Do the British Wish They Hadn’t?

Judging by both news reports and editorial comment in the Taipei papers, everyone on the island of Formosa is right now speculating on the significance of the lively interest which the British are taking in Free China’s political institutions, economy, military potential and the temper of the people. For a couple of months past the Taipei papers have been recording a new “first” in British attentions about once a week. A sympathetic British visitor is the first Member of Parliament to reach Formosa since Great Britain recognized Red China, on January 6, 1950. An elderly lady of distinction, known for good works in the British Isles, is the first officer of the lately organized (British) Friends of Free China Association to get to Taipei. A couple of Board of Trade experts turn up to check on the possibilities of direct trade relations (other than those through Hong Kong firms) and are the first official British visitors other than the semi-official consular officer who stamps a visa on the passport of a person wishing to go to Hong Kong, but who otherwise leads a studiously obscure life in the old Dutch fort on a hill above Tanshui.

A couple of months ago, the London Economist had a very competent but anonymous correspondent do what one might call a sneak survey of the Republic of China, as established on the island of Taiwan; and nothing could have been fairer than his report. Also, few friends of Free China would have expected one more favorable. One reads between the lines, indeed, that the fellow who did the job was himself surprised to find how healthy all institutions were in Free China. The only thing he could not take seriously was that “Fight Back to the Mainland” slogan, which is on every blank wall throughout Formosa, the Pescadores and the offshore islands. The possibility that it really means business is something to give the trade-hungry British the jitters. As a return on recognition of Red China the British have reaped an appalling crop of humiliation. Never have they eaten dirt in Asia as they have at the hands of the Mao regime. But if the Nationalists were to go back in support of a popular rising, or if a counterattack were to elicit the support of a popular rising, and the whole Communist setup were to collapse, what would be the attitude of a newly re-established republican government toward the British trader? So the Economist’s surveyor treats the whole idea of a counterattack as a “myth” in which no one has any faith but every Chinese on the island of Taiwan, a goodly percentage of the Americans in uniform there, and a few stargazers in Washington.

RG

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Rodney Gilbert

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Judging by both news reports and editorial comment in the Taipei papers, everyone on the island of Formosa is right now speculating on the significance of the lively interest which the British are taking in Free China’s political institutions, economy, military potential and the temper of the people. For a couple of months past the Taipei papers have been recording a new “first” in British attentions about once a week. A sympathetic British visitor is the first Member of Parliament to reach Formosa since Great Britain recognized Red China, on January 6, 1950. An elderly lady of distinction, known for good works in the British Isles, is the first officer of the lately organized (British) Friends of Free China Association to get to Taipei. A couple of Board of Trade experts turn up to check on the possibilities of direct trade relations (other than those through Hong Kong firms) and are the first official British visitors other than the semi-official consular officer who stamps a visa on the passport of a person wishing to go to Hong Kong, but who otherwise leads a studiously obscure life in the old Dutch fort on a hill above Tanshui.

A couple of months ago, the London Economist had a very competent but anonymous correspondent do what one might call a sneak survey of the Republic of China, as established on the island of Taiwan; and nothing could have been fairer than his report. Also, few friends of Free China would have expected one more favorable. One reads between the lines, indeed, that the fellow who did the job was himself surprised to find how healthy all institutions were in Free China. The only thing he could not take seriously was that “Fight Back to the Mainland” slogan, which is on every blank wall throughout Formosa, the Pescadores and the offshore islands. The possibility that it really means business is something to give the trade-hungry British the jitters. As a return on recognition of Red China the British have reaped an appalling crop of humiliation. Never have they eaten dirt in Asia as they have at the hands of the Mao regime. But if the Nationalists were to go back in support of a popular rising, or if a counterattack were to elicit the support of a popular rising, and the whole Communist setup were to collapse, what would be the attitude of a newly re-established republican government toward the British trader? So the Economist’s surveyor treats the whole idea of a counterattack as a “myth” in which no one has any faith but every Chinese on the island of Taiwan, a goodly percentage of the Americans in uniform there, and a few stargazers in Washington.