Taiwan Today

The number "10" is a propitious figure in China. It implies completion and satisfaction. Appropriately, the Republic of China was born on October 10, 1911 - the Double Tenth.

China had remained within her own domain for millennia. With the advent of the 19th century, the old ways began to change. The industrial revolution and faster transportation brought the Western countries knocking at China's door. They were looking for new markets and new sources of raw materials. Ruled by decadent Manchu emperors, China was unprepared to meet the challenge.

Wars with foreign powers exposed the weakness of the Manchu government, humiliated the people and encouraged the revolutionary movement. A powerful movement seeking change was headed by Sun Yat-sen. Born in Kwangtung November 12, 1866, or 24 years after the Opium War, the greatest leader of modern China went to Honolulu at age 13 and lived with an elder brother. He learned English and returned to China five years later. When China lost Annam to France in 1885, Sun Yat-sen was studying in Hongkong. He vowed to overthrow the Manchus and establish a republic.

He went on to study medicine at Queen's College in Hongkong and was graduated in 1892. Dr. Sun practiced in Macao and Canton. When China was defeated by Japan in 1895, he joined with some 20 other revolutionaries in establishing the Society for the Rejuvenation of China in Honolulu. The objective was expulsion of the Manchus and return of the country to Chinese rule.

The young revolutionary-physician traveled from one overseas Chinese community to another - raising funds, recruiting comrades and planning overthrow of the Ch'ing (Manchu) dynasty.

The revolution suffered nine failures before it met with success. The final blow was struck at Wuchang on the night of October 10, 1911. Victory brought an end to the monarchical system that had prevailed in China for more than 4,000 years and ushered in the first republic in Asia.

Dr. Sun's revolutionaries were preparing for an uprising when a bomb exploded prematurely at an underground arsenal in Wuchang. Police found a name list of members of the Society for the Rejuvenation of China. Wholesale arrests were in store for the next morning. The revolutionaries hidden in the ranks of the Manuch "new army" decided to strike first. Before dawn, the Manchu viceroy, Jui Cheng, and the garrison commander of Wuchang had fled and the revolutionary flag flew over the city.

Fifteen of 18 provinces had renounced the Manchu government before the end of November. Of special significance was the seizure of Shanghai, the largest port and commercial center of the country, by Chen Chi-mei. Chen's troops were joined by those from Chekiang and Kwangtung in capturing Nanking December 3. The empire was doomed.

Dr. Sun was in the United States when the Revolution began. He hastened to London and obtained from Sir Edward Grey, the foreign secretary, an assurance that Great Britain would not intervene. In Paris, he won the sympathy of the French government. He arrived in Shanghai on Christmas Eve, 1911.

Four days later, the representatives of 17 provinces met in Nanking to elect Sun Yat-sen Provisional President. On January 1, 1912, the Republic of China was established. Dr. Sun was inaugurated as the first president of the first Asian republic.

Difficult years followed as Sun Yat-sen sought to heal Chinese schisms. He did not succeed. In 1925, he died in Peiping while trying to bring feuding factions together. He had chosen his successor, however, and Chiang Kai-shek has now walked the stage of world history longer than any of his contemporaries.

As a young man, Chiang participated in the National Revolution that overthrew the Manchus and established the Republic. He stood at the side of Dr. Sun through some of China's most trying days.

It was Chiang Kai-shek who unified the country in the Northward Expedition of 1926-28, who began modernization of China in the years just afterward and who led the people in the eight-year War of Resistance Against Japan.

For nearly half a century, he has been one of the foremost fighters against the tyranny of Communism. His is a voice listened to with respect throughout the world and especially in Asia.

President Chiang addressed the 100 million of Japan this year in an hour's television interview that set forth the Republic of China's position and made recommendations for the increased participation of the Japanese in efforts to attain regional unity.

"The ultimate goal of our anti-Communist struggle," he said, "is to restore freedom and democracy to the 700 million Chinese people on the mainland and prevent the Mao Tse-tung regime from further exploiting them as tools to realize its policy of aggression."

Once the Peiping regime has been destroyed, he said, Asia will be at peace and the threat of World War III will be ended.

The Chinese Communists can never be admitted to the peaceful world community, said President Chiang, who won Japanese friendship with his waiver of reparations and prompt repatriation of invading forces in 1945. Accepting Peiping would be like inviting a wolf into the house, he said, and added: "Whoever recognizes the enemy of the Chinese people will himself become the enemy of the 700 million Chinese people."

To achieve Asian collective security, President Chiang urged a "spirit or formula of cooperation". He noted that the Japanese constitution prohibits participation in military alliances and said: "Your country can contribute greatly to the halting of Communist aggression in Asia by cooperating with free Asian nations in economic and technical fields. Such assistance will be as important as military cooperation. The scheme of Mao's aggression is not limited by the boundary of any country. Any country which tries to stay away from the area's struggle against Communist aggression will be watching a fire from across a stream. In the end, it will be engulfed by the flames."

He reminded the Japanese that in 1962 Mao Tse-tung urged a Communist revolution in Japan and that this call was repeated in People's Daily last year. "Mao Tse-tung has always wanted to communize your country," President Chiang said, "and unless your country is communized, he will not stop. Do you think your country can coexist peacefully with a regime whose purpose is to overthrow your government?"

Mao is trying to isolate Japan, he continued, but expressed confidence the attempt will not succeed. "Japan is my second home," said the Chinese chief of state, who attended military schools there. "I earnestly hope that the tortures and misfortunes suffered by the people of the Chinese mainland will serve as a testimony to you. These words are from the bottom of my heart - my honest and sincere advice to the people of Japan. As a friend of Japan, I feel that I ought to say them."

President Chiang advised the United States against withdrawal from Asia until Chinese Communism is crushed. "There will be no security for the United States or peace in the world until there is a prosperous Asis'a free from the threat of Communist aggression," he said.

In one of his major messages of 1969, President Chiang said the convening of the Ninth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party could not save Mao. "The people of the mainland have awakened to Mao's crimes," he said. "He can no longer hide behind his magic tricks of 20 years ago. Never again can he make use of the lies and illusions to which he resorted to save himself during the clashes of the great cultural revolution and power-seizure struggle."

The President predicted that the Communist Congress would sound Mao's death knell and could not end the "great proletarian cultural revolution". His words are borne out in the continuing struggle on the Chinese mainland.

In an address to the youth of both Taiwan and the mainland, President Chiang said: "Many people tend to see and understand only what is under their very noses, and so they take note of the vast population living under Mao. But that is a mere counting of concentration camps.

"What we possess is Intangible - the minds of 700 million people on the mainland and their spiritual relationship with San Min Chu I (the Three Principles of the People of Dr. Sun Yat-sen), our nationality, our history and our traditional culture.

"The Maoists have 700 million different minds. All of us - the Chinese people at home and abroad have one and the same mind, which is dedicated to the overthrow of Communism and to national salvation. We can be sure that all of the people will come to the aid of the benevolent in attacking an enemy who has been deserted even by the members of his own family."

President Chiang will be 82 years old October 31. Nevertheless, he pledged that he will be in the vanguard of those overthrowing Chinese Communist tyranny.

"I shall be there with you," he said, "and will lead all of you, the youths of our nation, in marching forward toward improvement, advancement and struggle so that you will deserve to become the revolutionary followers of Dr. Yat-sen and the successors of the revolutionary martyrs."

Chiang Kai-shek's lifetime message to the world is that once peace and freedom come to China, the Great Commonwealth of Confucius will at last be within the reach of mankind.

The Republic of China's Kuomintang entered upon its 75th year with the convening of its Tenth National Congress. More than 1,200 delegates and observers met at the Chungshan Hall on scenic Yangmingshan (Grass Mountain) in suburban Taipei to adopt measures of political reform and modernization.

President Chiang, who was re-elected Party Director-General by acclamation, said the day of freedom's final victory is fast approaching. He predicted that the Chinese Communist military will rise up against Mao Tse-tung "and join forces with the national revolutionary armed forces of the Republic of China".

"At that time," said free China's leader, "our counterattack against .the Chinese Communists for national recovery will end in great success and the final victory will be ours."

The Party Congress opened March 29, which is Youth and Martyrs' Day, and closed April 9.

Forty-four new faces were among the 99 member:; elected to the KMT Central Committee. Another 51 of the 344 candidates became alternate members. The youngest full member - at 31 - is a woman professor of law, Li Chung-kui.

Heading the Central Standing Committee, which was nominated by the Director-General and elected unanimously, are Vice President and Prime Minister C.K. Yen and Deputy Prime Minister Chiang Ching-kuo. The latter was Minister of National Defense at the time.

Fifteen members of the Standing Committee .are holdovers. The other six are_ new members chosen in answer to President Chiang's call for younger men with specialized skills. Three of the new men were cabinet ministers and a fourth was a 49-year-old industrialist.

