March 13 to March 19
On March 17, 1954, K.C. Wu (吳國楨) was stripped of his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) membership and relieved of all his duties. Not that he was performing any of them — by then, he had resigned his post as governor of Taiwan and fled with his family to the US after a prolonged conflict with other party members, including Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), son of then-president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
The move came after Wu noticed on a road trip in March 1953 that the front wheels of his car had been tampered with, which he saw as an assassination attempt. Two months later, he successfully left the country under the pretense of nursing a sickness and accepting an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Princeton University.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
“I’m not coming back,” he reportedly told Judicial Yuan president Wang Chung-hui (王寵惠), who came to see him off at the airport.
GOING PUBLIC
Wu kept quiet at first — he was invited to speak at a Double Ten National Day gala in New York City, but only talked about supporting the Nationalists’ fight against Communism. But in November, reports surfaced accusing him of using government money to live a luxurious life in the US. He spent the next three months trying to clear his name, which garnered him more media attention.
Photo: Han Cheung, Taipei Times
He started to reveal more — when asked by Chicago’s WGN-TV why he came to the US, he replied that it was for both health and political reasons. Before that, however, he had maintained that it was entirely due to his sickness.
“In the political climate of those times, this was essentially a public challenge to Taiwan’s government,” his biography published by the Liberty Times states. CBS sent a reporter to his house the next day, and “there was no going back.”
On Feb. 16, 1954, he completely opened up about his conflict with the government, one of the points being that they did not care to win the support of the Taiwanese as well as overseas Chinese.
Liberty Times file photo
“We also need to win the support of free countries, especially the US. But if we don’t practice true democracy in our territories, this will not happen,” he said.
According to his biography, he then repeatedly told reporters in English, “The present government is too authoritarian.” These words made the major US newspapers.
This started a war of words between Wu and the KMT across the Pacific Ocean, leading up to his expulsion from the party.
SIMMERING FEUD
Wu had worked for the KMT since 1926 and was once a close associate of the Chiang family. He retreated to Taiwan with the KMT in 1949, and in 1950 he became governor after Chen Cheng’s (陳誠) resignation.
During this time, he clashed with other major KMT members over many issues, including greater self-governance for Taiwanese and increased democracy. The book Who’s Afraid of Wu Kuo-chen? (誰怕吳國楨?) by Yin Hui-min (殷惠敏) states that he even directly brought up the idea to Chiang Kai-shek of allowing multiple political parties.
“We have the best people on our side, where would we find able people to form an opposition party?” Chiang reportedly replied.
Wu had clashed with Chiang Ching-kuo while still in China, and this feud continued in Taiwan when he intervened in a mass arrest by Chiang’s special agents. Several more incidents took place over political arrests, and Wu further incurred Chiang’s wrath by refusing to provide funds to the anti-communist youth organization China Youth Corps (救國團), which he compared to communist and Nazi youth leagues in his biography.
Unable to carry out his political ideals and unhappy with the direction the Chiangs were going toward, Wu tried to resign several times, but to no avail. Chiang Kai-shek was intent on passing on power to his son, and was hoping that Wu would support him. Wu refused, and finally Chiang Kai-shek had no choice but to accept his resignation.
After his expulsion from the party, Wu only amped up his rhetoric, writing several letters to Chiang criticizing the government’s one-party rule, political intimidation through special agents and lack of press freedom among other issues.
He also accused Chiang of nepotism, saying that he “loves power more than his country, and loves his son more than his people.”
Probably most notable is the article he penned for Look magazine, titled Your Money has Built a Police State in Formosa, stating that Taiwan has turned into a “communist-type state.”
However, Wu’s efforts did not deter the US from continuing to support and provide funds to the KMT regime. As George H. Kerr writes in Formosa Betrayed, it was the height of the McCarthy Era and the US was more concerned about fighting communism, and “Wu’s voice was drowned in the clamor of more aid for Chiang.”
Taiwan in Time, a column about Taiwan’s history that is published every Sunday, spotlights important or interesting events around the nation that have anniversaries this week.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist