The two “offshore islands” figure very prominently in diplomatic exchanges and name-calling between nations, especially between the West and East blocs.
Communist China wants to have the two islands. Free China is, just as determined to keep them. The United States wants Free China to hold them. Great Britain and some of the other Western countries want the islands handed over to Communist China.
That’s the position internationally. Leaving aside for the moment the question of the merits and demerits of the attitude of the various countries, their conflicting positions and the zeal they show in advancing their positions attest to the importance of the two islands.
That importance, in the eyes of the foreign countries, of course lies only or mostly in the islands’ worth as a bargaining point in international politics.
In the eyes of the Chinese nation, however, their importance assumes a different nature. They occupy a position of the most vital strategic importance in the present struggle between Chinese Nationalism and Chinese Communism. Their fate would have the most decisive influence on the outcome of this struggle.
I hope I would be able to bring out this importance in this short talk of mine.
It was my great fortune that I was given the opportunity of paying a one-day visit to the Quemoy Island recently. I was in a party of over twenty Chinese from Hong Kong. We were accompanied on the trip by Lieutenant General Chiang Ching-kuo, the eldest son of President Chiang Kai-shek.
Many reports have been spread, and I am sure most of you have heard of these reports, that General Chiang Ching-kuo is the “cold-blooded Gestapo head” of Nationalist China who is making a police state out of Taiwan.
Some reports even say that one day he would turn Taiwan over to the Communists. And the surprising thing is that these reports are accorded a certain amount of credence in Hong Kong, especially among the British community.
You would see that, hearing these reports and before meeting and knowing the man, anyone would imagine Chiang Ching-kuo to be quite an evil character.
Well, fellow-Rotarians, all this is non-sense. My talk today is not on Chiang Ching-kuo and I would not propose to go into any detailed defense of him, his record in Taiwan as a matter of fact being sufficient defence of his integrity. But, as a Rotarian and a former journalist, I wish to give you this assurance.
General Chiang Ching-kuo is one of the most progressive, one of the most efficient, one of the most capable and one of the most hard-working officials in the Nationalist government. He is one of the reasons why the Nationalist government has been able to maintain and strengthen its position both internally and externally. He exercises tremendous power, but he also takes his responsibilities seriously, being always in the thick of things anywhere and anytime. Another Nationalist official who takes his responsibilities seriously and for whom I also have the highest admiration is Defense Minister Yu Ta-wei. He does not make his decisions in the office. He goes to the field to see things for himself first. You must have read of his frequent trips to Quemoy and Matsu Islands.
We flew in into Quemoy Island on one clouded morning in a Chinese Air Force C-47 transport piloted by a young Air Force captain. We didn’t take the direct route from Taipei to Quemoy which is 207 air miles, but detoured via the Pescadores which distance is one fourth longer. We flew the 90 miles from the Pescadores to Quemoy Island skimming over the Straits of Formosa, only about 500 feet above the water. We have to fly that low to get out of the Communist radar screen. It is always a danger-fraught trip and all possible precautions are taken. We were told that twelve Sabrejets were patrolling the skies above to give us protection. We came out safely as evidenced by my being here today.
Quemoy Island is actually a tiny archipelago of six small islands, huddling closely together about six miles off the China coast. The Communists occupy two islands, Kaoteng and Hsiaoteng, and the Nationalists occupy four, Big Quemoy, Little Quemoy, Taitan and Hsiaotan. Taitan is the island from where the German vessel Monica was recently allegedly shelled.
Big Quemoy is what we usually refer to as the Quemoy Island. Quemoy, as my Chinese fellow-Rotarians know, means Golden Gate in Chinese. The word Gate is very aptly chosen, because as I will show later it is in many ways the gate to both the China mainland and Taiwan. The word embraces within its four letters all the significance in the Chinese Communist determination to take Quemoy and the Chinese Nationalist determination to hold it.
For Great Britain and the other Western countries to suggest that the “offshore islands” be handed over to Communist China and to say that this would not have any effect on the position of the Chinese Nationalists, I must say it is a most unintelligible suggestion, displaying a disregard of lessons learned from Chinese history.
