yi’s provincial regime probably controlled even more economic, political, and military activity than its previous colonial rulers. Nevertheless, because they had fewer administrative personnel, a relatively smaller budget, and less understanding of local conditions, Nationalist officials lacked the ability to manage Taiwan’s economy as effectively and fairly as the Japanese. For these reasons alone, the new economic controls made more corruption inevitable.30
The Nationalist government’s outwardly highhanded governance in Taiwan continued to be closely monitored by the United States. In the fall of 1946, a report sent from Ralph J. Blake, the U.S. consul in Taipei, to Washington indicated that conditions in Taiwan had been deteriorating as a result of Chen Yi’s monopolistic tendencies as well as the general corruption and maladministration. Blake admitted that the future situation on the island could not be deemed as promising. However, as a Nationalist sympathizer holding an opposite standpoint to Vice Consul George Kerr, Blake still believed that Chen’s administration in this wealthy and important island provided “both an opportunity and a laboratory” to test whether the Nationalists would be capable of meeting and solving the problems with which they were faced. A tragedy might be avoided, Black asserted, if Nationalist leaders were willing to make a change.31
To Nanking, making a leadership adjustment in Taiwan was again not an issue at all. On October 21, 1946, Chiang and his wife flew to Taipei for his first official inspection tour. The purpose of his visit was to celebrate the first anniversary of Japan’s surrender there (October 25) and to express his goodwill toward the islanders. But Chiang’s mind and thoughts were largely on the situation on the mainland. While Chiang was in Taiwan, General George Marshall was making a last-ditch effort for an enduring truce that might save China from a full-scale civil war. In Nanking, Marshall tried to persuade Zhou Enlai to agree to further negotiations with the Nationalists. Zhou counterproposed that the Nationalists cease attacking the Communists as a precondition for future negotiations, a condition which Chiang vehemently opposed. This was fully understandable, as by the time Chiang was about to set off for Taiwan, the Nationalists controlled 76 percent of the nationwide territory and 71 percent of the population. Within the single month of October alone, Chiang’s troops had triumphantly recovered sixty-three cities and counties previously under Communist sway, the biggest achievement since V-J Day.32 With an evident military preponderance, Chiang saw no reason to compromise.
Arriving in Taipei, Chiang was deeply impressed by the profound customs and cultural legacies left by the Japanese. On October 23, while in Taichung inspecting local infrastructure, Chiang was amazed at how the former Japanese colonialists overcame great geologic barriers and hardships to complete the existing constructions. Chiang was so impressed, he could not help writing down his personal admiration for the perseverance of the Japanese in his diary on that day.33 But still, to the Chiangs, husband and wife, the island remained an unfamiliar realm where they were not entirely comfortable. Worrying about poor sanitary conditions and the possible contraction of malaria, Chiang and his entourage canceled their trip further south to Tainan, returning to Taipei the very next day.34
2.2 The first couple pay their first visit to Taiwan on October 21, 1946. (Courtesy KMT Party History Institute)
Back from central Taiwan, Chiang stayed at a quiet resort on Grass Mountain, (Yangmingshan) located on the northern outskirts of Taipei. Except for attending ceremonial activities celebrating the first anniversary of the island’s return, Chiang immersed himself in the outstanding issues across the strait. In his mountain resort, Chiang meticulously studied the situation in Manchuria with Premier T. V. Soong, who flew from Nanking to Taipei in order to persuade his brother-in-law to accept George Marshall’s advice on stopping the attacks on the Chinese Communists in Andong, a province in Manchuria. Chiang refused and insisted on opening fire. The two then worked together at Grass Mountain, drafting instructions and orders that were speedily dispatched to their military subordinates thousands of miles away.35
The next day, news of Nationalist military success in China’s far northeast reached Taipei. Chen Yi entertained the elated and relaxed Chiang at his residence with Japanese cuisine. Chiang was indeed delighted, noting in his diary that this was his first taste of Japanese cuisine since May 1927, when the Japanese army confronted his Northern Expedition army in Shandong and killed his envoy, who had been instructed to negotiate a settlement. Before the banquet came to a close, Chiang gave Chen his advice: build more schools, barracks, and prisons; strengthen the island’s garrison forces; and keep the island away from communism.36 As Chiang spoke, we may surmise he never visualized that, just within a short two years, Grass Mountain would become Nationalist China’s last political nerve center. Neither could anyone prophesy that this colony-turned-province island frontier would before long become the Nationalists’ last territorial refuge.
