Politics on Formosa

Extract

Though Chiang Kai-shek may vow to “sleep on faggots and drink gall” until the mainland is liberated, he has some reason to rest more easily today than at any time in his long career as Nationalist leader. On the mainland his government never clearly controlled more than one of China's three “key economic areas” (the Yellow River plain, the Yangtze valley, and the Szechuan basin). At least he can effectively control Formosa, a realm 1/260th the size of the mainland. Nationalist cells permeate schools, factories and government bureaux. Local police organisations, semi-autonomous in mainland days, are now under the central control of loyal mainlanders. The powerful security force, the Formosa Garrison Command (FGC), operates under martial law. The two minority parties are as impotent as their mainland counterparts. There are no treaty ports to harbour leftist critics and the mountainous half of the island is effectively patrolled by government forces painfully aware of the dangers of banditry and rebellion.