The Tenth Congress revised and streamlined the Party Charter. The number of articles was reduced from 65 to 47 and the post of Deputy Director-General was abolished. A Presidium of elder statesmen was authorized as an advisory body for the Director-General. In accordance with the wishes of President Chiang, the Charter provides that the Party will seek guidance from the people and serve their needs.

The Party Declaration calls for the liberation of the 700 million people of the Chinese mainland as the only way to attain Asian and world peace.

"There are no lucky successes and accidental victories in the history of revolution," the Declaration said. "Successes and victories are the fruit of confidence, determination, fortitude, wisdom and blood and tears. To win the final victory and score the ultimate success in the anti-Communist and National Salvation struggle will require all of us to display the strongest possible sense of responsibility to our country, to our people and especially to our compatriots on the mainland."

The Party's Platform sets forth a program to strengthen Taiwan politically, socially, economically and culturally so as to prepare for counterattack and mainland recovery. Specific steps include the expansion of industry and the completion of land reform to afford a powerful agricultural base.

Political reforms will include the election of additional members to representative organs of the Central Government. These elections to fill vacancies and provide representation for Taiwan's increased population will be held before the end of 1969 under amendments to the Constitution adopted by the National Assembly in 1966. The Tenth Congress was followed by changes in the Executive Yuan (Cabinet) to implement the Party's endorsement of young, scientific-minded leadship.

Chiang Ching-kuo, 59, became Deptlity Prime Minister and took over part of the heavy administrative burden of Vice President and Prime Minister C.K. Yen.

Succeeding General Chiang as Minister of National Defense was General Huang Chieh, a veteran soldier statesman who had been Taiwan governor for seven years. General Chen Ta-Ching stepped from command of the Army into the governorship. .

Moving from the Ministry of Economic Affairs to the Ministry of Finance was K.T. Li. Together with Vice President Yen, he is a principal architect of the Republic of China's economic success story. The outgoing Minister of Finance, Yu Kuo-hua, became Governor of the Central Bank of China.

- The youngest member of the new Cabinet was S.Y. Dao, 50, who formerly had been secretary-general of the Council for International Economic Cooperation and Development. Choong Kow-kwong was promoted from the post of Vice Minister to Minister of Education.

In military changes, Yu Hao-chang, a 51-year-old former commandant of the Marine Corps, was made commander-in-chief of the Army. He received his fourth star as a full general.

President Chiang had told the Kuomintang that the center of gravity in the world situation was in China and that the actions of the Republic of China held the key to resolution of the China problem. The KMT and the government in which it wields political power quickly began to implement the instructions of the Tenth Congress and the bidding of their Director-General.

These are efforts, President Chiang said, that will lead to elimination of the Maoist regime and to the attainment of permanent world peace.

Economic progress in Taiwan supports the President's confidence. Growth has averaged 10.5 per cent annually during the last four years, one of the world's highest rates.

These were other important annual gains during the 1965-68 period of the fourth Four-Year Economic Development Plan:

-Domestic capital formation, 19.2 per cent.

-Agriculture, 6.5 per cent.

-Industry, 16.6 per cent.

Foreign trade volume was US$1.8 billion in 1968 with imports of US$970 million and exports of US$840 million.

Started this year was the fifth Four-Year Economic Development Plan with an economic growth target of 7 per cent annually for the 1969-72 period. The cost will be US$4,500 minion.

Industrial objectives include gains of 10.9 per cent in electric power (14,126 million kwh in 1972), 72.2 per cent in petroleum refining (440,000 kiloliters in 1972), 9.2 per cent in mining, 4.6 per cent in food processing, 10.2 per cent in textiles, 7.5 per cent in handicrafts, 16 per cent in chemicals and 19.5 per cent in metals and machinery.

The foreign trade goal is US$2.5 billion with imports of US$1.3 billion and exports of US$1.2 billion.

By 1972, the gross national product is expected to reach NT$191 billion (about US$4.8 billion); compared with NT$148 billion (US$3.7 billion) in 1968, and per capita income will reach NT$10,280 (US$257).

The plan will enlarge the infrastructure and promote industrial sophistication. Electronic, petrochemical and shipbuilding industries will be further developed. A total of 115 electronic plants had been established by the end of last year, 41 of them with foreign capital.

Petrochemical complexes are being established in southern and northern Taiwan to produce intermediates for use by the plastics, synthetic textiles and fertilizer industries. The center in southern Taiwan is processing naphtha for the production of PVC, PE and polyester resins, while the center in northern: Taiwan is making chemical fertilizers from natural gas.

