Taiwan Today

Chinese recorded history goes back about 5,000 years. This means that China is the world's oldest continuing culture and nation. But modern China - that of the Republican period - will be marking only its 63rd anniversary on October 10, when the National Revolution at Wuchang began the final stage of overthrowing the Ch'ing dynasty of the Manchus. In point of strict accuracy, the Republic of China will not be 63 years old until January 1. That was the date of the Republic's formal proclamation in 1912. But the October 10 anniversary is observed as the National Day and is the occasion of the bigger celebration.

This Double Tenth finds the Republic of China facing many problems but still prospering and supremely confident in its island province redoubt of Taiwan. When the international political going gets rough, the people of free China are able to fall back on the wisdom and counsel of President Chiang Kai-shek. His guidance is epitomized in one of the special messages he addressed to the nation during the turbulent times of the early 1970s.

"Don't be disquieted in time of adversity," he bade the people. "Be firm with dignity and self-reliant with vigor."

 Administrative reins of the Republic of China are in the able hands of Premier Chiang Ching-kuo. But President Chiang continues to set the course, just as he has for nearly 50 years.

President Chiang also continues to make the crucial decisions and to give his views to the people on matters of the highest importance.

In his directive to the ruling Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) late in 1973, the President said that many people harbor the illusion that peace in our time can be attained through compromise and detente with the Communist bloc.

"They do not care," he said, "if justice is sacrificed and the distinction of right from wrong is abandoned. Consequently, civilized order has been plunged into unprecedented chaos."

"Viewed in depth," he continued, "the turmoil provides a test of our unswerving confidence and will power which may awaken the appeasers from their nightmare. This may be regarded as a turning point on the anti-Communist and anti-totalitarian road."

President Chiang said that aside from their own internal contradictions and endless power struggle, the Chinese Communists are being torn apart by the counterforce of the Chinese cultural tradition. Communism "runs against the spiritual faith of the Chinese," the President said, and the Peiping regime is therefore "counterattacked and resisted by the people."

The Kuomintang's basic policy, he added, is never to negotiate or compromise with the Chinese Communists.

Always the practitioner of a simple life, President Chiang warned against hedonism in his New Year's message for 1974. He said:

"The most serious weakness of civilization is the increasing tendency of people to seek material satisfaction, with the result that the spiritual side and the material side of civilization are no longer in balance. This has led to the paradoxical cycle of the greater the development, the greater the distress.

"As a result of Communist instigation and machination, wars and disasters follow one another endlessly, so that the more people fear war, the greater the chance of war. People resort to appeasement under the pretense of seeking peace and are willing to substitute evil for justice and reason... Today only we revolutionaries still believe that men eventually will return to reason."

The President declared the Chinese Communist movement to criticize Confucius and exalt Ch'in Shih-huang, the First Emperor of Ch'in (221-206 B.C.), was "intended to besmirch and destroy our culture" and to prepare for a "new cultural revolution which would threaten the very existence of our mainland compatriots."

On the occasion of World Freedom Day January 23, 1974, the Chinese chief executive asserted that people everywhere were awakening to the danger of Communism and that those behind the Iron Curtain were opposing slavery and seeking freedom. The World Freedom Day movement, he added, "is a natural force rising with the tides of the times."

On Youth Day last March 29, he referred again to the Communists' denigration of Confucius, saying:

"Such essentials of Confucian philosophy as benevolence, propriety, filial and fraternal affection, loyalty and mutual consideration, universal love and harmony - in short, the whole succession of personal cultivation, family discipline, orderly government and world peace - are not the teachings of one person or one school of philosophy.

"These essentials represent the crystallization of the long process of Chinese culture and history brought to magnificent fruition by Confucius. These essentials are not only vital to the Chinese people but also provide basic guidelines for the continued existence of the whole human community and express the norms of human relationships."

Mao Tse-tung, he said, "is criminally attempting to destroy our country and people by annihilating our history and culture."