THE STORM OF FEBRUARY 1947
Before returning to the mainland, Chiang Kai-shek met with the local mass media in Taipei. He emphasized the evidence of successful reconstruction that he professed to have seen on every side, and he wished Taiwan and its people “all the good luck in building the island province as a model for [the] whole [of] China.”37 Indeed, good luck seemed exactly what the island needed most. During the year 1946, it was estimated that 80 percent of the native-born Taiwanese industrial workers lost their jobs, and by January 1947 local commodity price indices had risen 700 percent for food, 1,400 percent for fuel and building materials, and 25,000 percent for fertilizer. It became a common phenomenon that Taiwan’s capital goods and rice frequently vanished into the mainland black market. The corruption became so prevalent that, beginning in 1947, relief supplies from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) shrank, allegedly, by an estimated 50 percent as they passed through the hands of Chen Yi’s lieutenants. Within a year of the Chinese takeover, middle-class Taiwanese
were on the verge of bankruptcy.38
A series of crises on both sides of the Taiwan Strait between the fall of 1946 and early 1947 formed the context of fear and uneasiness in Taiwan, eventually leading to the bloody February 28 incident. On January 6, 1947, General Marshall abandoned his mediation efforts between the Nationalists and the Communists and returned to Washington. The seeming imminence of a full-scale civil war on the mainland was increasingly felt in Taiwan. Around the same time, rumors spread everywhere on the island that Taiwan had been sold to the United States in return for a huge credit for military use, or that the island would soon be returned to Japan by General Douglas MacArthur, now supreme commander for the Allied powers (SCAP) in Japan.39 Taiwan’s currency, which was tied to the mainland’s finances, depreciated rapidly, and the provincial administration was gradually losing control of the economy. On February 14, Taipei’s rice market closed briefly because of a riot as citizens struggled to purchase ever-smaller amounts of rice at increasing prices. Fear gripped the island, and large-scale robberies continued to take place in the towns and cities of Taiwan.40
On the evening of February 27, 1947, six Nationalist agents of the Tobacco and Wine Monopoly Bureau, accompanied by four policemen, confiscated cigarettes and cash from a widow in her forties and knocked her down when she protested. When people nearby tried to defend the woman, the police fired several shots into the crowd and killed at least one person. This was the spark that ignited groups of Taipei citizens who marched to the police headquarters to demand the arrest of the policemen responsible for the shooting.41 The following morning, a larger crowd decided to march to Chen Yi’s headquarters and to the office of Tobacco and Wine Monopoly Bureau demanding immediate punishment of the policemen, compensation to the bereaved families, relaxation of the tobacco monopoly, and apologies. As the crowd approached, Chen’s guards fired machine guns and killed several people. This marked the beginning of a general uprising against Nationalist Chinese authorities, which soon spread to many of the island’s urban centers as Taiwanese and government forces battled for control of public infrastructure, such as office buildings, railway stations, and police stations. Outside Taipei, the situation was far more egregious. A few anti-KMT groups were organized, including the Communist-inspired “27 Brigade.” They looted machine guns, rifles, and grenades from military arsenals in central and southern Taiwan. The now-armed groups shot or injured Nationalist soldiers, and this in turn precipitated the house arrest or execution of those who participated in the uprising.42
By the time Chen Yi reported the bloody chaos in Taiwan to Nanking, Chiang Kai-shek already had serious problems both in China proper and in the outlying areas. Battles were now being fought between the Nationalists and the Communists in North and Northeast China. Social instability and riots at regional levels swept from Xinjiang in the far northwest to Inner Mongolia in the northern steppe and Tibet in the far southwest. In Urumqi, beginning in early February 1947, several hundred of the local Uighurs gathered and besieged the government offices in the center of the city, demanding more political, military, financial, and economic autonomy from the Nationalist provincial authorities. Their demands were hastily telegraphed to Nanking, awaiting Chiang’s arbitration.43 In Inner Mongolia, pro-Communist Mongols were ready to create an autonomous region free from Nationalist jurisdiction, whereas their pro-KMT fellow compatriots also demanded more political autonomy from Nanking.44 In Lhasa, a civil war had been brewing between Taktra Rimpoche, the regent of the Tibetan government, and his predecessor Radreng Hutuktu since early 1947. The instability in Tibet served as both a crisis in China’s border security and an opportunity for the Nationalist power penetration in this ethnic territory. Some in Nanking deemed the trouble in Lhasa a decent chance for the Nationalists to interfere with Tibet’s internal politics and increase their influence. As a result, confidential plans for a possible military adventure were hatched, awaiting the final approval of Chiang.45
