South Korea was not the only rising industrial power trying
to imitate the success of the Japanese in East Asia. To
the south on the island of Taiwan, the Republic of China
began to do the same.
After retreating to Taiwan following their defeat by
the Communists, Chiang Kai-shek and his followers established
a new capital at Taipei and
set out to build a strong and prosperous
nation based on Chinese traditions and
the principles of Sun Yat-sen. The government,
which continued to refer to
itself as the Republic of China (ROC),
contended that it remained the legitimate
representative of the Chinese
people and that it would eventually return
in triumph to the mainland.
The Nationalists had much more
success on Taiwan than they had
achieved on the mainland. In the relatively
secure environment provided
by a security treaty with the United
States, signed in 1954, and the comforting
presence of the U.S. Seventh
Fleet in the Taiwan Strait, the ROC
was able to concentrate on economic
growth without worrying about a Communist
invasion. The regime possessed
a number of other advantages that it
had not enjoyed in Nanjing. Fifty years
of efficient Japanese rule had left behind
a relatively modern economic infrastructure and an
educated populace, although the island had absorbed
considerable damage during World War II and much of its
agricultural produce had been exported to Japan at low
prices. With only a small population to deal with (about
seven million in 1945), the ROC could make good use of
foreign assistance and the efforts of its own energetic
people to build a modern industrialized society.
The government moved rapidly to create a solid agricultural
base. A land reform program, more effectively designed
and implemented than the one introduced in the
early 1930s on the mainland, led to the reduction of
rents, while landholdings over 3 acres were purchased by
the government and resold to the tenants at reasonable
prices. As in Meiji Japan, the previous owners were compensated
by government bonds. The results were gratifying:
food production doubled over the next generation
and began to make up a substantial proportion of exports.
In the meantime, the government strongly encouraged
the development of local manufacturing and commerce.
By the 1970s, Taiwan was one of the most dynamic industrial
economies in East Asia. The agricultural proportion
of the gross national product declined from 36 percent
in 1952 to only 9 percent thirty years later. At first,
the industrial and commercial sector was composed of
relatively small firms engaged in exporting textiles and
food products, but the 1960s saw a shift to heavy industry,
including shipbuilding, steel, petrochemicals, and machinery,
and a growing emphasis on exports.
The government played a major
role in the process, targeting strategic
industries for support and investing in
infrastructure. At the same time, as in
Japan, the government stressed the importance
of private enterprise and encouraged
foreign investment and a
high rate of internal savings. By the
mid-1980s, more than three-quarters of
the population lived in urban areas.
In contrast to the People’s Republic
of China (PRC) on the mainland, the
ROC actively maintained Chinese tradition,
promoting respect for Confucius
and the ethical principles of the
past, such as hard work, frugality, and
filial piety. Although there was some
corruption in both the government and
the private sector, income differentials
between the wealthy and the poor were
generally less than elsewhere in the region,
and the overall standard of living
increased substantially. Health and
sanitation improved, literacy rates were quite high, and
an active family planning program reduced the rate of
population growth. Nevertheless, the total population
on the island increased to about twenty million in the
mid-1980s.
In one respect, however, Chiang Kai-shek had not
changed: increasing prosperity did not lead to the democratization
of the political process. The Nationalists
continued to rule by emergency decree and refused to permit
the formation of opposition political parties on the
grounds that the danger of invasion from the mainland
had not subsided. Propaganda material from the PRC was
rigorously prohibited, and dissident activities (promoting
either rapprochement with the mainland or the establishment
of an independent Republic of Taiwan) were
ruthlessly suppressed. Although representatives to the
provincial government of the province of Taiwan were
chosen in local elections, the central government (technically
representing the entire population of China) was
dominated by mainlanders who had fled to the island
with Chiang in 1949.
Some friction developed between the mainlanders (as
the new arrivals were called), who numbered about two
million, and the native Taiwanese; except for a few aboriginal
peoples in the mountains, most of the natives
were ethnic Chinese whose ancestors had emigrated to
the island during the Qing dynasty. While the mainlanders
were dominant in government and the professions,
the native Taiwanese were prominent in commerce.
Mainlanders tended to view the local population with a
measure of condescension, and at least in the early years,
intermarriage between members of the two groups was
rare. Many Taiwanese remembered with anger the events
of March 1947, when Nationalist troops had killed hundreds
of Taiwanese demonstrators in Taipei. More than
one thousand leading members of the local Taiwanese
community were arrested and killed in the subsequent repression.
By the 1980s, however, these fissures in Taiwanese
society had begun to diminish; by that time, an
ever-higher proportion of the population had been born
on the island and identified themselves as Taiwanese.
During the 1980s, the ROC slowly began to evolve toward
a more representative form of government—a process
that was facilitated by the death of Chiang Kai-shek
in 1975. Chiang Ching-kuo (1909–1988), his son and
successor, was less concerned about the danger from the
mainland and more tolerant of free expression. On his
death, he was succeeded as president by Lee Teng-hui (b.
1923), a native Taiwanese. By the end of the 1980s, democratization
was under way, including elections and the
formation of legal opposition parties. A national election
in 1992 resulted in a bare majority for the Nationalists
over strong opposition from the Democratic Progressive
Party (DPP).
But political liberalization had its dangers; some leading
Democratic Progressives began to agitate for an independent
Republic of Taiwan, a possibility that aroused
concern within the Nationalist government in Taipei
and frenzied hostility in the PRC. In the spring of 2000,
DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian (b. 1950) won election
to the presidency, ending half a century of Nationalist
Party rule on Taiwan. His elevation to the position angered
Beijing, which noted that in the past he had called
for an independent Taiwanese state. Chen backed away
from that position and called for the resumption of talks
with PRC, but Chinese leaders remain suspicious of his
intentions and reacted with hostility to U.S. plans to provide
advanced military equipment to the island.
Whether Taiwan will remain an independent state or
be united with mainland is impossible to predict. Certainly,
the outcome depends in good measure on developments
in the PRC. During his visit to China in 1972, U.S.
President Richard Nixon said that this was a question for
the Chinese people to decide (see Chapter 7). In 1979,
President Jimmy Carter abrogated the mutual security
treaty between the United States and the ROCthat had
been in force since 1954 and switched U.S. diplomatic
recognition from the Republic of China to the PRC. But
the United States continues to provide defensive military
assistance to the Taiwanese armed forces and has made it
clear that it supports self-determination for the people of
Taiwan and that it expects the final resolution of the Chinese
civil war to be by peaceful means. In the meantime,
economic and cultural contacts between Taiwan and the
mainland are steadily increasing, thus making the costs of
any future military confrontation increasingly expensive
for both sides. However, the Taiwanese have shown no
inclination to accept the PRC’s offer of “one country, two
systems,” under which the ROCwould accept the PRCas
the legitimate government of China in return for autonomous
control over the affairs of Taiwan.
World History
