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CHINESE INFLUENCE IN EARLY COLD WAR TAIPEI

July 6, 2011 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

Taipei is Shaped by Chinese Decision-Making, Not American Influence

Clearly, during the early Cold War period, Taipei was shaped by Chinese decision making rather than by American influence.

The capital was militarized, certainly. But that militarization derived from domestic Chinese forces — not from superpower leverage.

The US had begun to sway some decisions — land reform is a good example.  But it is not until the late 1950s that American influence began to promote a  more mixed economy between the public and private sectors.

American influence would be exerted  primarily through the extra-ministerial Council on US Aid, whose funds were administered outside the government’s regular budget.

Even after the 1960s, Taiwan’s economic policies retained many features directly associated with the pre-1949 industrial planning that had been in place on the mainland.  This is because many of the most prominent individuals associated with Taiwan’s economic policy had roots in the pre-1949 bureaucracy.

The National Resources Commission

The National Resources Commission(NRC) provided the majority of the heads of Taiwan’s state-run industries for the first four decades —  and 8 of the 14 post-1950 Ministers of Economic Affairs.

As late as 1987, both the Minister of Economic Affairs and the Chairman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development had been associated with the NRC.

Nevertheless, Taipei had a head start on cities throughout the developing world that were eventually influenced by superpower prestige and funding.

Industrial Leadership

The personnel discussed above included several thousand Chinese engineers who were sponsored under Lend-Lease funds for advanced training in major American industries.

This group formed the industrial leadership of China’s postwar development. While most remained on the mainland, some made their way to Taipei.

The first and most selective group of young engineers was sent to the US in 1942. It was composed of 31 men from all major divisions of the NRC who were given internships over a two-year period in organizations like Westinghouse, RCA, Du Pont, Monsanto, the Tennessee Valley Authority, US Bureau of Reclamation, US Steel and American Cyanamid.

Out of this first group, only 7 found themselves on Taiwan in 1949. However, as a group, they have enjoyed great distinction.

The prominence of such individuals carries forth a trend from the late Nationalist period on the mainland, in which essentially non-political economic bureaucrats played an increasing role in government, receiving cabinet-rank positions and sometimes more . . . . In this regard, at least, the economic bureaucracy of pre-1949 Nationalist China may be seen as a problematic predecessor of the contemporary developmental state on Taiwan.

While in the early postwar period these development oriented technocrats were overshadowed by the military, by the end of the 1950s they had regained their independence.

American Influence

As American influence grew stronger, military reconquest of the mainland became a secondary goal to that of economic development.

US advisers strongly backed the technocrats, and Chiang Kai-shek reasserted his support.

Taipei was soon to  undergo one of the most remarkable economic transformations in recent history, led by technocrats whose training had been funded by the United States government and who had sharpened their expertise and experience in American corporations and bureaucracies.

Economic transformation linked to military objectives was an integral part of the growing militarization of Taipei.

Filed Under: Taiwan Tagged With: Cold War, Cold War Taipei, Cold War Taiwan, Taipei, Taiwan, The Cold War

EARLY COLD WAR YEARS: TAIWAN AND THE MAINLANDERS

December 14, 2010 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

The first Nationalist soldiers arrived in Keelung on the northern tip of Taiwan in October 1945.

Their arrival provoked mixed reactions.

The Taiwanese who were already living on the island expected to be freed from strict Japanese colonial rule.  The arriving Chinese also wanted freedom from Japanese exploitation. At the same time, they respected the efficiency of the over 200,000 professional police and military forces who had kept political order during the long period of  Japanese rule.

The almost 60,000 troops who disembarked in preparation for the Japanese surrender on October 25, 1945,  looked bedraggled and seemed to be lacking in discipline.

The troops from the mainland anticipated a short stay. Their purpose was to accept the Japanese surrender, disarm the Japanese occupation forces, and make sure that Japanese troops left the island.

Afterwards, they expected to return to the front lines of the civil war which was still raging on the Mainland. In actuality, all but 5,000 troops returned home to fight the communists. However, the troops that remained on Taiwan were corrupt and undisciplined. Several incidents occurred between them and local Taipei residents who thought “the mainlanders to be dirty, dishonest, and technologically backward.”

According to John F. Copper in his 1990 book Taiwan: Nation-State or Province:

Stories circulated about mainland Chinese who stole bicycles and did not know what they were, who spent hours staring at elevators they had never seen before, and who were unable to maintain the basic public services, power plants, trains, and buses over which they were given jurisdiction. The Taiwanese also had to adjust to a new legal system. Nationalist soldiers claimed ownership of houses and land based on forced occupation; the Taiwanese considered this stealing. Eviction laws were weakened. Some other laws were changed; many were not enforced.

The troops were not prepared to keep internal order. The Nationalists believed that the Taiwanese considered China their ancestral home and source of culture. So they thought that Taiwan’s residents would be anxious to return to Chinese rule and would not mount any resistance. They were wrong.

Problems between the two groups erupted into violence on February 28, 1947 when Monopoly Bureau agents killed a Taiwanese woman who had been selling black-market cigarettes.

In the aftermath of the shooting, a crowd attacked a police station, set fire to a police vehicle and went on a rampage. Violence spread in the next few days. The authorities treated the protests as a pro-communist rebellion.

On March 8 a large contingent of Nationalist troops used heavy weapons against unarmed Taiwanese.

Order was restored at the end of March but by that time several thousand Taiwanese had been killed, including most of Taiwan’s local political leadership. The incident cemented the ethnic distrust  which had been gaining momentum in Taipei. Ethnic  rivalry continued to shape the city’s social and political climate for most of the Cold War period.

Filed Under: China | Manchuria Tagged With: Cold War, Cold War Cities, Cold War City, Cold War Studies, Taipei, Taiwan

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A Cold War historian, Lisa holds a Ph.D. in Politics from New York University and a MS in Policy Analysis and Public Management from SUNY Stony Brook.

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