The riot in Taiwan was thus yet as another piece of unwelcome news, adding onto Nanking’s already problematic frontier dealings on the mainland. While Chiang Kai-shek was angry at Chen Yi’s incompetence in dealing with the crisis, he also attributed the uprising to the “foreignness” of the islanders; having long been colonized and “enslaved” (nuhua) by the Japanese and detached from the Chinese motherland, Chiang sniffed, the Taiwanese were generally “fearing might and harboring no virtue” (weiwei bu huaide).46 Therefore, the most effective way to maintain peace and order in a newly retroceded frontier territory was through military strength.47
Realistically, unable to ascertain from afar how serious conditions in Taiwan were, Chiang was left with few alternatives but to rely entirely on the personal judgment and suggestions of Chen Yi and Ke Yuanfen, Chen’s chief of staff in the Provincial Garrison Command. On March 2, a “February 28 Incident Settlement Committee,” composed of prominent Taiwanese elites, representatives of local assemblies on the island and from other walks of life, was organized by anti-government elements to negotiate with Chen Yi’s administration. During the first week of March, committee representatives met with Chen, presenting a list of thirty-two demands for reform of the provincial administration. They requested, among other things, greater autonomy, abolition of trade monopoly, free elections, surrender of Nationalist forces to the committee, an end to government corruption, and control over the police and military. As passions ran high, Taiwanese demands moved toward fundamental political reform under the rubric of self-government.48
By March 7, Chen Yi, dumbfounded and obviously losing his patience, cabled Nanking to send reinforcements to Taiwan to restore order and “exterminate traitors” (su jian). Chiang agreed; to him, consolidating the Taiwan “backyard” was now critical, as at the moment his troops were engaging in increasingly strenuous battles with the CCP on the mainland. Nevertheless, it was a painful decision. On March 8, Chiang confided to his diary that he was now at a loss and did not know what to do about the crisis in Taiwan, when the military crises in Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi, and Manchuria, egregious and tense, had already confounded him abysmally.49
Military pacification now seemed the only option. On March 8, Nationalist reinforcements from the mainland arrived first in Keelung, then in Kaohsiung. Chen Yi soon declared martial law throughout the island and announced that the February 28 Incident Settlement Committee was illegal, that it had become part of a revolt. The Nationalist forces launched a crackdown, squelched the opposition to the KMT, and helped reassert government control by the middle of March.50 Thousands of people, including Chinese mainlanders as well as Taiwanese, were killed or imprisoned for their real or perceived dissent, leaving the Taiwanese victims with a deep-rooted bitterness toward the Nationalist authorities, and by extension, toward all Chinese mainlanders. This crackdown was a forbidden topic until 1987, and became the subject of numerous, albeit divided and conflicting, studies and competing memorials in the years since. The political hangover of the February incident continues to haunt the island’s politics even until today.51
THE AMERICAN ROLE REAPPRAISED
The role the Americans played in this blood-shedding episode deserves our careful scrutiny. When Chiang Kai-shek toured Taiwan and praised Chen Yi’s prowess and overall “achievements” on the island, he probably did not realize that the number of unsatisfied and disenchanted Taiwanese had grown to such an extent that progress had been made by local dissidents for a possible change of the island’s status quo. A situation report submitted by Ralph J. Blake to his superiors in the U.S. embassy in Nanking, dated January 10, 1947, revealed the uneasiness of the public, which fed numerous rumors and speculation, and that these reflected the uncertainty of political and economic conditions both on the mainland and on the island. Surprisingly, Blake’s report revealed that representatives of “a group of well educated men, with whom the Mayor of Taipei is said now to be associating himself” investigated Taiwan’s problems and concluded that, with any crisis on the mainland, either full-scale
war or collapse of the present economic structure, would create a crisis in Taiwan, during which a struggle for control of Taiwan would ensue. If the crisis did occur, as Blake went on to report, then representatives of this group would ask three things of the United States: that America refrain from transporting mainland troops to Taiwan, as was done after the Japanese surrender; that America send technical and administrative advisors to Taiwan to help it through a crisis in which they were determined not to be engulfed in the mainland chaos; and that America lend financial and material support for the rehabilitation of commerce and industry.52
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