By Sim Kiantek 沈建德
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) in a recent party central standing committee meeting said that the KMT is pro-US, but seeks peace with China. What Chu means is that the party “does not oppose the Chinese Communist Party [CCP].” The party’s youth corps has likewise said that the KMT was forced by circumstances to “join forces with the Soviet Union and to tolerate the CCP’s existence.”
That begs the question: If the KMT is so resolute in no longer resisting the CCP, why do its members not just pack up and leave Taiwan? The party’s leader Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) on June 20, 1949, telegraphed Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers Douglas MacArthur and made the party’s stance toward the CCP unmistakably clear.
At a Taipei Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association meeting on Oct. 22, 2001, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) said that the KMT’s occupation of Taiwan was solely driven by its intention to launch a counteroffensive to reclaim lost territory in China. However, as the prospect of “retaking the mainland” grew increasingly remote, Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), son of Chiang Kai-shek, eventually recognized the futility of that goal. He instead chose to give the political power to the public and lift martial law, paving the way for democratic reforms.
Chiang Ching-kuo’s daughter-in-law, Chiang Fang Chi-yi (蔣方智怡) — the original custodian of many of the Chiang family records loaned to Stanford University — expressed skepticism over the existence of the telegram, saying she had never heard of it and that there was no evidence it had ever been sent. She said Chiang Kai-shek would have left behind a written record of such correspondence with MacArthur.
In the telegram, Chiang Kai-shek said the Allied Powers plan to take back trusteeship over Taiwan and Penghu from the KMT following Japan’s formal renunciation of the colony at the end of World War II. Taiwan and Penghu were to be administered collectively by the Allied Powers, a move that Chiang saw as an attempt to drive out the Chiang regime and the Republic of China (ROC) after the official Japanese surrender.
Chiang Kai-shek pleaded with MacArthur, saying he wanted to temporarily occupy Taiwan as a base to continue fighting the CCP.
One of the key points in the telegram was Chiang’s pledge that he had no intention of relocating the ROC capital to Taiwan. He also assured MacArthur that he would not turn Taiwan into an exile government, akin to the wartime Polish government-in-exile based in London.
Another critical point was his appeal for US support in continuing the fight against the CCP.
That telegram is documented in A Chronicle of Chiang Kai-shek, a historical compilation published by Academia Historica.
The historical record is clear: Taiwan was not meant to be a permanent refuge for the ROC, but a temporary stronghold for counterattacking the communists. Yet now, at a time when Taiwan faces increasing military pressure from China — including encirclement drills and near-daily incursions — the KMT leadership is suddenly speaking out about “making peace with China.”
KMT Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言) recently visited China to engage in dialogue with its Taiwan Affairs Office on the basis of the CCP’s “one China principle,” which claims Taiwan as part of China.
If the KMT leadership is so committed to abandoning resistance against the CCP, why do they bother to stay in Taiwan?
Sim Kiantek is a former associate professor of business administration at National Chung Hsing University.
Translated by Tim Smith