The Taiwan Shipbuilding Corporation in Keelung is being expanded and modernized and another shipyard will be established at Kaohsiung.

Under study is the feasibility of establishing a mill to make steel plates for shipbuilding. Heavy electrical equipment and precision machinery will be manufactured.

Production of special steel for the auto and machinery industries will be encouraged. The Taiwan Aluminum Corporation is increasing output of alloys, foils and other products for domestic consumption and export.

Taiwan exported US$555 million worth of industrial products in 1968. Industrial products made up 50 per cent of exports in 1966, 60 per cent in 1967 and 65 per cent in 1968. The goal is 70 per cent.

Agricultural production amounted to US$1,192.5 million in 1968, a 9 per cent increase over 1967. About US$300 million worth of farm goods was exported, including rice, tea, sugar, bananas and canned pineapple, mushrooms and asparagus.

The export of canned pineapple, mushrooms and asparagus amounted to US$77.32 million.

Foreign investment totaled US$350 million in the last decade and US$400 million more is expected during the 1969-72 period.

Foreign and overseas Chinese investment in Taiwan was US$104 million last year tor a new record. Americans led in the amount of foreign investment and Japan was second. Most foreign capital went into the electronics and chemical industries.

Investments also provided products and technical services worth US$286 million and 42,317 jobs. Compared with 1967, projects increased by 54.2 per cent and capital by 48.5 per cent. Employment was up 22.4 per cent.

To accelerate industrialization, the government will improve planning, development and use of natural resources and promote engineering and applied science and scientific management. Harbors, airports, railroads, highways and telecommunications will be expanded. Vocational education wilI be strengthened to enlarge the reservoir of skilled labor.

Nine years of education will become universal in the Republic of China in the mid-1970s.

Public junior high schools were opened to all elementary school graduates without examination in the 1968-69 school year. Before that only about 62 per cent of primary graduates went on to junior high.

With the new program, 86 per cent of Taipei sixth-graders and 70 per cent of those in the rest of Taiwan province entered junior high school. By 1976, seventh-grade attendance is expected to reach 96 per cent for Taipei and 88 per cent for the rest of Taiwan.

The first two years of the nine-year program has given rise to gains other than more junior high school students. Elimination of competitive examinations made it possible to prohibit cram sessions. Primary school pupils have grown taller and heavier. Eye ailments are on the decline.

Costs have run ahead of the budget. The original estimate was US$90 million for the first three years. For the province alone (not including Taipei), the budget has been increased by US$18.5 million.

New schools built in 1968-69 totaled 168 plus hundreds of new classrooms at old schools. More schools remain to be built and more teachers must be trained. Textbook revision is still under way.

Primary education is free. Junior high tuition has been cut to less than US$10 a semester plus books. Scholarships and deferred tuition plans are available to those who cannot afford even this small amount. Charges are waived in mountain areas and on the offshore islands.

Local governments are spending more than 53 per cent of their budgets on education. The provincial share is 31 per cent and the Central Government more than 4 per cent.

Some 6,500 junior high school teachers were newly employed for the 1968-69 school year. The Ministry of Education is conducting summer training sessions for prospective teachers who did not major in education.

There are plenty of teachers for the standard subjects but shortages exist in such specialties as art, music and physical education.

School hours have been reduced at both primary and junior high levels. The cuts average about an hour a day. Elementary pupils are in class 20 to 30 hours a week and junior high students between 31 and 35 hours. Half-day sessions are in effect only in the first and second grades and these are being eliminated as rapidly as possible.

Academically, the nine-year plan is conducted as an integrated whole. Skill subjects such as Chinese language and arithmetic are dominant in primary schools. Science is emphasized at every level.

Before 1968, junior high schools offered only home economics in the vocational field. Vocational orientation courses and counseling are now given in the eighth grade. To serve students who do not plan to continue schooling after the ninth grade, vocational courses will be offered in the last year of junior high.

Counselors will help students determine whether they wish to seek employment, enter senior high schools for college preparation, enroll in technical schools or vocational junior colleges, or prepare for military careers.

Four-fifths of junior high graduates have been going on to senior high. The figure is expected to reach 85 per cent next year. The first enlarged junior high school class will be graduated in 1971. Senior high schools are preparing for the additional influx.

