President Yen also said that the conscience of mankind testifies that Communism is an adverse tide running against humanity and history, and that the Communist way of life can never be accepted by free people. "Truth always asserts itself; justice always prevails. There is no other means of ensuring world peace," he said.
Referring to developments on the Chinese mainland, the President said: "The capricious struggles and cyclical purges of the Chinese Communists are on the increase once again. The powerholders are expanding their exposures of the 'gang of four.' They are enumerating the gang's crimes and launching bloody massacres. At the same time, the 'gang of four' is mustering the militia for stubborn counterattack. The few power-holders are themselves involved in overt struggle and covert rivalry because of their clashing interests. Everyone is placed in danger. Under the guise of 'exposing and criticizing the gang of four,' the Chinese Communist regime is intensifying its persecution of the people and carrying out waves of killings that have turned the mainland into a slaughterhouse. The Communist party, administration and military have been reduced to chaos and are so torn by factionalism that no one can control the overall situation. We have every reason to believe that in such an environment of chaos and disruption, the determined action of the mainland people in opposing Communist tyranny will be strengthened and augmented. Eventually the people will succeed in overthrowing Communist rule and restoring democracy to China."
Addressing the National Assembly on the 30th anniversary of the implementation of the Constitution, President Yen said that the Republic of China is not held in contempt by anyone but has won the respect of the free world.
Following are excerpts from President Yen's address:
"The history of the Republic of China is a record of steadfast struggle in the cause of freedom, justice, democracy and constitutional rule. In leading the National Revolution, Dr. Sun Yat-sen regarded implementation of constitutional rule as one of the highest goals. With his dauntless spirit, the late President Chiang Kai-shek broke through all obstructions, overcame all obstacles and eventually implemented constitutional rule. He inherited from Dr. Sun the determination, the resolution, the ambition and the plans required to establish a democratic foundation. This is appreciated by every citizen.
"As we began to implement the Constitution three decades ago, the Chinese Communists enlarged their rebellion. The criminal behavior of the Chinese Communists obviously contradicts the democratic spirit of the Constitution and runs counter to our cultural and ethical tradition. President Chiang understood the intrigues of the Chinese Communists and was determined to eliminate them. At the first session of the National Assembly, he advanced the important guideline of placing equal emphasis on the suppression of the Chinese Communists and the introduction of constitutional rule. He said: 'As we begin constitutional rule here today, we want to plan for everlasting security of the country; but the Communists seek chaos. We want to safeguard the lives of the people and existence of the nation, but the Communists promote hunger and poverty that will lead to extinction. For the sake of the country and the people, I think we should attach equal importance to Communist suppression and constitutional rule. We shall not delay constitutional rule because of Communist suppression. To the contrary, we shall intensify our efforts of Communist suppression in the interest of successful constitutional rule, so that we can eliminate both the barrier to national construction and the enemy of democracy.' This wise decision secured the foundations of the democratic Constitution and enabled us to maintain the legal tradition of our country. This served the continuous development of our national destiny ...
"Article I of the Constitution says: 'The Republic of China, founded on the Three Principles of the People, shall be a democratic republic of the people, by the people and for the people.' The supreme objective of our constitutional implementation is realization of the Three Principles of the People. President Chiang said: 'San Min Chu I (The Three Principles of the People) leads the country with benevolence so the people follow it; Communism commands the people with violence, and the people therefore reject it.'
"We have insisted on a national policy of anti-Communism. Over the years, our efforts in this bastion of national revival have led to the establishment of a model province based on the Three Principles of the People. We have turned this bastion into a strong anti-Communist fortress that has halted the flames of Chinese Communist external aggression and provided a bulwark to preserve the security of the Asian and Pacific region. We have followed President Chiang's instructions, carried out his last will and testament and shown our fortitude and vigor." The people as a whole are more united and their self-confidence has become stronger than ever. We have forged substantial economic and cultural relations with all non-Communist countries of the world and promoted friendship and cooperation with their people. The development of our foreign relations affords further testimony that 'those who uphold justice will not stand alone.' The Republic of China is not held in contempt by anyone; in fact it has won the widespread respect of the free world."
