Fifty years ago on Aug. 23, Mao Zedong (毛澤東) launched what became known as the 823 Artillery Bombardment of Kinmen. The apparent reason was that the US and the UK had landed in Jordan and Lebanon, and Mao wanted to stir things up in the Far East to test US determination to help defend Kinmen and Matsu. The real reason was that Mao was tired of attacks on Fujian Province and that he worried Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) would launch a counterattack before his presidential term expired.
Mao was almost alone in making the decision to launch the bombardment, and he also controlled the political, diplomatic, military and propaganda machine. He worried that US advisors might be killed and considered informing the US. After the US offered naval support when Chiang sent army reinforcements to Kinmen, Mao said US ships could not be attacked. When debating with party hawks wanting to invade Kinmen, he said he had to consider the US reaction.
Although he called the US a “paper tiger,” Mao had to declare a ceasefire and call off shelling when the US sent an aircraft carrier and gave the Nationalist army bigger cannons and missiles in addition to breaking the blockade of Kinmen.
To stop the US from escorting troop reinforcements to Kinmen, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai (周恩來) suggested that China’s three nautical mile (5.5km) territorial zone should be expanded to 12 nautical miles, but US vessels remained at a distance of three nautical miles off Kinmen.
As the fighting reached its peak, Mao agreed to an ambassador level meeting with the US in Warsaw, making it clear that the bombardment was a test of US military strength, while the talks were a test of diplomatic strength. If the Kinmen and Matsu crisis was a nightmare for US president Dwight Eisenhower, it also caused Mao a lot of concern.
Chiang’s army built defense fortresses on Kinmen, which was the main reason so few of its soldiers died. However, the main goal of Chiang’s strategy was to prevent a Chinese amphibious invasion, and he failed to respond properly to the blockade.
In the end, Mao decided not to invade Kinmen, but it was clear that he adjusted his strategy as he went. He first decided on a one-week, and then a two-week, ceasefire before accepting Zhou’s suggestion to be less aggressive. Then, after US secretary of state John Foster Dulles visited Taipei, Mao decided to shell Kinmen on uneven dates, an unusual “ceasefire” that persisted until the US and China established diplomatic relations on Jan. 1, 1979.
When Mao noticed that Eisenhower was pressuring Chiang to evacuate Kinmen, which would have created two Chinas clearly divided by the Taiwan Strait, he called for a withdrawal of troops to be able to maintain Kinmen as channel for dialogue. He even offered to supply Kinmen with food and oil.
In 2001, the small three links were set up between Kinmen and Matsu and Xiamen and Fuzhou in China. Fifty years after the beginning of the shelling of Kinmen, local officials are asking for a military withdrawal from the island. In the past, the Nationlist army argued with their US advisors over shelling the Dadeng Island (大嶝島) bridge; today, that island may become the starting point for a bridge between Xiamen and Kinmen.
As cross-strait political and economic relations improve, Taiwan’s military should shun political party intervention and remain firm in continuing to build a solid national defense.
Mao used military force and propaganda in the 823 bombardment. Today, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) relies on other ideas, and Taiwan’s sole strategy of defense must not be to beat swords into ploughshares.
Lin Cheng-yi is a research fellow in the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica.
TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
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