Taiwan Today

With Wuchang in their hands, the revolutionaries went on to take Hanyang with its ar­senal and Hankow. The last two cities were retaken by the Manchus but 15 of the 18 prov­inces had declared their independence by the end of November and the die was cast. Shanghai and Nanking fell. Sun Yat-sen was in the United States when the first shots were fired at Wuchang. He hurried to London and Paris and persuaded those governments to keep hands off. He reached Shanghai on Christmas Eve and four days later was elected Provisional President by the representatives of 17 provinces at a meeting in Nanking. Dr. Sun was inaugurated on January 1, 1912, and Asia's first republic was born. In February, the boy emperor Hsuan T'ung (Henry Pu Yi) abdicated. Far top left, revolutionary forces seize control of the Triple Cities, (middle) industrial Hanyang with its arsenal, (bottom) Sun Yat-sen and his cabinet. Top left, manifesto of Dr. Sun calling for completion of revolutionary goals, (bottom) young Henry Pu Yi, later a Japanese puppet, and regent Tsai Li.

China's dynasticism ended in 1912 but republican unity didn't come quickly. Neither did modernization and reform. In 1919, the Japanese de­manded former German holdings on the Shan­-tung Peninsula. Students and then the people rose in the May Fourth Movement. The govern­ment dismissed pro-Japanese officials and refused to sign the Versailles Treaty. Education for women began (far top left) and the Peiping dialect became the national language. To provide military forces for unification, Sun Yat-sen established the Whampoa Military Academy (top left) with Chiang Kai-shek as comman­dant. General Chiang and his cadets defeated the warlords in the March Northward (1926-28). Nanking (bottom) became the capital in 1927.

Japanese had coveted China since the 19th century. They attempt at conquest began with the Mukden Incident (Far top left, Japanese troops in Mukden) and seizure of Manchuria in 1931. China was not ready to fight. Chiang Kai-shek expedited the build-up of China's military strength. War came in 1937 (middle left, Chinese forces defending the Marco Polo Bridge near Peiping). Chiang Kai-shek knew China could avert the Japanese conflict no longer. In a nation­wide radio address (top left) he told the people that everything possible had been done to preserve the peace but that Japan persisted in aggression. He bade the nation to rise as one man and fight to victory. This cruel and bloody war was to last for eight years. China gave ground, kept the invaders in the coastal areas and held the great hinterland. Japanese attacked Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, three times between 1939 and 1941 and were repulsed on each occasion (Far bottom left, Chinese troops after the third victory). The temporary capital at Chungking was repeatedly bombed by the Japanese (bottom left). More than 4,400 were killed in the raid of May 4, 1939, when China was fighting alone.

(File photo)

Outcome of the war with Japan was not in doubt after December 7, 1941, when Pearl Harbor was bombed to bring the United States into the con­flict. Yet until 1945, the war in Europe had first priority. China gradually received more materiel but suffered grievously in fulfilling its appointed task of pinning down the bulk of Japanese forces while the Americans island­-hopped their way across the Pacific. In November of 1943, the Cairo Conference (top) brought Chiang Kai-shek, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill to­gether to determine final Asian and Pacific strategy. Madame Chiang translated for the Generalissimo. Cairo decided and Potsdam reaffirmed that Manchuria, Taiwan and the Pescadores would be returned to China. Japan surrendered August 14, 1945. On September 9, General Neiji Okamura presented Japan's document of surrender to China (middle) to General Ho Ying-chin (bottom).

China's victory over Japan was total but Chiang Kai-shek asked the people to be generous. Japanese forces were repatriated and no reparations de­manded. However, Russia's last-minute entry into the war gave the Soviet Union opportunity to ac­cept the Japanese surrender in Manchuria. Captured weapons were promptly given to the Chinese Com­munists for use in their insurrection against a gov­ernment and people that were exhausted from an eight-year struggle. Communists had only pretended to fight the Japanese. They spent most of the years from 1937 to 1945 building their strength for a showdown bid to force their tyranny on China. The United States encouraged a coalition government to make peace and Chiang Kai-shek gave up the helm temporarily to make such overtures pos­sible. When the Communists held out for a monopoly of power, the United States not only gave up its mediation efforts but also withdrew military sup­port from the National Government. The temporary capital of the Republic of China was moved to Tai­pei and the Communists were stopped at the edge of the Taiwan Straits with victory at Kinmen. Ten thousand Communist prisoners were taken (top). On the mainland, a tyranny of forced labor was imposed on 700 million people (bottom) and still continues.

On Taiwan, the Republic of China has built the most prosperous province in. Chinese history. A quarter of a million free Chinese people gather in the Presidential Square in Taipei on each Double Tenth National Day (October 10) to salute President Chiang Kai-shek and pledge national recovery and reconstruction. Seven hundred million people of the mainland await the success of President Chiang's strategy of "70 per cent political action behind the enemy lines and 30 per cent military action in front of the enemy lines." The millions who have escaped Chinese Communist tyranny in the last 21 years attest to the hatred of the Peiping regime and determination to join with their compatriots from Taiwan in restoring the ROC and freedom.