Abandonment of the “offshore islands” would open the way for Communist invasion of Taiwan, but perhaps it would not be fatal militarily as long as the U. S. Seventh Fleet keeps guard over the Straits of Formosa. But the political, moral and psychological effects would be disastrous. Inside Taiwan, there would bound to be a disastrous disintegration of political, military and public morale. There would bound to be a disastrous landslide of overseas Chinese support for the Peking regime, worsening among other things of the internal security problem for the resident countries. In this sense, it would seem equally important for all Southeast Asian countries, including Hong Kong, that the Nationalists keep the “offshore islands”.
Positively, the loss of the “offshore islands” would rid the Nationalists of their most important base for guerrilla and intelligence infiltration of the mainland and for future counter-attack.
When we arrived at Quemoy, the first place we were taken to was the briefing room of the Defense Headquarters. On the briefing board was President Chiang Kai-shek’s standing Order of the Day. It says: Without Quemoy and Matsu, there would be no Taiwan; with Quemoy and Matsu, we could have the mainland.
Quemoy has historically been regarded as the doorstep to both Taiwan and the China mainland. You all know of the Ming Dynasty Loyalist leader Cheng Chen-kung or Koxinga as he was called in the West. After the Manchus took China, Cheng Chen-kung retreated to Quemoy where he regrouped his forces and went across the Straits of Formosa to take Taiwan from the Dutch and made the Island his base for organising revival of the Ming Dynasty. The open ground on the Island where Cheng Chen-kung trained his troops is still there.
History shows that to take Taiwan you must first have control over Quemoy and for forces in Taiwan to attempt an invasion of the mainland they must possess control of Quemoy.
That is what President Chiang means by his standing Order of the Day I just referred to.
In these few simple words of the Order, the Nationalist leader neatly sums up the importance of the Island to his fight against Communism. I must repeat that it is most unintelligible for Great Britain and the others to suggest that the Nationalists abandon the “offshore islands”. They are just as vital, to Free China as the Suez Canal is to Great Britain, I dare say even more so. You have to be a Chinese and know Chinese history to appreciate how vital the islands are to Free China, just as you have to be a Briton and know British history to appreciate how vital the Suez Canal is to Great Britain.
It is inconceivable that the Nationalists will ever leave the Quemoy Island. The only way to get them out is for the Communists to drive them out. Would the Communists do it? Or rather the question should be: Could they do it?
Quemoy Island is about six miles off the China coast, but it is only one mile from Communist positions at the nearest point, about the distance of the Star Ferry crossing. The Island is 67 square miles in area, about twice the size of the Hong Kong Island. It is about 12 miles long and five miles wide.
Landing on the Island, our first impressions were its close proximity to the Chinese Communist positions and the smallness of the island. On clear days, sentries on both sides could see each other with naked eyes.
Our first question was: how could it be that such a small island so near to the Communists is still not yet captured by the Communists who have swept everything before them in their triumphal march southwards in 1949?
In 1949 at the peak of their success, the Communists had tried to take Quemoy. Their attempt ended in disaster. It was in October of that year. They thought the Nationalist remnants who had retreated to Quemoy were easy pickings. They sent 30,000 men across the narrow strip of water to Quemoy in an armada of sailing boats and motorised junks. When they reached shallow water, the tide turned against them, throwing the whole armada into confusion. Some landed, but some were drifted to another point on the Island. The Nationalists attacked and the Communist force was routed. Half of the 30,000 Communists were killed and the other half captured.
Since that fiasco, the Communists had not dared to make another attempt. But in September, 1954, the Communists shelled the island very heavily for a few days. On September 3 alone it is estimated they poured 6,000 shells into Quemoy. It was feared at that time that it might be the prelude to a full-scale invasion, but the invasion didn’t come off. Artillery duels now take place almost daily, sometimes very intense. We were lucky that there was no artillery duel when we were on the island.