Education has enjoyed a phenomenal boom since Taiwan was returned to China in 1945. Under the Japanese, more than a fifth of children aged 6 to 12 were not in school. Higher education was not encouraged for Chinese. Only a few were able to go to high school or college. Study of the social sciences and humanities was discouraged.

Nearly 69,000 high school graduates applied to take the unified college entrance examination last summer. The thirty-one participating colleges and universities could accept only about 23,000 freshmen.

The student count passed the 3.6 million mark in 1968-69, or 26.38 per cent of Taiwan's population. The breakdown was 161,220 in college, 921,166 in high school and 2,383,204 in primary school. The rest were in kindergartens or specialized schools.

Confucius once said: "Those who are born wise are the highest type of people; those who become wise through learning come next; those who learn by overcoming dullness come after that. Those who are dull but still won't learn are the lowest type of people."

The Republic of China is trying to create an educational system that will eliminate dullards.

Another goal - that expressed in the constitutional pledge that "The people shall have freedom of religious belief"- has been kept to the letter in Taiwan.

Five world religions and two sects coexist in complete harmony. A few years ago they joined in a unique ecumenical display of their sacred books, utensils, images and pictures.

In the spring of this year, Pope Paul VI renewed China's membership in the Roman Catholic College of Cardinals by extending the red hat to Paul Yupin, the archbishop of Nanking since 1936. China's first prince of the church, Thomas Cardinal Tien, was elevated to the college in 1946 and died in 1967.

Cardinal Yupin represented all the new cardinals in addressing Pope Paul VI. He urged Catholics to defend the faith with the shedding of their blood, if that should become necessary.

Returning to Taiwan by way of the United States and Canada, he told of the survival of religious belief on the Chinese mainland despite brutal Communist attempts at suppression. The faithful have moved underground, he said, just as the early Christians did.

Sham priests that the Communists have cloaked in clerical robes deceive no one, Cardinal Yupin said. He told of meeting one in Hongkong and addressing him in Latin. The counterfeit prelate understood not a word and subsequently confessed that he had never been ordained.

Taiwan's principal religious groups are Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, Taoists and Moslems. The two sects are Hsuan-yuan Chiao, an offshoot of Taoism, and Li Chiao, a Buddhist affiliate. Competition for believers is friendly. Each faith shows respect for the others.

Catholicism came to China in the 13th century and to Taiwan in 1626. Growth has been phenomenal since 1945. The count of Catholics was 8,000 when Taiwan was returned to China by the Japanese. Twenty-four years later the total is 310,000.

There are 346 Catholic churches with resident priests and 736 without residents. Priests number 796 from 17 orders or congregations. The 925 sisters are from 41 congregations.

Operated by the Catholic church are 21 hospitals, 122 dispensaries, 25 high schools, 4 technical schools,a university, 2 colleges, 2 major seminaries and 4 minor seminaries. Paul Cardinal Yupin is the president of Fu Jen Catholic University, which was established on the mainland and re-established in Taiwan.

Protestantism was introduced by the Dutch in 1624. When they were expelled in the early 1660s, only remnants of Christianity remained in the form of names and Bibles that no one could read. The reintroduction came with the 1865 arrival of Dr. James L. Maxwell of the English Presbyterian Mission.

Protestant churches have about 313,000 adherents of more than 60 denominations. Numerical leaders are the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists and Lutherans. Presbyterian churches number 841 with membership of 186,338. There are 221 ordained ministers and 517 evangelists and other Presbyterian workers.

The Protestants administer 9 seminaries, 10 Bible schools, 46 hospitals and clinics, 1 university, 4 colleges, 9 high schools and 350 primary schools and kindergartens.

Buddhism was introduced to China from India in 65 A.D. A religion of love and peace, it offers salvation through faith, merit and inner light.

Buddhism has made steady progress in the free religious atmosphere of Taiwan. Followers are estimated at 5,750,000. The Buddhist Association has 40,000 members. Attending the 2,915 temples and shrines are 3,275 monks and 9,484 nuns. Temples dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy (A valoktesvera Bodhisattva) number 315. Another 90 pay tribute to Sakyamuni Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist faith. The birthday of Sakyamuni is observed at colorful ceremonies on the eighth day of the fourth moon of the lunar calendar.

Taoism has been called the religion- of inaction. Its founder was Lao Tze, also known as the Old Master, who lived in the 6th ecenty B.C. He wrote that "Tao does nothing, yet all things are done in conformity with it". As in Buddhism, desire and greed are sins. Taoism preaches that nature will take its course.

