Accidental State

by Hsiao-ting Lin

  On the day that K. C. Wu assumed governorship of Taiwan in Taipei, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the idea of launching a “modest, well-directed and closely supervised” program for China which had been advanced earlier, now called for concrete military assistance for Taiwan and an immediate survey of its defense requirements.35 In the meantime, in the State Department, a confidential memorandum drafted by Assistant Secretary of State W. Walton Butterworth drew a rather different conclusion. Butterworth pointed out straightforwardly that no new convincing military-strategic reason could be found to diverge from the American nonmilitary policy toward Taiwan. Responding to the military’s argument that Taiwan was “useful in deflecting Chinese Communist expansion” in East Asia, the memorandum, presumably taking Lu Han’s recent defection into consideration, argued forcefully that the primary threat in Taiwan was from infiltration and subversion, rather than invasion. As a result, American military action might postpone a Communist takeover but could never prevent it. Moreover, such action would carry an unacceptable political price for the United States: loss of prestige for visibly trying and failing to retain the island, a tarnished reputation in Asia for backing a discredited regime, and a reputation as the new Soviet Union, “the imperialist menace to China.”36

  On December 29, 1949, after making certain that he had the president in his corner, Secretary of State Dean Acheson easily blocked the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s recommendation at a Blair House session with military leaders. Using the arguments in Butterworth’s memorandum, Acheson emphasized that the bankrupt Nationalists might succumb to the same internal decline on Taiwan that had affected them everywhere on the mainland.37 The military chiefs were silenced later that same day, when the National Security Council took final action on NSC 48, and the State Department won approval for a reaffirmation of nonmilitary policy as a part of NSC 48/2.38 Truman relentlessly criticized Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist followers as “about the rottenest government that ever existed,” and the decision to sustain the nonmilitary policy, as contemporary literature argues, amounted to a virtual abandonment of Taiwan and the Nationalists on it.39

  Given the heating up of the Cold War in Europe and attendant concerns, notably the Berlin Blockade and the success of the first Soviet atomic test, the NSC 48/2 decision was entirely understandable. In the face of growing pressure from leading Republicans and the China lobby to increase aid for Chiang Kai-shek, President Truman and Dean Acheson concluded that the time had come to curb the incessant speculation. Truman issued a press statement on January 5, 1950, to the effect that Taiwan was clearly Chinese territory and that the United States harbored no ulterior motives concerning Taiwan. There would be no involvement in the Chinese civil war, nor would military assistance or advice be furnished to the Nationalists on Taiwan.40 Acheson quickly followed with a major speech, delivered on January 12, in which he described Taiwan and South Korea as “not within the U.S. defense perimeter,” reiterating that no U.S. military support would be given to the Nationalist remnants on the island.41 With little question, such blunt statements from the United States were like a death sentence for the Nationalists in Taiwan. The Nationalist Foreign Ministry was instructed to lodge a strong protest with the U.S. Embassy in Taipei, but the protest fell on deaf ears.42

  As hopes for securing American aid evaporated, everyone in Taipei’s high political circle now seemed cynical, and a sense of deep betrayal was fast growing. The fact that Washington did not highlight the unsettled legal status of Taiwan clearly suggested that the island would eventually fall to the Chinese Communists and a Chinese Titoism might follow. Chen Cheng, in his personal memoirs, recalled Truman’s piercing words in early 1950, along with the U.S. refusal to render military assistance, as disillusioning a few “unrealistic” and “irresponsible” politicians on the island. He was referring to the “overbearing” K. C. Wu, who, in Chen’s view, harbored evil ambitions to use American support to bolster his political power on the island. As Chen saw it, the public statements made by Truman and Acheson only proved that Wu was “clownish,” “hubris-minded,” and “politically naïve.”43

  Chen Cheng’s bitter complaints about his chief political rival and the American backers are fully understandable. It should be noted, however, that while making K. C. Wu and Sun Liren the candidates to cultivate within the Nationalist hierarchy, some in Washington’s higher circles also favored supporting elements outside the KMT. The story of Thomas Liao (Liao Wenyi) and his cohorts demonstrates how the relationship between pro-independence Taiwanese and the United States evolved when the collapse of the Nationalist government seemed imminent, and how the U.S. policy toward Taiwan was divided and unsettled. Shortly after the mass uprisings that began in Taipei on February 28, 1947, Liao and his associates organized the Formosa League for Re-emancipation (FLR) in Shanghai and petitioned the United Nations to place Taiwan under its trusteeship as a prelude to independence.44 When General Wedemeyer visited Taiwan in the summer of 1947, Liao gave him a petition letter to the effect that people in Taiwan should have the right to decide their own future. Although no official response to Liao’s appeal was made by the United States, his voice began attracting the attention of the international mass media.45