"Many young people and intellectuals on the mainland are courageous and heroic," the President continued. "They eventually will turn their spearhead from Mao's pretended target of anti-feudalism and aim it against Maoist enslavement. They will also wake from the nightmare of Mao's class struggle and turn against the Maoists to attain freedom of thought."

President Chiang remains resolutely determined to nail Mao's pelt to the wall.

No man in the world knows Communism better. Chiang Kai-shek went to the Soviet Union in 1923 at the order of the Republic of China's founding father, Sun Yat-sen. His assignment - only two years after establishment of the Chinese Communist Party - was to find out what made Communism tick and report to Dr. Sun.

The Kuomintang's young military genius was quick to discern that Communism was a tyranny totally unsuited to the new China of the Republic. He gave this view to Dr. Sun upon his return.

With China unified by the Northward Expedition that defeated the warlords, Chiang Kai-shek quickly found out what the Soviets had in mind. Instigated and armed by Moscow, the Chinese Communists mounted one provincial rebellion after another. The years from the late 1920s to the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japan in 1937 had to be devoted largely to suppressing the Communist rebellion.

The conflict with Japan lasted eight years - a period which tragically gave the Communists time to recover from their march to the caves of Yenan. Their promises to join battle against the Japanese were not kept. V-J Day found the Communists ready to receive captured Japanese weapons from the Soviets and resume their rebellion.

Exhausted by the eight-year war, the government could not stop the Communists from seizing the mainland. It moved to Taiwan in 1949, to continue the anti-Communist struggle.

President Chiang rebuilt the armed forces of the ROC and made Taiwan into China's first model province - the most prosperous and advanced in Chinese history.

He himself has not been disquieted in an era of reverses. He is firm in his dignity and vigorously self-reliant.

This "old soldier," as he described himself upon assuming the presidency of the Republic of China for the fifth time, remains supremely confident that the free Chinese government will soon restore freedom and democracy to the mainland.

One of Asia's most experienced and efficient government teams serves the Republic of China.

President Chiang Kai-shek took the reins from Dr. Sun Yat-sen in 1925 and has never faltered. He is serving his fifth six-year term as President.

Backing him up is Yen Chia-kan, who was reelected vice president in 1972. Yen has many years of administrative experience and served as premier for nearly a decade.

At the administrative helm for the last two and a half years has been Chiang Ching-kuo. Premier Chiang served as minister of national defense before moving to the Executive Yuan as vice premier under Vice President Yen.

Premier Chiang said he preferred actions to words. He has kept the pledge.

He took action to beef up the Republic of China's diplomatic establishment and stop the erosion of the free Chinese international position.

But when the Japanese decided on a course of appeasing Chinese Communism, he had no hesitation in moving to preserve the Republic of China's dignity and prestige.

Chiang Ching-kuo's administrative team moved to build long-delayed infrastructure projects.

When inflation threatened to get out of hand early in 1974, the premier and his aides initiated an economic stabilization program which stopped the price spiral in four months.

Premier Chiang inherited capable ministers from Vice President Yen's administration and made few changes. He delegated authority freely. The ranking members of the Executive Yuan responded with renewed dedication and capable performances.

Portfolios are held by:

- Lin Chin-sheng, minister of interior. Born in Taiwan, he is under 60 years old and was educated in the law. He has many years of experience as a magistrate.

- Shen Chang-huan, minister of foreign affairs. He has had extensive governmental and diplomatic experience, including two stints at the head of MOFA and ambassadorial posts in Spain, the Holy See and Thailand.

- Kao Kuei-yuan, minister of national defense. General Kao has had a military career extending over more than 35 years, including positions as army commander and chief of general staff.

- Li Kwoh-ting, minister of finance. Educated in Nanking and at Cambridge, Li has spent his career in economic administration and was minister of economic affairs from 1965 to 1969. He holds the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service.

- Tsiang Yien-si, minister of education. He has a doctorate from the University of Minnesota and is an agronomist of distinction. He was long a commissioner of the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction and is a former secretary-general of the Executive Yuan.

