$Unique_ID{COW03613} $Pretitle{263} $Title{Taiwan Chapter 3B. Birth of the Republic} $Subtitle{} $Author{The Director Foreign Area Studies} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{china united government states chinese chiang nationalist taiwan war japanese} $Date{1971} $Log{} Country: Taiwan Book: Area Handbook for the Republic of China Author: The Director Foreign Area Studies Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1971 Chapter 3B. Birth of the Republic Collapse of the Manchu Dynasty Imperial China began to disintegrate after the signing of the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 upon the termination of the 3-year Opium War. Under terms of this treaty Great Britain won not only special commercial privileges and the island of Hong Kong but the unrestricted right to import opium into China. After Great Britain exposed China's inability to withstand Western weapons and means of warfare, for the next half century France, Russia, Germany, and Japan, each took turns in making exacting demands and taking military action when the demands were rejected. Each time, China lost and was forced to make concessions of extraterritoriality which violated its territorial integrity or national sovereignty. After Japan won the war of 1894 the interested European powers favored the idea of dividing China into separate "spheres of influence," each the exclusive domain, for purposes of economic exploitation, of a single power. When the various powers were unable to agree on the distribution of the concessions, they accepted the United States' proposal of 1899 to leave China intact and to grant equal rights of access to all powers. During the last three decades of the nineteenth century, Chinese statesmen and thinkers were engaged in energetic debate concerning the means of saving China from domination by foreigners. Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek Among countless radical revolutionary leaders, Sun Yat-sen was distinguished mainly by his large following among Overseas Chinese and by the significant financial backing that his movement received from abroad. He was a physician by profession and had received almost all of his education from Western schools. Sun Yat-sen's first abortive coup occurred in Canton in 1895. He promoted nine more unsuccessful attempts at overturning the monarchy, most of them from abroad. When the empire finally disintegrated as a result of widespread revolts and uprisings in 1911, partly inspired by his anti-Manchu writings, Sun Yat-sen, then in the United States, was proclaimed provisional president by representatives from 17 provinces. His strongest political support, however, was confined largely to Kwangtung province. In the face of military opposition he resigned, after 4 months, in favor of Yuan Shih-kai, the strongest of many local warlords who continued to be the nearly exclusive repositories of political power until 1928. For a decade after the fall of the Manchus, Sun Yat-sen attempted to get from Western nations the financial and military help necessary to unify China. After all of the major powers had rejected his requests, he turned in 1922 to the newly established Soviet Government. By this time he and most others who had been hopeful of establishing Western-type parliamentary democracy realized the impossibility of this as a short-range objective. Furthermore, the Russian Bolsheviks had apparently, by their absolute grasp of power, demonstrated the efficacy of their methods in a vast and relatively backward country. In 1924, Sun Yat-sen, with the help of Soviet military advisors, established the Whampoa Military Academy outside of Canton under the direction of Chiang Kai-shek. Late in 1924, Sun Yat-sen journeyed to Peking in a futile effort to persuade contending factions to unify under his leadership. He died there, in March 1925, leaving Chiang Kai-shek as the leader of his Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) and armed forces. In contrast to Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek had received nearly all of his education in China and had a far greater appreciation of Chinese classical studies and values. He traveled abroad for only brief periods, principally to Japan and the Soviet Union. Although also a Christian, Chiang Kai-shek has never ceased to cherish and encourage Confucian values. In contrast to the emphasis on Westernization of his predecessor, he has been an energetic proponent of conserving the content of Chinese tradition while adopting the functional aspects of Western methods and techniques necessary for modernization. His emphasis has been on reconciling positive aspects of Chinese and Western cultures rather than on the replacement of one by the other. Chiang Kai-shek was able to unify China under the Nationalists between 1926 and 1928, through reliance upon the armed forces led by officers trained at Whampoa. The new Chinese capital was established at Nanking, and the old capital was renamed Peiping. Chiang Kai-shek's regime was the sole nationally and internationally recognized Chinese government between 1928 and 1949. Nevertheless, his physical control for most of this period was limited to China Proper, and even that with exceptions. Outer Mongolia had declared itself an independent republic (theoretically recognizing the suzerainty of China) in 1924, under Soviet encouragement and protection. Tibet had remained completely autonomous without any attempt on the part of the central government to assert its authority during this period, and Sinkiang was only nominally under Chinese control. Manchuria was in Japanese hands from 1931 to 1945 and under Communist domination most the time thereafter. All of the coastal cities and most of the interconnecting railroad lines were taken over eventually by the Japanese between 1937 and 1944. War With Japan and Aftermath On September 18, 1931, in Manchuria, the Japanese, who had long enjoyed special privileges there, began the seizure of the entire province. They succeeded in expelling the Nationalist authorities and in establishing a Japanese-dominated state. With Manchuria as a base, they began to push down gradually over the Great Wall into North China. Although their efforts to secure secession of the five northern provinces of China failed, they were able to force the Nationalist government to agree to