  Since the fall of 1948, core members of the FLR had resettled in Japan, where they sought a more congenial environment for their Taiwanese independence activities. Soon their contact with SCAP headquarters in Tokyo, especially with MacArthur’s political intelligence personnel became an open secret. With the tacit consent of the SCAP, on January 27, 1949, the FLR publicly appealed for a comprehensive U.S. mandate for Taiwan, so as to prevent the fall of the island to the Chinese Communists. This was the clearest statement about the FLR’s political goals thus far.46 In March 1949, having held several conversations with key FLR members in Tokyo, William J. Sebald, MacArthur’s chief political advisor, cabled a top-secret report to the State Department, in which he stated his belief that the tumultuous situation in China at that time afforded an opportunity for interested groups, notably Thomas Liao and the FLR under him, to exploit the independence movement in Taiwan. It was also possible, Sebald noted, that a confused situation in China might induce certain Nationalist military or political leaders to use pro-independence feelings in Taiwan as a device to provide them with an autonomous political stronghold or a new coalition government between the KMT and the CCP.47

  In the following months, important FLR elements were actively engaged in lobbying for Taiwan’s independence. Thomas Liao was in Hong Kong, where he garnered support from local consular officials of the United States and the Philippines.48 Between May and September 1949, Peter Huang, another key figure of the league, was first in Guangzhou and then in Taiwan, where he held several important meetings with local American diplomats. He told Lewis Clark that the FLR was leaving its choices open, eager to collaborate with every possible leader or faction that was willing to fight for Taiwan’s survival. Huang expressed his particular wish to establish direct contact with General Sun Liren, who had headquartered himself in southern Taiwan. Huang hoped for American support in putting the two parties in direct contact.49

  While in Taipei, Peter Huang informed U.S. Consul General John MacDonald that the FLR was prepared to “sacrifice a hundred thousand Taiwanese in a bloodbath uprising after which the United States could come and take over.” He also claimed, unconvincingly, that General Sun Liren had attempted to approach him and had agreed to support the FLR wholeheartedly with arms and men. Huang thus urged Washington to render financial assistance in order to facilitate FLR activities in Taiwan.50 MacDonald, however, was not impressed. In his cable back to Washington, he described Huang as being “neither better nor worse than several other Taiwanese independence leaders.” MacDonald observed that, after two months’ stay in Taiwan, Huang was “pathetically un-informed on local conditions and popular current thinking.” MacDonald maintained that the FLR had supporters only at Taiwan’s lowest government levels, and there was no indication that Sun
Liren or other higher officials on the island would support it. The American consul general’s conclusion was that the FLR was by no means qualified to claim it represented the 6.5 million people on the island, and therefore the U.S. government should not render any substantial assistance.51

  On September 2, 1949, in the midst of the alleged SCAP takeover of Taiwan, Thomas Liao submitted detailed operation guidelines to Philip Jessup, the ambassador at large at the State Department, in which Liao called for an immediate SCAP temporary jurisdiction over Taiwan and the Pescadores. Liao also suggested that he personally lead the provisional Taiwanese government under the supervision of a military and political advisory committee appointed by SCAP; that all the collaborators in the KMT regime in Taiwan be purged; that people in different districts and races on the island be assisted in establishing their own local governments; and that a “Formosan National Defense Army” of 50,000 standing troops be organized with SCAP training and supervision. To preserve Taiwan’s political stability and to build up a new social order, Liao proposed that 8,000 American troops be sent to Taiwan, and that these troops be divided into eight groups, stationed at eight different points, including five in the west coast of Taiwan, two in the east, and one in the Pescadores. To help Taiwan’s economic recovery, Liao unabashedly requested $60 million in materiel aid and another $60 million in the form of investment from private U.S. companies.52

  As the Nationalists’ resistance on the Chinese mainland was rapidly disintegrating in the fall of 1949, despite John MacDonald’s unfavorable evaluation of Peter Huang, higher-level policy planning staff in the State and Defense departments did view the FLR as one potential force instrumental in collaborating with K. C. Wu, Sun Liren, and other Taiwanese elites within the KMT power structure and carrying out a genuine reform in Taiwan. In mid-November, Peter Huang informed Donald Edgar, the U.S. consul in Taipei, that Thomas Liao had received a response from President Truman, privately advising the FLR to cooperate with liberal elements of the Nationalist government.53 It remains unclear whether Liao’s claim was merely self-serving, but to many of Liao’s associates, this sounded like a positive signal from the White House. In the first week of January 1950, consequently, notable Taiwanese elites within the KMT, including Qiu Niantai, Lin Xiantang, Wu Sanlian, and Yang Zhaojia, were so active in their secret liaisons with Peter Huang that speculation had it the FLR would soon be integrated into the reformulated Taiwanese provincial authorities under K. C. Wu, with its members playing a greater role in the island’s future politics.54 In an internally circulated memorandum prepared on January 6, 1950, planning-level officials in the State Department argued that if the current reform trend led by K. C. Wu was sincere and effective, some accommodation between the Taiwanese and the Nationalists might be a possibility.55 With one of the most important functions of the U.S. diplomatic representation on Taiwan now to get access to as many FLR members as possible, David L. Osborn, American vice consul in Taipei, was soon made key liaison between the Consulate General and the league. It is worth noting that, to facilitate Peter Huang’s activities in Taiwan, Osborn went so far as to arrange this prominent FLR figure to work undercover, as a fieldworker and interpreter for the U.S.-backed Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction in Taiwan.56