- Wang Jen-yuan, minister of justice. Born in Hopei province and educated at Peking University and Meiji University in Japan, he was a legislator and veteran functionary of the Kuomintang.

- Sun Yun-suan, minister of economic affairs. An electrical engineer, he was president of the Taiwan Power Company and served as chief executive and general manager of the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria. He was minister of communications before moving to economic affairs.

- Kao Yu-shu, minister of communications. Taiwan-born, he was educated at Waseda University in Japan and was twice the mayor of Taipei. He is known to countless Westerners as "Henry" Kao. The Cabinet has nine members without portfolio. They are:

- Yeh K.C. (George), former foreign minister and ambassador to the United States.

- Lien Chen-tung, Taiwan-born government administrator.

- Yu Kuo-hwa, banker educated at Harvard and the London School of Economics.

- Li Lien-chun, Taiwan-born long-time former chief of the Taiwan Food Bureau.

- Chow Shu-kai, London University and Cambridge-educated former minister of foreign affairs and ambassador to the United States.

- Kuo Cheng, former secretary-general of the National Assembly.

- Lee Teng-hui, Taiwan-born agronomist and educator.

- Tsui Chui-yien, an educator.

- Mao Sung-nien, banker and former Kwangtung province administrator.

Ministers without portfolio have no sinecure in the Chiang Ching-kuo administration. Each is assigned specific responsibilities, among which is the expediting of the Ten Basic Projects to develop the Taiwan infrastructure.

The premier's harness has brought one major change in the life of Chiang Ching-kuo.

Before 1972, he traveled widely - to the United States, Japan, South Korea and Thailand. Now the travel assignments as the Republic of China's emissary of President Chiang fall to Vice President Yen and such members of the Cabinet as the finance and economics ministers.

Premier Chiang's government motto is "The people first." He stays at home, busily living up to that dedication.

Economic growth of the Republic of China will not exceed the record of 12.3 per cent this year.

That was the figure for 1973. But inflation and the petroleum crisis intervened late in that year and continued into 1974.

The gross national product is expected to show an advance of between 8 and 10 per cent in real terms despite severity of the economic buffeting. Not many developing countries will do better.

Two-way foreign trade should reach US$13 billion, compared with the US$8.3 billion of last year. The gain should be enough to keep the Republic of China (14,000 square miles and 16 million people) ahead of the Chinese Communist-held mainland (3.7 million square miles and 700 million to 800 million people) for the third straight year.

Taiwan trade, which has been favorable since 1970, probably will be in the red for 1974. Foreign exchange reserves are more than adequate to cover the deficit, which results from the skyrocketing prices of raw materials and capital goods.

Industrial growth will be around 10 per cent and manufacturing slightly less than that.

These figures are approximately half of those attained in 1973 but still a long way from the stagnation which has afflicted the economies of some countries.

Foreign and overseas Chinese investment has continued to flow into Taiwan. The government took steps to abet incentives and make the investment climate even more attractive than before.

The influx of capital will be less than the US$249 million of 1973 but still sufficient to carry the cumulative total close to US$1,300 million.

Americans continued to be the biggest investors with the electrical machinery industry as their overwhelming first choice. Nearly every big U.S. home communications receiver company has a Taiwan factory. Investments range from a few million to more than US$25 million.

Overseas Chinese occupy second place. They favor textiles and services, especially hotels.

Japanese are third with a wide variety of investments. New investors from Japan disappeared only briefly after Tokyo recognized the Peiping regime in September of 1972. Japanese money soon was back, as were Japanese tourists.

Entrepreneurs are drawn to Taiwan by reasonable wages for skilled and loyal workers as well as by tax incentives, export processing zones with free port advantages and government guidance and assistance from first inquiry to the start of production.

Wages have risen and Taiwan is no longer the cheap labor capital of industrializing Asia. But today's investors also are looking for the literacy, knowledge and special abilities that are emerging from an excellent system of education.

Taiwan industrialization began in the 1950s with small plants making products for import substitution - textiles, electric fans and other small appliances, household necessities and processed foods.