On the same occasion, Premier Chiang Ching-kuo declared that the Republic of China should cooperate with other countries to seek world prosperity.
The economic storm that has swept across the world appears over, Premier Chiang said, but the economic recovery is not so fast as it could be. Competition in international trade is getting keener and protectionism is increasing, he added.
"We in the Republic of China have a stable economy," he said. "But as a member of the international community, we should cooperate with the free world in bringing prosperity to all."
The democratic camp has waked from its delusion about "detente," Premier Chiang said, but the undercurrent of appeasement is still running strong and the free world is still unable to distinguish friends from foes. The contacts between the United States and the Chinese Communists are harmful to ROC national interests and the security of the free world. "That is why the Republic of China must time and again reiterate its firm stand," he said.
Turning to the domestic scene, Premier Chiang listed urban land rights equalization and the November 19 elections among the 1977 achievements of his administration. He cited construction of low-priced housing, development of regional communities, social security and health care.
The economy continued to grow steadily last year, he said. (Figures released subsequently showed economic growth of 8.08 per cent, which meant a gain of 5.86 per cent in per capita income. Agriculture was up by 2.7 per cent and manufacturing by 9.67 per cent.)
On the diplomatic front, the Premier pointed out that this country has substantive relations with more than 100 countries. The Republic of China will always remain in the democratic camp, he said, respect treaty obligations, promote international cooperation, uphold international justice and work for world peace.
Commenting on the November elections for five categories of provincial and local offices, Premier Chiang said results measured up to standards of fairness, impartiality and openness called for by the government and the ruling Kuomintang. But the exercise of democracy must be coupled with the rule of law, he added.
"Only then can the national interest and social order be protected," he said.
The Premier, who is also chairman of the party, told the Kuomintang Central Standing Committee that election winners must work together with one mind for a secure society characterized by harmony, happiness and prosperity.
"In striving for this common goal, there should be no distinction between those who hold Kuomintang membership cards and those who do not," he said.
Premier Chiang called on the 20 newly elected magistrates and mayors who assumed office December 20 to do their best to serve the people and the nation. He spoke at a symposium.
Election entails heavy responsibilities for those chosen by the people, he said. "You should do your utmost to carry out your duties and not let the people down," Premier Chiang said.
Good practices of self-government have been established in Taiwan, he said, and marked progress has been made in national reconstruction. Most government employees are discharging their duties faithfully.
However, there is still room for improvement, he added, in both central and local governments.
Only an honest government can be an able government, the Premier declared. Only a country ruled by law can have democracy; only a stable society can be happy and harmonious.
Anti-Communism and the recovery of the Chinese mainland are the basic goals of the Republic of China, he said. The attainment of these goals will assure the eternal life of the nation and lasting peace for society. People of the nation should work together with one heart and one mind, he continued.
Mayors and magistrates were also urged to plan construction projects carefully and keep in line with national projects. The Premier promised that officials of the Central Government would help provincial and local governments make Taiwan a model province based on the guidelines set forth in Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People.
The Economic Planning Council was reorganized as the Council for Economic Planning and Development. K.H. Yu, governor of the Central Bank of China, was appointed chairman.
Premier Chiang Ching-kuo said the mission of the council is to orchestrate the financial and economic sectors in advancing the economy.
Considering the sluggish recovery of the world economy and changes in the domestic economic structure, the responsibility of the council is heavy and crucial, he declared. Design, coordination must be carefully planned.
The Premier urged the council to:
- Analyze information about international economic changes.
- Conduct market research.
- Develop domestic market potential so as to strengthen the economic foundation and raise the living standards of the people.
- Heed opinions from specialists and scholars and pool the experience of commercial and industrial sectors.
- Set up a consultative committee.
- Coordinate manpower allocation with technical and science development.
Ambassador to the United States James Shen said the United States would strike a blow against world freedom if it established diplomatic relations with the Chinese Communists.