  On January 12, 1950, while Dean Acheson reiterated Washington’s unwillingness to risk incurring the anger of the Chinese people over perceived imperialist intervention in China’s domestic affairs, Robert Strong, the State Department’s chief representative in Taipei, held a clandestine discussion with a group of FLR leaders. The FLR handed over to Strong a four-point proposal: the denunciation of the 1943 Cairo Declaration; the establishment of a provisional Taiwan government; a coup initiated by Sun Liren on behalf of the Taiwanese people; and the founding of a new Taiwanese army to defend the island. According to Strong, the significance of this meeting was that these FLR members were accompanied by Yang Zhaojia, a heavyweight member of K. C. Wu’s new provincial authorities who also enjoyed a very high reputation among the Taiwanese people.57

  The January 12 meeting was followed by a secret rendezvous between Robert Strong and James Chen, another key FLR member, on January 26. According to Strong’s confidential dispatch to Dean Acheson, Chen informed the American chargé that Taiwanese elites within and outside the KMT were organizing a “Taiwanese Democratic People’s Association” under the leadership of Lin Dingli, former station chief of the notorious KMT Investigation and Statistic Bureau in Taipei. Using Lin’s unique intelligence background within the KMT party, Chen naively thought that Chiang Kai-shek might finally consent to the presence of this association and that, when its position was consolidated, the association would replace Lin with General Li Liangrong, the former governor of Fujian Province who had recently played a brave role in expelling the invading PLA from Quemoy. James Chen revealed that the ultimate goal of the association was to declare Taiwanese independence, and he claimed that U.S. support for the association was the most critical factor in achieving this goal.58

  Although Robert Strong responded by saying that Washington would not make any substantial commitment to such underground activities, he nevertheless told James Chen that he was ready to hear any suggestions or options regarding Taiwan’s future. Two weeks later, James Chen returned with a further claim that Chiang Kai-shek and K. C. Wu had verbally agreed to the establishment of the Taiwanese Democratic People’s Association, and he asked for Washington’s firm endorsement. The first reaction from the U.S. chargé was positive; in his telegram dispatch to Washington, Strong highlighted that the organizational form of this new association was of interest to the United States, because it would provide a working government on provincial and local levels, “should any effort [to] take power be successful.”59 In the weeks that followed, it seemed K. C. Wu and the FLR were competing to win the goodwill of the American embassy in Taipei and thus claim leadership of the association. But Washington’s attitude remained undecided. Even though James Chen repeatedly asserted that the founding of the association had Chiang Kai-shek’s approval, and that Chiang even supported the idea of forming a new Taiwanese army, the State Department had serious doubts about Chiang’s involvement, as well as about the association’s possible role in strengthening the island’s military and political position.60

  THE UNDETERMINED PARTY REFORM

  Predictably, Chiang Kai-shek was both annoyed at, and fretted about the underground contacts between certain Taiwanese elites and the American diplomats in Taipei. He deemed such contacts an “evil intrigue” on the part of the United States aimed at encouraging Taiwan’s separation from China.61 However, to convince Washington that genuine reforms were in the offing, Chiang needed to make a compromise. In mid-March 1950, Chiang sent his trusted national security chief, Tang Zong, to convey verbally to Robert Strong that he was pleased to see more Taiwanese elites would be participating in Taiwan’s political affairs as a result of the Taiwanese Democratic People’s Association.62 Chiang’s apparently encouraging attitude momentarily inspired Taiwanese elites both within and outside the Nationalist bureaucracy. Almost simultaneously, the Nationalist government announced that elections at local levels would be launched throughout Taiwan in the foreseeable future, a giant step toward the island’s eventual democratic, local governance.63

  While welcoming these new developments on the island, Robert Strong was realistic about the possible results. On April 4, the day he was invited (but ultimately rejected) to be present at the inaugural ceremony of the Taiwanese Democratic People’s Association, Strong cabled the State Department, predicting that the organization would produce three consequences: The Taiwanese “half-mountain” people would use it to gain political power; the initiators such as Lin Dingli, James Chen, and other FLR cohorts would then be regarded as having conspired to overthrow the Nationalist government; and Chiang Kai-shek would gradually penetrate the association to blunt any potential threat and eventually to use it for his own purposes.64

  Strong’s pre
diction about the ultimate fate of FLR members proved to be largely correct. Toward the end of May 1950, Chiang Kai-shek became aware that certain Taiwanese officeholders within the government, including Yang Zhaojia and Wu Sanlian (then serving as Taipei’s city mayor), were closely related to the FLR and the Taiwanese independence movement. The astonished Chiang realized that something must be done urgently. With “national security” as a perfect justification, his son Ching-kuo ordered the arrest of nineteen key FLR members, including Thomas Liao, Peter Huang, and James Chen.65 Although no immediate action was taken against Yang Zhaojia or Wu Sanlian, by the middle of May collaboration between the separatist FLR and K. C. Wu’s provincial team had become little more than a fantasy.