Soon the supplies were sufficient for domestic consumption. Manufacturers began to seek export markets.

Textile was the biggest import substitution industry and quickly became the No. 1 exporter. Overseas textile sales are headed for the US$2,000 million mark.

Gray sheeting and other simple materials are giving way to more sophisticated products, especially garments and knitwear.

The electrical machinery industry grew from the nimble fingers of girls. TV, radio and tape recorder manufacturers thronged to Taiwan, where their products could be assembled at a tenth of the U.S. cost.

At first, 100 per cent of parts and components were imported. Local manufacturers learned from Western example and acquired the know-how to become subcontractors. American, Japanese and Dutch electrical machinery manufacturers now obtain an increasing share of their materials locally at savings in unit and transportation costs.

Heavy industry came to Taiwan slowly. Automobiles have been made for years. But the process was primarily one of assembling Japanese parts. Ships also were made, but virtually on a custom basis. Taiwan hand built yachts are well known in the United States.

Ford investment in a Taiwan plant stimulated automotive modernization and the production of new models. Subcontractors are contributing an increasing share of the finished product.

Foreign investment has been forthcoming for a Kaohsiung shipyard which will build tankers of 450,000 tons.

Both heavy and light industry will be served by the integrated steel mill under construction at Kaohsiung. Initial capacity will be 1.5 million tons annually. This may be increased to 6 million tons as domestic demand and export opportunities warrant.

Petrochemical intermediates are already starting to pour from naphtha cracking plants built around the Chinese Petroleum Corporation's Kaohsiung refinery. These products will supply synthetic textiles and plastics industries and reduce reliance on imports.

Overall, however, the Taiwan export reliance is still on light and medium industry and is likely to remain so for some time to come.

Labor-intensive factories are big employers of young people. This has enabled Taiwan to keep its unemployment rate at around 1 per cent.

Most of the goods are for export. With a population of 16 million and per capita income which has just moved past the US$500 mark, the island's market is too small to absorb the output of a huge and complex industrial establishment.

Many of Taiwan's exports have been made for a long time but in small quantity. Others were not even produced a few years ago.

Bicycles were made in quantity in the 1940s and 50s. The island was a land of bike riders then. Pedicabs were more familiar than taxis.

The bicycle industry almost vanished with the coming of the motorcycle (of which the island now has around a million). Then the United States and other developed countries discovered that bicycles were great for exercise and often faster than cars in heavy traffic. Bike manufacturers came back bigger than ever and soon will be doing US$100 million worth of business annually.

Taiwan is the world's biggest producer of decorative lights. Its toys and handicrafts are found in markets all over the world. Asparagus and mushrooms weren't grown until the 1960s. The processed and canned products of both outsell those of such traditional producers as the United States and France. Canned pineapple is also a world leader.

A decade or so ago, wood exports were limited to carvings and other handicrafts. Plywood, furniture and other wood products will earn more than US$500 million in foreign exchange this year.

Export opportunities are to be found in unexpected places. Marble and products of marble will bring returns of US$20 million this year. Mandarin dialect movies - mostly kung fu epics - brought in US$32 million last year.

Much of Taiwan's economic success has to be attributed to imaginative entrepreneurs. They have made their own breaks and seized their own opportunities. Standing behind them is a government which believes in free enterprise and supports the mixed economy concept as providing the best life for the most people.

Taiwan has increased its gross national product about twentyfold in the last 20 years. The island province has moved from the ranks of agriculturally based economies to advanced status among developing industrialized lands.

Infrastructure is likely to fall behind when an economy grows by 10 per cent or more annually. This has been the case in Taiwan - partly because of the huge cost of basic construction and partly because the government wished to avoid grandiose projects.

By 1973, however, harbors were bursting their seams. Inland transportation was creaking under loads much heavier than it had been expected to carry. The iron and steel industry was too small to serve burgeoning heavy industry. Synthetic textile and plastic industries were demanding ever increasing supplies of petrochemical intermediates.