the creation of the so-called autonomous regions in North China. In the meantime, the Nationalist government was harassed by the local military governors and by the Communists, all of whom demanded immediate action against Japan. Chiang Kai-shek, faced by two enemies, the Japanese and the Communists, felt the Communists must be defeated before he would be able to build up sufficient strength to oppose the Japanese. Accordingly, he launched six campaigns against the Communists and in 1934 finally succeeded in dislodging them from their stronghold in Kiangsi province. The Communists, however, were able to escape by a circuitous route (the Long March) to the northwestern province of Shensi, where they established themselves at Yen-an. In December 1936 at Sian, Shensi, Nationalist troops, under Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang, who had been forced out of Manchuria by the Japanese, kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek and held him for several days while urging him to accept Communist collaboration in the fight against Japan. On July 7, 1937, a clash took place between the Nationalist and Japanese troops at Marco Polo Bridge outside of Peiping. This clash initiated open warfare between China and Japan. By 1940 Manchuria, North China, the coastal regions and the rich Yangtze Valley were under control of the well-prepared Japanese forces, and Chiang Kai-shek had been forced to withdraw his government to Chungking in the western province of Szechwan. The outbreak of World War II, which made China a partner of the Allied Powers, found it completely isolated and in a serious predicament. The most articulate critics of the Nationalist government and the strongest contenders for the control of China were the Chinese Communists. After their brief collaboration with the Nationalists at the outset of the war, they not only ceased their support, but denounced and fought the Nationalists as violently as they fought the Japanese. The animosity and distrust between Nationalists and Communists became so bitter that reconciliation was no longer possible. During World War II the United States attempted to support the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek and at the same time sought to reconcile the two factions in China. In 1946, after the war, the United States, using the influence and personal prestige of General George C. Marshall, attempted to achieve a rapprochement between the two factions, but the distrust on both sides was too deep-seated. Neither side dared to be the first to lay down its arms for fear of treachery, and in the end the United States intermediaries withdrew, convinced of the hopelessness of the task. The Nationalists intensified their efforts to stamp out the Communist rebellion and put an end to the separatist government. The Communists had continued their aggrandizement during the truce talks and were able to expand the territories under their control. The Yalta Pact, concluded between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Soviet Russia without China's cognizance, brought Soviet troops into Manchuria against the Japanese and consequently enabled the Soviets to dismantle and remove the industrial equipment of the region. China was constrained to sign an agreement with Soviet Russia in which the Soviet Union pledged to recognize and support Nationalist China, to respect China's sovereignty in Manchuria and Sinkiang and to establish Dairen as a free port, and China pledged to hold a plebiscite to determine the status of Outer Mongolia. The agreement, declared effective for 30 years, soon was violated by the Soviet Union, which held onto Dairen and stayed in Manchuria long enough to enable the Chinese Communists to move in and arm themselves with the equipment surrendered by the withdrawing Japanese army. The plebiscite in Outer Mongolia legalized the alienation of that region from Chinese control. Nationalist China emerged from the war nominally a great power, but actually a nation economically prostrate and politically divided. The Nationalist government was unable to cope with the many problems of rehabilitating the formerly Japanese-occupied areas and of reconstructing the nation from the wreckage of a protracted war. The economy, sapped by military demands of foreign and civil war, sabotaged by the Communists and undermined by peculations and hording, deteriorated despite assistance from the United States. Famine came in the wake of the war, and millions were rendered homeless by floods and the unsettled conditions in the countryside. Inflation caused the value of the Chinese dollar to drop steeply. By the end of 1948 Communist forces controlled virtually the entire area north of the Yangtze River. In April 1949 they crossed the Yangtze, and the government had to evacuate the capital at Nanking. For the remainder of the year Chiang Kai-shek's government was in flight. It moved to Canton at the end of April, to Chungking at the beginning of October, to Chengtu by the end of November, and to Taipei on Taiwan a month later. After World War II the United States continued military aid to the Nationalist government, but when it became evident that much of this equipment was falling into the hands of the Communists, the aid was curtailed. When the Nationalist government established itself on Taiwan in 1949 the United States Government announced that it would furnish economic aid but no further military aid. Taiwan Since World War II Retrocession to China During World War II, President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and President Chiang Kai-shek met at Cairo. The result of this meeting was summed up in the Cairo Declaration of December 1, 1943, which specified that "all the territories Japan had stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores, shall be returned to the Republic of China." This statement was reconfirmed in the Postdam Proclamation of July 26, 1945. In September 1945, Chinese armed forces took over the administration of Taiwan from the Japanese authorities. The overwhelming majority of Taiwanese were initially exuberant at their liberation from Japan. When the Chinese administration was inaugurated formally on October 3, 1945, it turned out, however, that rather than again becoming a true province of China, as the Taiwanese had expected, the island was placed under