Addressing 5,500 students at Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., the ambassador urged President Jimmy Carter to resist the "blandishments and enticements" of the Chinese Communists.
"What the Chinese Communists are asking is nothing short of unconditional surrender," Shen said.
"The United States has nothing to benefit by agreeing to their terms."
By "normalizing relations" on Chinese Communist terms, the United States would be "sacrificing its old friends" and laying the groundwork for a worldwide takeover by the Communists, the ambassador said.
Terms include severance of diplomatic ties with the Republic of China, abrogation of the mutual assistance treaty of 1955 and withdrawal of all American troops from Taiwan.
"Normalization" directly conflicts with President Carter's policy of restoring morality to world diplomacy, Ambassador Shen said.
The Communist regime in mainland China is "as repressive as ever," he continued. Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai agreed to meet with American leaders, including Richard Nixon, only because they wanted to use the United States as "a shield" against growing pressure from the Soviets. It was "purely a matter of expediency."
The United States should not endanger the security of Taiwan in its pursuit of the "normalization of relations" with Communist China, U.S. Senator Jacob Javits said while visiting Taiwan.
Asserting that recognition of Peiping was an ultimate goal of his country, the American legislator attached a condition to the procedure.
"We must do that in such a way as to be completely respectful of the security and the opportunities for an honorable and good future of the people here," he said.
The American lawmaker predicted the process may take time.
"I found no resentments, no unhappiness, no feelings that the situation here is in great danger," he observed.
The senator declared that the U.S. should "honor our commitments in the world," but admitted that Washington might unilaterally abrogate the mutual defense treaty with the Republic of China.
Senator Barry Goldwater, taking "liberals" to task for urging President Jimmy Carter to abrogate the Sino-American mutual defense treaty, said any chief executive will be running the risk of impeachment if he takes their advice.
The 1964 Republican presidential candidate told lawyers of his home state of Arizona that no president can terminate a treaty unless he first obtains the consent of Congress.
"Any president who would violate the constitution on such a major matter as breaking faith with the nation's treaty obligations would run the risk of impeachment," Senator Goldwater declared.
Goldwater chose "The Role of Congress in the Abrogation of Treaties" as the subject of his speech because "the Carter administration is studying ways to break the defense treaty between the United States and the Republic of China without Congressional approval."
This is a political as well as a legal question since there would be court challenges, Senator Goldwater said.
"I need not add," Senator Goldwater said, "that Congress would never grant its approval."
International law forbids a nation from raising a change in circumstances as the ground for terminating a treaty where that change results from an action of the party invoking it, Goldwater said. "This is spelled out in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties."
"Thus," Senator Goldwater said, "it would not only be a dishonor to the United States and a violation of the constitution if the president should unilaterally break our treaties with Taiwan, but it would be a violation of international law as well."
"Liberals" urging Carter to scrap the treaty have not thought through the possible implications of the legal theory they are advocating, Senator Goldwater said.
Should President Carter choose to violate the outer space treaty, what would the "liberals" do? "The truth is that were the shoe reversed," Goldwater said, "the liberals who are falling all over themselves to give in to every demand by Red China would be the first to condemn unilateral presidential action of a kind they do not like."
History tells Americans that no president has tried to abrogate a treaty without securing Congressional consent or approval, Senator Goldwater declared.
"Far more often than not, the Senate or the whole Congress has exercised power to approve the termination of treaties," he said, adding: "As a matter of fact, presidents have usually come to Congress for its approval before giving notice of withdrawing from any treaty."
There are exceptions, Goldwater said, but none supports a wide open power of the president to annul any treaty he wishes. "In particular," he added, "the United States has never repudiated a defense treaty with a friendly nation." Nor has any president terminated a treaty that was not breached by the other party, was not in conflict with a later act of Congress or another treaty, or that did not become impossible to carry out due to circumstances not of Washington's making, Senator Goldwater said.
"As proposed by the sympathizers of Communist China, our break in treaty relations with Taiwan would follow recognition of the mainland regime. The basis for our annulment of the treaty would be our own voluntary action in breaking diplomatic ties with Taiwan."