Premier Chiang Ching-kuo and the Executive Yuan (Cabinet) decided that the infrastructure had to be expanded and modernized regardless of cost.

Plans were made and blueprints drawn up for Ten Basic Projects to give the Republic of China rank among the developed countries of the world by the end of the 1970s. The cost will be nearly US$6,000 million to be appropriated and borrowed over a period of five years ending in mid-1979.

These are the projects:

- North-South Freeway.
- Electrification of the west coast mainline railroad.
- Suao-Hualien railroad construction on the northeast coast.
- Airport for Taipei at Taoyuan.
- Thermal, hydroelectric and nuclear power plants.
- Petrochemical industry.
- Steel mill.
- Kaohsiung shipyard.
- Taichung port.
- Suao port.

Construction of the North-South Freeway to link the northern port of Keelung and southern port of Kaohsiung by way of Taipei is already well under way. The first section of 18 miles linking Taipei with Chungli to the southwest was opened in July. Total length of the road will be 235 miles. Cost will be close to US$1,000 million.

Nine-tenths of Taiwan's 16 million people live along the fertile west coast plain which will be served by the expressway. Tangible economic benefits are expected to reach US$2,000 million by 1995. The cost will be regained in 20 years from tolls amounting to some US$52 million annually.

Width of the road will vary from four to eight lanes, depending on local traffic conditions. There will be 39 interchanges. No toll stations will be established in metropolitan areas, thus encouraging use of the freeway to relieve urban traffic congestion.

By June of 1978, buses and trucks and private cars will require only five hours for the trip between Taipei and Kaohsiung, the island's biggest cities.

Electrification of the railroad paralleling the North-South Freeway will increase carrying capacity by a third, reduce running time by a third and cut energy consumption by about one-half. Contracts have been signed with General Electric of the United States for locomotives and replacement of tracks, with GE of Great Britain for control and communications systems and power transmission, and with E.M. Ericksson of Sweden for traffic control equipment.

Construction will get under way early in 1975 and be completed before the end of 1978. The rate of investment return on the US$400 million project is estimated at 17.3 per cent annually. Express passenger trains will take only four hours for the Taipei-Kaohsiung journey. Fast freights will make the trip in five hours. Ninety-four locomotives will draw power from 25,000-volt overhead transmission lines.

Taiwan does not yet have an around-the-island railroad system. The present mainline extends from south of Kaohsiung on the west coast to Taipei and then around the northern bend of the island to Suao on the east coast.

Rugged mountains descend to the sea from Suao to Hualien some 50 miles farther south. The east coast plain opens up at Hualien and a narrow gauge railway connects that city with Taitung, the southernmost city on the northeast coast. Mountainous territory has prevented the building of a southern bend line between east and west coasts.

On last Christmas Day (which is also Constitution Day in the Republic of China), construction began on a railroad which will connect Suao with Hualien and eventually make one-train travel possible between Kaohsiung and Taitung.

The 55-mile line will have 19 tunnels and 14 bridges. Crews are tunneling and digging through the mountains from both the Hualien and Suao terminuses. Completion is expected by mid-1978 with partial service beginning in late 1976 or early 1977.

This short stretch of hard-to-build railroad will open up Taiwan's last frontier. The east coast is under populated because of transportation isolation. Highways between Suao and Hualien and between Hualien and Taichung on the west coast are frequently blocked by landslides.

The east coast has vast marble and limestone deposits. Lumber, gold and copper are other resources. Hualien has a small international port which will acquire greater value with completion of the railroad. Some of Taiwan's finest scenery is found in Hualien and Taitung counties.

Taipei's Sungshan International Airport is running out of room for expansion. Located only 15 minutes from downtown Taipei, it handled 3.1 million passengers and 85,000 metric tons of freight last year.

The new airport for Taipei will be about 18 miles southeast of the capital and near Taoyuan, a fast-growing industrial center. First-phase construction to be completed by 1978 will provide capacity for 5 million passengers and 200,000 metric tons of freight. Subsequent expansions will take care of northern Taiwan's airport requirements until at least the year 2000.