Taiwan has some 2,800 Taoist temples. A number are dedicated to Hsuan Tien Shang Ti (Emperor of the Heavens), others to Lu Tung-pin, the incarnation of a Taoist deity.

Islam came to Taiwan with Cheng Cheng-kung (Koxinga), who expelled the Dutch, and others at the end of the Ming dynasty in the mid-17th century. Present-day Moslems are either descendants of the 25,000 immigrants who came to the island in 1661 or recent refugees from Communism.

The Chinese Muslim Association has about 40,000 members. Dedicated in 1961 was the Taipei Mosque, first Arabic-style building on the island. The Chinese Communists have persecuted mainland Moslems with great severity because of Islam's disciplined faith.

Proud of the Chinese tradition of religious liberty, the Republic of China is awaiting the opportunity to restore freedom of faith to the mainland. Paul Cardinal Yupin attests that millions of believers have secretly preserved their religion and are looking forward to a renewal of public worship.

To cast its bread upon the waters, free China has been sharing agricultural know-how since 1961. It is helping other countries learn how to redistribute the land equitably and provide the incentive for maximum farm production.

Newly opened near Taipei is an international training center for land reform personnel. Sponsors are the Chinese government and the Lincoln Foundation of the United States. The first class included trainees from South Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea and the island of Saipan.

Taiwan's economic progress is largely the result of successful land reform.

In 1953, the government undertook the land-to the-tiller program. Privately rented holdings exceeding three hectares of medium grade paddy field or equivalent were compulsorily purchased by the government and resold to the tenants on 10-year loans.

Subsequent measures included the extension of productive assistance and land consolidation. The consolidation program was begun in 1961 to bring together scattered small plots and save the farmer's time and energy.

Since the implementation of land reform and follow-up measures, crop records have been broken year after year. The 1968 rice crop was 2,511,278 metric tons, leaving a surplus.

Other important food crops are sweet potatoes, soybeans, peanuts and corn. Sweet potato output was nearly 3.5 million metric tons in 1968.

Taiwan is developing such new crops as asparagus and minicorn. The island bas become the world's chief supplier of canned asparagus. Planted area has risen from 270 hectares in 1964 to 8,200 in 1968. Output is expected to reach 71,500 metric tons in 1972.

Both dairy and beef cattle are raised where none existed only a few years ago.

Average farm income has doubled since land reform. Farmers of Taiwan are among the most prosperous in Asia. They have used their increased earnings to build houses, drying grounds, compost shelters, reservoirs and windbreaks. They have bought power tillers and other implements, motorcycles, sewing machines, radios and television sets. The nearly six million people who live on farms dress better, eat better and have better medical care than ever before.

Taiwan is sharing its advanced agricultural techniques with other developing countries.

Nearly 1,200 agricultural and other technicians are working in Africa. There are similar grassroots ambassadors in Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

Included are doctors, nurses and engineers. Farm or other technical assistance is offered in these 24 African countries: Botswana, Cameroun, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo (Kinshasa), Dahomey, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Togo and Upper Volta.

"We did not know our land could produce such sweet melons and nourishing vegetables until you came to our country," a government leader told members of a Chinese team in Malawi. "We had been told our land was no good for vegetable planting."

The Chinese have demonstrated that watermelons and such vegetables as cabbage, eggplant, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, carrots and radishes do well in African soils.

A team in Upper Volta produced an unprecedented 7.8 tons of rice per hectare.

The government also sponsors agricultural seminars for Africans in Taiwan. In the last six years, nearly 500 farmers from 29 African countries have received training in rice and vegetable cultivation, use of fertilizer and insect control.

A Chinese agricultural mission has been working in South Vietnam since 1964. Technicians have been sent to the Philippines to demonstrate rice cultivation and help with agricultural extension.

Chinese technicians have helped establish sugar mills in Singapore and Malaysia.

Saudi Arabia was the first country in the Middle East to enter into a technical cooperation agreement with free China. A team of 14 is now working in Iran.

Southeast Asian countries assisted are the Philippines, Thailand and South Vietnam. Chinese agricultural technicians serve such Latin American countries as Brazil, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Mexico. A team will go to Peru. A highway construction team is working in Malta and a geologist in Cyprus.

The agricultural assistance program in Africa is administered by the Sino-African Technical Cooperation Committee, which is under the Executive Yuan (cabinet).

Commenting on assistance to Ivory Coast, Newsweek said:

"In 1963, a team of 14 Chinese technicians set up a 6-acre model farm in the Ivory Coast. Working from dawn to dusk, they produced a rice crop more than seven times as rich as the normal yield ...