There is a question as to whether a treaty can be entered into between governments that do not recognize each other, Senator Goldwater said.
"If, for the sake of argument, the United States should break relations with Taiwan, can we still have treaties with her?" Goldwater asked. His answer was an emphatic yes.
"Although we have never before withdrawn recognition from a friendly country, we have had dealings in the past with powers whom we have not recognized so long as they have exercised practical control over an area," Goldwater added.
Red China is now a case in point, he said. "And the Soviet Union in the 1920s was another," he added. "There are no impediments in international law which would prevent the United States from dealing with the authorities in control of a territory we do not recognize."
Free China will readjust the exchange rate between New Taiwan dollar and the U.S. dollar if necessary, a top financial official said.
At an interpellation by the Finance Committee of the Legislative Yuan, Governor K.H. Yu of the Central Bank of China said the government would not stick to the present exchange rate of NT$38 to US$1 should the U.S. dollar continue to fall.
"Our currency is not pegged to the U.S. dollar blindly," he said after legislators Chang Hung-hsueh and Hung Ching-ling raised the question.
Governor Yu said the reduction in value of the U.S. currency varies from country to country. For instance, he continued, depreciation has been 20 per cent in Japan but only 5 per cent in West Germany.
The governor noted that the United States has been the leading trading partner of this country. "That's why we peg our currency to the U.S. dollar. What will result now is an increase of Taiwan's exports to Japan on the one hand and a decline of imports from that country on the other," Yu said.
Yu explained that the appreciation of the Japanese Yen against the U.S. dollar has made Japan's goods more expensive.
Yu said it is still too early to predict the impact of the depreciation of the U.S. dollar on the Taiwan economy. It is also difficult to say whether the U.S. dollar will continue to decline. "We will look into it and take appropriate steps to cope with the situation," he said.
Governor Yu touched on the questions of setting up an export-import bank and the government's decision to import U.S. cars.
He said the establishment of the bank is of top priority. A bill will be drafted and submitted to the Legislative Yuan.
The government move to import cars is designed to pare down the increasing surplus of the Republic of China in trade with the United States.
In another role, K.H. Yu promised he will seek suggestions and opinions in carrying out national economic development.
Assuming his post as chairman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development, Governor Yu said he will seek close cooperation with government offices and commercial circles to increase Taiwan's economic build-up.
Yu pointed out that the nation suffered a serious setback in the worldwide recession of 1973-1974. Reduced investment in domestic industries has become a handicap to development.
This impelled the government to unify and improve the functions of the old Economic Planning Council.
He spoke highly of the achievements of the old council led by Yang Chia-lin. The new council has departments of overall planning, departmental planning, supervision, economic research, housing and urban development, finance and secretariat.
Ex-officio members of the council include Finance Minister Walter Fei; Minister of Communications Lin Chin-sheng; Minister of Economic Affairs Y.S. Sun; Chang Chi-eheng, secretary general of the Executive Yuan; Chou Hung-tao, director general of the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics; Minister of State K.T. Li; and Yang Chia-lin, chairman of the defunct Economic Planning Council.
Quality and quantity of Taiwan food have risen as a result of the fivefold growth in per capita income during the last 25 years, said Robert C.T. Lee, chairman of the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction.
Demand has led to a food shortfall problem although agricultural production has increased faster than the population.
Lee said the food self-sufficiency was 104 per cent in 1951, 93 per cent in 1961, 94 per cent in 1971 and 87 per cent in 1976.
In 1951, plant food accounted for 77.4 per cent and animal food for 12.8 per cent of energy intake. This gradually changed to 75.1 per cent for plant food and 14.3 per cent for animal food in 1961 and 64.2 per cent for plant food and 21.8 per cent for animal food in 1971.
By 1976, the demand for plant food dropped to 58 per cent, while that for animal food rose to 25.1 per cent.
Daily per capita energy intake increased from 2,069 calories in 1951 to 2,401 calories in 1961, 2,636 calories in 1971 and 2,719 calories in 1976.