A five-mile airport road will feed into the North-South Freeway and provide 30-minute travel to Taipei. There will be three terminal buildings, an airport hotel and 22 parking aprons. One of the three runways will be 12,000 feet long.

Taiwan Power Company capacity must be raised to nearly 20 million kilowatts by 1985. The island's first nuclear generator will be in operation by October of 1976 and the second a year later. Six other nuclear units are planned. Installed and potential hydroelectric generation totals nearly 8 million kilowatts. Taipower's biggest thermal plant will begin generation the middle of next year. Located at Talin near Kaohsiung, it will have capacity of 1,850,000 kilowatts.

Petrochemical plants will be built in complexes around Chinese Petroleum Corporation refineries in the north and south. One naphtha cracker is already in production and a second and third are under construction. Planning has started for a fourth plant to produce such intermediates as ethylene, propylene, butadiene, ethylene glycol and benzene.

Private investors are spending more than US$200 million on downstream industries to make such products as polyacrylonitrile, DMT, caprolactam and artificial rubber.

Preliminary construction has begun for an integrated steel mill at Kaohsiung. Initial capacity will be 1.5 million tons annually of pig iron and steel ingot, plate, wire and rods. USS Engineers and Consultants Inc. of U.S. Steel will supply technical services and supervision in building the US$700 million plant.

Work has been under way for more than a year on the world's second biggest drydock at Kaohsiung. The China Shipbuilding Corporation will turn out 1.5 million tons of vessels annually and have repair capacity of 2.5 million tons. Contracts are already in hand for four 450,000-ton tankers. Investment has come from the United States, Liberia and Great Britain as well as the free Chinese government, which owns 55 per cent of the stock.

Harbor congestion has been a worsening headache for Taiwan with growth of foreign trade at rates of 50 per cent and more. Major expansion programs are under way at Keelung, which has geographical limitations, and Kaohsiung.

Construction of a new international port began at Wuchi, a fishing harbor near Taichung on the west central coast, in October of 1973. Traffic will begin in 1976 with annual volume of 3 million tons and reach 12 million tons by 1978. The island's second biggest industrial zone will be developed around Taichung Port.

More than 27 per cent of the Taiwan population was in school - from kindergarten through graduate departments - in 1973-74. This meant a total of nearly 4,335,000 learners.

With figures rounded off, primary schools had enrollment of 2,500,000, junior and senior high schools of 1,375,000 and colleges and universities of 271,000.

Specialized institutions - mostly technical and vocational schools - enrolled the rest.

Nine years of schooling has been free since 1968. This has raised junior high school attendance from a little over half of primary graduates to 85 per cent.

Sixty-five per cent of junior school graduates go on to senior high school.

Scores of schools and thousands of classrooms are newly built. Extensive construction and teacher training were undertaken in preparation for the nine-year program.

Curricula and teaching methods are undergoing modernization. More emphasis is placed on science. At the junior high level, students are introduced to vocations for the benefit of the nearly one-third who will not receive further formal academic schooling.

An explosion has taken place in higher education. The institutional count reveals 24 universities and independent colleges, 7 military academies, 1 police college, 70 junior colleges or equivalent, and 171 vocational training schools. Admission to colleges and universities is by joint competitive examination. In the summer of 1974, about 93,000 high school graduates matched grades for 24,000 places in colleges, universities and senior technical institutes.

One hundred and thirty-seven departments of colleges and universities have courses of graduate study leading to the master's degree. Eight universities and one college offer doctoral programs. Nearly 3,000 students were working on advanced degrees in the 1973-74 school year.

National Taiwan University with 6 colleges, 43 departments and more than 10,000 students is the biggest and most prestigious institution of higher learning. Forty NTU programs lead to master's degrees. The nursing, medical and hospital complex on the edge of downtown Taipei is Taiwan's biggest.