"Since the first harvest, Taiwan has set up 24 agricultural extension stations in the Ivory Coast. As a result, in 1967, the Ivory Coast was able to reduce its rice imports by two-thirds."

Tzou Yueh-ou, deputy leader of the team in Ivory Coast, expressed the philosophy of Chinese technical assistance when he said: "We value practice and think less of theory. And we also think that nearly all developing nations should work more and talk less."

China's 5,000 years of history and culture will be on capsulized view at Expo 70 in Osaka beginning next March.

The exhibition will be housed in 10 rooms o(the strikingly original 4-story China Pavilion designed by I.M. Pei, the architect for the Kennedy Memorial Library. Pei's design is Chinese yet modern. His concept is geared to the requirements of audio-visual presentations that tell a great deal in a brief time.

As the guest enters the Pavilion, he is greeted by a written message of welcome from President Chiang Kai-shek. The languages are Chinese, Japanese, English and French. Flying Buddhas copied from the mural art of the fifth-century Tunhuang caves guide the visitor from the entrance chamber and up the stairs to a panorama of China past and present.

Theme of the second room is "looking onto the future from the past". An electronic map shows how Chinese culture spread from the Yellow River to the valley of the Yangtze and then to the valley of the Pearl River and overseas. The display calls attention to China's long list of important inventions, including sericulture, ceramics, rocketry, steelmaking, compass, wheel, paper, writing brush, gunpowder and printing. Evolution of the Chinese characters is presented in a motion picture. Wall inscriptions show different styles of Chinese calligraphy and indicate the influence on Japanese writing.

China and porcelain are synonymous. Porcelains and other ceramics are featured in the third room. The Chinese began to make ceramics in pre-dynastic neolithic times. Fragments of buff and red earthenware found in Honan and Anhwei provinces go back to 3,000 B.C. The great Sung and Ming porcelains of more recent times led to the rage for Chinoiserie in the Europe of the 18th century.

Sericulture seems to be as old as China and is the theme of the fourth room, which bas a dome of silk. To be seen here is a cocoon fossil from Hsiyin, a village in Shansi province. Archeologists say it is about 4,000 years old. At the end of the second century, the fabled Silk Road linked China with Europe via Central Asia. The very word "silk" is from the Chinese si or szu.

Masterpieces of calligraphy and painting are the subject of the fourth room. These two closely connected arts conceptualize the beauty and much of the philosophy of Chinese civilization. The Chinese painter is an impressionist in that he feels free to omit objects not essential to his idea. A fish may swim through water which is not present. The flowing lines convey the spirit of movement and the viewer's imagination does the rest.

Martial music ushers the visitor into China's revolutionary era. In the fifth room he learns how Asia's first republic came to be born. Revolutionary stories are presented by six projectors. Manuscripts, relics and calligraphies of the founding father, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and of President Chiang Kai-shek, his spiritual heir, are on view.

The sixth room's theme is "Taiwan Today". Both the scenery and manmade progress of the island province are dramatized. The reason for Taiwan's Western name - Formosa, meaning "Beautiful" in Portuguese - is clearly evident in these exhibits.

The sound of running water introduces the seventh room, which is given over to Taiwan agriculture. Dawn to-dusk activities of farmers are shown in 960 slides. Another screen tells the story of Taiwan land reform and high level of land utilization. Sound effects include the croaking of frogs, lowing of cattle, singing of farmers and the noise of rice threshers.

A spiral ladder in the eighth room symbolizes the Republic of China's economic progress. Important economic indicators are set forth in graphic ways.

Contributions to the world by contemporary Chinese architects, painters, sculptors and athletes provide the theme for the ninth room. Among those cited are two young Chinese in Japan, Lin Hai-feng, the go champion, and Wang Chen-chih (known in Japan as Sadaharu Oh), baseball star.

The tenth room is at the Pavilion's apex and affords a bird's-eye view of Taiwan on a large screen. The film was taken from a helicopter and the visitor has the impression of actually flying over the "island beautiful" .

Visitors to the real Taiwan don't want to fly but to stay indefinitely at the National Palace Museum.

There they have a quarter of a million good reasons for their visit to the "island beautiful".

Housed in an air-conditioned building in suburban Taipei, this collection of art treasures amassed by the Chinese emperors is the largest and most valuable of its kind in the world. The museum is open 365 days a year and admission is only NT$10 (US25 cents).