Lee said the food problem is caused by population pressure and the effect of increased income on food consumption.
An official survey confirmed that eastern Taiwan lags far behind the rest of the island in economic development.
As of late 1976, about 15,000 industrial and commercial enterprises, or 4 per cent of the total of 430,000, were operating in the east. This means fewer than two companies to every square kilometers of land in Hualien and Taitung counties.
Tunneling is the biggest problem in building the Suao-Hualien railroad on the east coast.(File photo)
There are 146,000 enterprises in northern Taiwan, which covers Taipei, Keelung and Taoyuan counties; 111,000 enterprises in the southern region of Kaohsiung, Tainan, Pingtung and Penghu counties; and 84,000 in the central region of Taichung, Changhua and Nantou counties.
The report suggests that development of eastern Taiwan should be strengthened to assure balanced growth of industrial and commercial sectors.
The Provincial Government will spend NT$83 million to promote birth control in 1978. This is part of a comprehensive manpower program under the Six-Year Economic Development plan (1976-1981).
The birth rate was 2.298 per 1,000 in 1975 but shot up to 2.594 per 1,000 in 1976. The number of births in 1976 exceeded that of 1975 by 55,000 - 423,356 and 367,647. For 1977, demographers estimated the birth rate at 2.36 per cent.
Five new cities will be developed to provide regional balance and ease the problems of overpopulated cities, the Ministry of Interior said.
The Taiwan Provincial Public Works Bureau and other agencies of the Taiwan Provincial Government were invited to a conference to plan new cities at Linkou in the Taipei district, Taichung harbor in the Taichung district, Tapinting near Kaohsiung, Chengching Lake between Kaohsiung and Pingtung, and Nankan in Taoyuan county.
The Interior Ministry official said the annual Taiwan population growth amounts to 340,000. Local industries are growing fast, leading to over-crowding in large cities.
Environmental pollution in southern Taiwan is getting worse, according to a government survey. The establishment of a governmental agency to enforce sanitary regulations is imperative, said an official of the National Health Administration.
Chuang Chin-yuan, director of NHA's department of Environmental Sanitation, said studies of air, water and solid waste pollution revealed that governmental installations are the chief villains in polluting Kaohsiung. The situation calls for a regulatory agency on the national level.
NHA is incapable of such a function because it is a policymaking agency rather than a law enforcer. The shortage of personnel is a further handicap.
Power to enforce the sanitation code remains in the hands of police and public health bureaus of the city and county governments.
China Steel Corporation's mill at Kaohsiung began full-blast operation, marking the completion of one of the most expensive of the Ten Major Construction Projects. Construction took three years and three and a half months.
The project cost some NT$36.9 billion. Because private subscribers failed to pay their share, the government made the steel mill a state enterprise.
Machinery was purchased from the United States, Japan, West Germany, France, England and Switzerland. The plant was built by Chinese.
Trial runs began last August. Sales of products in overseas market have been successful and foreign orders to last several months have piled up.
Initial capacity of the mill is 1,350,000 metric tons annually.
Expansion is already under way to raise production to 3,250,000 metric tons by 1981 at a cost of NT$51.6 billion.
Taiwan needs eight more reservoirs to meet demands for water, the Water Conservancy Bureau said.
The economic boom has increased demands for water. Taiwan will need 20,200 cubic meters annually by 1996 compared with 16,700 million cubic meters in 1975.
The bureau plans these reservoirs:
- Hsingjen Reservoir: to supply drinking water for Makung in Penghu.
- Suomien Reservoir: drinking water for Tainan county.
- Jenyee Reservoir: drinking, industrial and irrigation water in the Chiayi area.
- Toushe Reservoir: irrigation water in the Toushe area.
- Liyutan Reservoir: irrigation, industrial and drinking water at Yuenli.
- Paoshan Reservoir: industrial and drinking water at Hsinchu.
- Chinshei Reservoir: irrigation water at Yunlin.
- Shichin Reservoir: industrial and drinking water at Chunan and Toufen