National Tsinghua University at Hsinchu is the heartland of scientific training and has an open-pool nuclear reactor. National Chiao Tung University, also at Hsinchu, trains engineers.

National Chengchi University in the Taipei suburb of Mucha has 3 colleges, 16 graduate schools, a Center for Public and Business Administration Education and a Social Sciences Materials Center.

National Taiwan Normal University is the principal teacher of teachers in Colleges of Education, Arts and Science. NTNU has a big evening program.

Fu Jen Catholic University is winning wide respect for its teaching of foreign languages and linguistics.

Taipei tends to be the educational center, but nearly every major city has one or more institutions of higher learning. Some of these rank as national universities.

The Academia Sinica, a research institution of outstanding scholars, stands at the top of the educational pyramid. The 9 institutes have 76 academicians, 44 research fellows, 57 associate fellows, 40 assistant fellows and 20 assistants. Fields are history and philosophy, modern Chinese history, ethnology, economics, mathematics, physics, chemistry, botany and zoology.

Sino-American cooperation has contributed to rapid scientific progress. Radioisotopes are extensively used in research and exported. Laser experiments are under way. Herb medicines are being classified and studied scientifically. Physicians trained in Western medicine are determining what acupuncture can and cannot do.

The Republic of China has two specialized roles to playas the only center of Chinese education freely open to overseas Chinese and students and scholars from all over the free world.

Overseas Chinese cannot seek higher education under the Communists on the Chinese mainland. They are not welcome, they are not free to go and come, and post-cultural revolution higher education is a shambles out of which not even the Communists can make much sense.

More than 40,000 overseas Chinese from some 40 countries and areas have come to Taiwan in the last 20 years. About 1,300 of them are graduated from institutions of higher learning each year.

Overseas Chinese students in Taiwan exceeded 9,500 in 1973-74. About 8,000 were attending colleges and universities. The other 1,500 were enrolled in high schools and technical institutes upon graduation. Most return to serve their home communities and countries of residence.

The Republic of China's other unique educational role is the teaching of Chinese language and culture to foreigners. About 700 foreign students were in Taiwan during the 1973-74 academic year. Americans numbered 250 and Japanese 150.

Several American universities cooperate in a Chinese language program based in Taipei. The U.S. government operates a Chinese language school at Taichung.

Short courses in Chinese culture are given in the summer for hundreds of foreigners, mostly from the United States.

Although Chinese is considered a difficult language, many foreign students gain considerable proficiency after two or three years of intensive study.

Nineteen hundred and seventy-four may be Taiwan's first Million Tourists Year. Visitors are expected to exceed the 900,000 mark by a substantial margin and dwarf the nearly 825,000 who came last year.

Japanese are the most numerous, followed by Americans and overseas Chinese.

Visitors from Japan declined in April, when Japan Air Lines and China Airlines flights between Taipei and Tokyo were suspended. But the Japanese continued to arrive on seven other airlines.

One growing tourism problem is the shortage of hotel rooms. Taiwan has 11,600 rooms of international standard. Wellington Tsao, director of the Tourism Bureau, said 4,000 to 5,000 more will be needed by 1976.

U.S. interests are interested in hotel investment. Sheraton, Holiday Inn and others have made inquiries. Temporary ban on new high rise buildings has delayed the start of construction.

Among the Republic of China's biggest tourism drawing cards is the Chinese people. Apart from a couple of hundred thousand aborigines, the 16 million people of Taiwan came from the Chinese mainland. They brought traditions, customs, rites and distinctive ways of life from more than a score of provinces. They are also friendly and hospitable and have a sense of humor Westerners appreciate.

Taiwan, which so impressed 16th century Portuguese mariners that they called it "Ilha Formosa" (beautiful island), has an area of 35,969 square kilometers (13,885 square miles). Shaped like a tobacco leaf, the island is 240 miles long and 85 miles wide at its widest.

Scenery ranks with the best in Asia. Forests cover two-thirds of the area and the lush green of rice paddies most of the rest. A backbone of towering mountains attracts climbers and even skiers during the brief snow season.