Both sides have their heaviest artillery pieces in the zone. The Communists are trying to build two causeways to facilitate troop movements. One is between Amoy Island and the mainland and the other between Kaoteng Island and the mainland. They have already built the Amoy one, but they haven’t j succeeded in building the other one because Nationalist heavy artillery keep on pounding them.
Only one third of Quemoy is outside the range of Communist guns. The airfield on which we landed is within this one third. The only middle school on the Island which used to be in the Quemoy town was once hit by Communist shells and several school children were killed. Now this school has been moved into the one third. The Nationalists have also built a big 800-bed hospital within this area.
Quemoy is perhaps the most fortified place in all China and the fortifications could be classified as another feat in human endeavour. All military installations and establishments are built underground. Some roads are built into the ground. Even basketball fields are built into the ground.
There are said to be about 100,000 Nationalist troops in Quemoy. But if you go around the Island you won’t see any troops. They are all underground.
The civilian population on the Island is 43,414. There are about 26,000 Quemoy Islanders in the South Seas, Singapore, Malaya, Borneo and Indonesia. The richest Chinese in Kuching, Sarawak, where I come from, is from Quemoy.
The Island population are mostly descendants from Loyalists who sought refuge there during dynastic changes, especially those who went there with Cheng Chen-kung on the fall of the Ming Dynasty.
A cold war is also going on between the Nationalists and Communists in the Quemoy area. Each side has powerful loudspeakers. Every day they blare out speeches urging the other side to give up. Sometimes they engaged in debate and name-calling. We were told of one very interesting name-calling over the loudspeakers. The Communists one day charged that the Nationalists were running dogs of the American “imperialists”. The Nationalists counter-charged that the Communists were the running dogs of the Soviet Russians. The Nationalists said that they could prove they were not running dogs of the Americans because they could scold the Americans anytime. Then the Nationalists shouted through the loudspeakers, “Americans, you are bad eggs”. The Nationalists challenged the Communists to scold the Russians in the same way. There was no answer from the Communists loudspeakers.
Commander-in-Chief of the Quemoy Island Defense Zone is a very veteran Nationalist general Liu Yu-Chang, who hailed from Shensi province where the Communists had their Yenan base. General Liu fought the Japanese during the War and the Communists after the War.
Well-built and erect, he has all the makings of a soldier. He must be over 60 years old now. He showed no trace of fatigue accompanying us on the jeep trip around the island over bumpy roads. Some of us younger folks were near collapse at the end of the trip.
Generals Liu and Chiang Ching-kuo took us to the peak of the highest hill on the Island, the Taiwushan. There we could see the whole of the Island and the Communist positions surrounding the Island on three sides. According to Nationalist intelligence reports, the Communists have four army groups deployed around Quemoy, aggregating 220,000 men. In the Amoy area alone within a 30-mile radius, the Communists concentrated 110,000 men. All these men were there for this one purpose: to take Quemoy and invade Taiwan.
With all this superiority in power, why didn’t the Communists make another attempt to take the Island? They should have done it long ago for all the Island’s importance to them. Why didn’t they do it? The only conceivable reason must be they couldn’t do it. Coming to the doorsteps of Quemoy, the Communists seem to have reached the end of their rope. They couldn’t go any farther. For people like the Communists who, like all totalitarians in history, must expand in order to exist and prosper, it is most dangerous for their future for them to stop at any point.
Standing at the peak of the Taiwushan, looking down at the heroic Nationalist defenders and the seemingly helpless Communists one mile away, I couldn’t help feeling how wrong could those in the foreign countries be who regard the China situation as settled. No, my fellow-Rotarians, I can tell you from my information that the fight is still on. The Communists, who wiped out all Rotary Clubs on the mainland, are not yet the winners. They won’t be as long as they are not able to take Quemoy and Taiwan. The Nationalist forces on Quemoy and Taiwan are contesting their power over China.
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Editor’s Note-This is the text of a speech recently delivered by Mr. Chang Kuo-sin, President of the Asia Press, Ltd., before the Hongkong Rotary Club. Quemoy is another name for Kinmen.