Some of the brozens are nearly 4,000 years old. Inscriptions that have never been fully translated cast light on early Chinese history.

Porcelains are represented by priceless examples from Ch'ing, Ming, Sung and other dynasties. The porcelain collection totals more than 18,000 items.

Jades number nearly 4,000 and come from several dynastic periods. Every color of the stone is represented, carved into a wide variety of useful articles and decorative shapes. .

Chinese paintings and calligraphic works are of many styles. All are to be found in the museum's more than 6,000 pieces. Some are 1,000 years old but have a thoroughly modern look.

A favorite with visitors is the "City of Cathay" scroll with its nearly 5,000 tiny figures. For many years the original was believed to have been destroyed. Recent scholarship indicates that the one of the museum's seven scrolls (there are some 30 in existence) is not a copy at all but the original work.

Also on display are sculpture, lacquer and enamel wares, tapestry, embroidery, writing materials and rare books. Trinkets of the emperors are shown, as are examples of Chinese palace furniture.

A museum enlargement project soon will permit the display of more of the treasures at one time.

Most visitors agree that the National Palace Museum is Taiwan's outstanding tourist attraction. The location within less than half an hour's drive of Taipei hotels and the daily hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. make a trip to the museum possible even for those who can stay in Taiwan only a day or two. Not many tourists pass up the museum. Once having been there, they rarely fail to return on a subsequent stopover in Taiwan.

Tourist attractions begin but do not end with the museum.

Taipei is now a city of more than a million and half with a flavor that is modern yet still traditionally Chinese. Temples are within walking distance of up-to the-minute hotels. Theater restaurants offer Chinese cuisine and a combined fare of Chinese and Western entertainment. Shops have handicrafts, coral and native jades at low prices.

The Chinese food is the best, the most reasonably priced and the most varied anywhere in the world. Specialties of a dozen provinces are available - the spices of Szechwan and Hunan, the blandness of Canton, the richness of Shanghai and the mouthwatering roast duck of Peiping. From Mongolia come barbecue and "hot pot". Taiwan offers a wide variety of seafood dishes.

In a stay of a couple of days, the visitor can see other museums, aborigines at Wulai, seascapes of sculptured sandstone at Yehliu, grassy parklands and tropical plants at Yangrningshan, and the fascinating wonderland of Chinese opera. Only a one-day sidetrip is required to visit Taroko Gorge on the rugged east coast. Taroko has scenery to compare with some of the famed canyons of the United States.

Down-island places of interest may be reached plane in an hour or less and by air-conditioned tour express trains that take only five hours for the trip from Taipei to Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second largest city, on the southwest coast.

Kaohsiung has the River of Love and tranquil Cheng Ching Lake, the island's biggest and busiest port and business port and all kinds of industry. The park and lighthouse Oluanpi at Taiwan's southern tip is a day's bus excursion away.

Less than an hour's bus or train journey north f Kaohsiung is the ancient capital of Tainan, where le Dutch held forth for 40 years in the mid-1600s. 'here are old temples and two forts built by the "red beards".

From Chiayi in central Taiwan a narrow-gauge railroad ascends from the tropical plain to the alpine climate and flora and fauna of the Central Mountain Range. Alishan is always cool at 7,500 feet and has both Western and Japanese-style lodges. The sun can he viewed rising from behind 13,000-foot Yushan (Mt. Morrison), the highest peak in Northeast Asia.

Taichung is only three hours south of Taipei by express train. The seat of the provincial Government is nearby. picturesque Sun Moon Lake is in the Central Range foothills at an elevation of 2,500 feet. Taichung is the western terminus off the breathtaking East West Cross-Island Highway, which descends to the east coast through Taroko Gorge.

Good hotels and food are available at down-island cities. Plane service is on a daily or more frequent basis to Kaohsiung, Tainan, Taichung, Hualien and Taitung, the southernmost city on the east coast.

Taiwan lies on the Japan-Hongkong main travel route. A stopover costs absolutely nothing in additional fare. Visas are obtainable from consulates and diplomatic establishments all over the world; arrangements can be made by travel agents or carriers.

Because of its location and many attractions, Taiwan has had East Asia's fastest growing rate of tourism for the last several years. For 1969, the number of visitors is expected to exceed 400,000. With Expo 70 scheduled for Japan next year, Taiwan tourism may have its first year of 500,000 "friends coming from afar". Confucius said that to greet such friends is one of life's great pleasures. Those Chinese people who are free to express themselves are in full agreement.