From devising a diplomacy strategy in collaboration with the US to ensuring the continued existence of the Republic of China (ROC) government in exile, no one has made a greater contribution, nor been treated so poorly, as former minister of foreign affairs George Yeh (葉公超), who wrote: “History teaches little about modern affairs; songs feel different from [when] one was young.”
Would the current crop of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) politicians be in any way comparable to someone of his caliber?
During the Cold War, the ROC government declared two groups its main enemies: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the “Taiwan independents.” It regarded both groups as equally dangerous.
The waishengren (外省人) — those who came from China with the KMT after the Chinese Civil War, and their offspring — among its perceived enemies were labeled “communist agents,” while the benshengren (本省人) — whose ancestors migrated to Taiwan before the Japanese colonial era — among its perceived enemies were labeled “independents.”
Former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) never wavered in his national day speeches, repeating the same slogan: “We will retake the mainland.”
The US asked Yeh to urge Chiang to change his tune, believing that he would otherwise risk falling from grace. Yeh replied that it was only natural for a general such as Chiang to rely on slogans.
“Retaking the mainland” would involve launching a war. While some hawkish KMT members at the time proposed “fighting back,” there were no incentives for benshengren party members to comply.
Waishengren KMT members with a bit of backbone — such as Free China Journal cofounder Lei Chen (雷震) — were bold enough to declare Chiang’s dream a lost cause and tried to dissuade him, but no one dared to accuse the KMT of bringing Taiwan to the brink of war. Any hope of “retaking the mainland” has long been a delusion, but now the CCP and Russia have become one big happy family, with their sights on nations that would fulfill their expansionist ambitions.
However, after turning its back on Chiang, the KMT now parrots the CCP’s propaganda by spreading anti-US narratives and fueling rumors about the CCP’s timeline for an invasion of Taiwan, turning self-defense into provocation and enemy into friend. Those KMT members who are willing to kowtow to China always say: “We are one of them; they are one of us.”
Yeh was responsible for signing the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty in 1952 and the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty in 1954, which declared that the ROC’s territory was limited to “Taiwan and the Pescadores,” a definition that sought to ensure Taiwan’s national security.
It is absurd that certain KMT members are claiming that Taiwanese cannot use the phrase “Taiwan National Day.”
Chiang and Yeh were at odds with each other about Mongolia’s 1961 application to join the UN, with Yeh being the intermediary between the ROC and the US. The US tried to bring Chiang around via a secret emissary, but it was Yeh who ended up being the scapegoat. He was removed from office and banned from leaving Taiwan.
There remain KMT politicians who showed their blind loyalty by claiming that the decrepit, vacillating KMT “simply cannot fall.”
Yet United Microelectronics Corp founder Robert Tsao (曹興誠), a Taiwanese born in China and an entrepreneur who has seen the true colors of the CCP and Russia, hit the KMT with the remark: “I want to ask this Chinese person, [former president] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), how much longer will you be bullying Taiwanese?”
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Rita Wang
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