military rule, with General Chen Yi as administrator general and supreme commander. All of the most desirable residences, as well as 90 percent of the commercial and industrial enterprises owned by the Japanese, were taken over by arrivals from the mainland. Many of the enterprises were stripped of all movable assets, which were shipped to the mainland. Enterprises which could not continue operations because of lack of material or technical personnel continued paying salaries until the assets gave out. Food shortages developed after large grain shipments to the Nationalist armies on the mainland were made. The breakdown in public health services and preventive measures caused epidemics of cholera and bubonic plague. Education deteriorated, as did public morals. Whereas the native Taiwanese were disposed to accept infringement of their political rights, which were declared officially postponed until December 1949, 2 years after the Constitution was to go into effect on the mainland, they were incensed at the violation of their property rights and at the breakdown of public order and domestic tranquility which they had taken for granted under the Japanese. The troubles were compounded by the disruption to the economy caused by extensive bombing during the last year of the war. Events of 1947 Discontent and unrest had intensified by February 27, 1947, when government officials allegedly killed a local woman who had been selling black-market cigarettes. After a mob had been fired upon by police and four demonstrators were killed, there was a general uprising against the occupation authorities. Chen Yi, who lacked the force necessary to quell the rebellion, temporized until the arrival of reinforcements from the mainland. On March 8 a large body of troops arrived to put down the uprising. An estimated 10,000 Taiwanese were killed, and order was restored by the end of March. When President Chiang Kai-shek had, at Nanking, received information concerning events and conditions on Taiwan, he moved to rectify the situation. General Chen Yi and most of his associates were relieved of their posts. Taiwan became a province with political rights of the same order as those enjoyed in other provinces. Many native Taiwanese were appointed to high office, and censorship and "pacification" were terminated formally. Several government enterprises were turned over to private hands, and unemployment relief was instituted. Movement of the Nationalist Government to Taiwan Early in 1949 Chiang Kai-shek, when his forces were being pushed back on the mainland, decided to prepare a final defensive position from which to continue the struggle. He had the navy and the remnants of the air force rebased on Taiwan and sent troops to prepare to defend the island. In December 1949, when it became evident that further defense on the mainland was impossible, the Nationalist government and many of its best troops were transported to Taiwan, and the seat of the Republic of China was set up in Taipei. Immediately upon establishing his seat of government on Taiwan in 1949, President Chiang Kai-shek launched a program of economic reforms. The most basic reforms occurred in agriculture. Rent was reduced from a customary 50 percent or more to 37 1/2 percent of the major annual crop for the island's tenants, who made up 40 percent of all farmers. Government-owned land was put up for sale at modest price, and abundant technical aid was made available to farmers (see ch. 18, Agriculture). Large-scale land redistribution was begun in January 1953. Large landowners were compensated partly in bonds redeemable over a 20-year period and partly in government stocks. Thus, many former landlords became industrialists, and many have prospered since (see ch. 19, Industry). Considerable technical and financial aid also has gone into forestry, fishing, manufacturing, and commerce. Industrial production increased more than threefold in the decade after 1952, and per capita income in 1966 was six times that of 15 years earlier (see ch. 17, Character and Structure of the Economy). The Defense of Taiwan After North Korea invaded the South and Chinese troops entered the conflict and engaged in combat with United States troops which were repulsing the North Koreans in the name of the United Nations, the United States Seventh Fleet was ordered into the Formosa Straits to prevent a Communist invasion of Taiwan. At the same time the Republic of China became a recipient of massive United States military and economic aid. After the end of the conflict in Korea, Communist China set out to consolidate its control over areas still in the hands of Chiang Kai-shek's forces. In September 1954 the Communists announced an all-out drive to capture Taiwan and the other islands under the control of the Republic of China. In February 1955, after having drafted nearly half a million additional men into its armed forces, Communist China captured the Tachen and Nanchi Island groups after the United States helped to evacuate the defenders. This was followed by an attack on the Matsu islands which was halted by the Nationalist troops and by a United States show of force. In August 1958, after consultations in Peiping with the Premier and Defense Minister of the Soviet Union, the Communist Chinese government launched a severe week-long attack on the Quemoy Islands (opposite Amoy on the mainland), bombarding them at the rate of up to 60,000 shells per day. On August 28 the Communists announced their intention of landing on these islands as well as on Taiwan. In the meantime, the United States amassed in the Western Pacific a powerful fleet, and talks between the United States and Communist Chinese ambassadors were resumed at Warsaw. Before the crisis subsided, Premier Khrushchev threatened to unleash Soviet nuclear weapons against the United States if the latter were to use such weapons against Communist China. Calm was restored after the United States publicly clarified its commitment to the Republic of China. This was done by United States Secretary of State John Foster Dulles on September 4, 1958, when he stated, The United States is bound by treaty to defend Taiwan from armed attack, and the President is authorized by joint resolution of Congress to employ the armed forces of the United States for securing and protecting of related positions such as Quemoy and Matsu.