But Taiwan's biggest attraction is the atmosphere of the real China. This island province of the Republic of China preserves 5,000 years of history and a culture which has been suppressed on the Communist-held Chinese mainland. At one and the same time, the capital of Taipei, a city of 2 million, offers all the modern appurtenances to be found in New York, Paris and London.

The National Palace Museum in suburban Taipei houses the world's greatest collection of Chinese porcelains, paintings, jades, bronzes, books and other masterpieces of art. The nearly 250,000 pieces draw visitors back time after time. This treasure house is so rich that its beauty must be soaked up little by little.

Chinese food is plentiful, reasonably priced and authentic. All leading provincial cuisines are represented. Taiwan has it all-from Peking duck and Mongolian barbecue to the rich seafood of Shanghai and the delicious snacks of Canton.

Shopping is largely unsung but an increasingly popular tourist pleasure. The handicrafts are of interesting design and good quality. Prices are low. The range is from grass handbags to marble vases, from ceramic reproduction of dynastic masterpieces to costumed dolls, from jades to Tientsin style rugs.

Sightseeing often begins with one of world's natural wonders - 12-mile-Iong Taroko Gorge at the eastern end of the 120-mile East-West Cross-Island Highway. Sheer walls reach up 3,000 feet and contain marble deposits totaling hundreds of millions of tons. The highway slices its way along precipices high above a mountain stream. Taroko may be seen in a daily air and bus tour out of Taipei. Those with more time can cross the island by way of Taroko and the Central Mountain Range.

Sun Moon Lake is located at a cool 2,500 feet in the foothills of west-central Taiwan. Farther south is the resort of Alishan at the end of a fascinating narrow gauge forestry railroad. Early risers can see the sun coming up from behind 13,000-foot Yushan (Mt. Morrison).

Taiwan has temples in the remote countryside and in the heart of big cities. It has beaches with tropical reefs and championship golf courses. It has theater restaurants with floor shows that fascinate sophisticated New Yorkers.

Yet many first-time and repeater tourists attest that the best Taiwan offering of all is friendly people who believe with Confucius that greeting friends from afar is one of life's greatest pleasures.

Chinese Communists may be attacking Confucius to get at Lin Piao and Chou En-lai. But they are also determined to demolish China's great sage and teacher. Although Confucius lived 2,500 years ago, he is still the antithesis of everything the Maoists stand for.

Confucianism and Communism are irreconcilable. The former has existed for more than two millennia. In a scant 25 years, the Communists have not been able to weaken Confucius' hold on the minds and hearts of the 700 million people of the Chinese mainland.

Chinese morals and ethics, the family system and, indeed, the whole Chinese way of life are deeply rooted in Confucianism.

All attempts to fasten communal living on the Chinese mainland have failed. Even the program to send city youths to the countryside is running afoul of Chinese family solidarity. Chinese Communist cadres are under fire for trying to keep their families intact.

After more than a year of criticizing Confucius, the Communists still do not dare to resort to more than name calling. They do not quote Confucius; they sloganize. Confucius is said to be a "black reactionary" but the Communists do not cite any chapter and verse.

The explanation for the vague generalities is simple. Confucianism is not subject to attack on moral and ethical grounds. As statements of man's aspirations, the teachings of Confucius are as impervious to denial as those of Christ. \

At the heart of the Confucian system is the doctrine of jen or humanity, sometimes also translated as benevolence, love or perfect virtue. Loyalty (chung) and forgiveness (shu) are components of jen.

Asked how to regard humanity, Confucius said people should be treated as the most important of guests. Five hundred years before Christ, he said: "Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you."

Confucius identified the five virtues of humanity as "courtesy, magnanimity, good faith, diligence and kindness." He said: "He who is courteous is not humiliated, he who is magnanimous wins the multitude, he who is of good faith is trusted by the people, he who is diligent attains his objective and he who is kind can get service from the people."

Mencius, who was born more than a hundred years after the death of Confucius in 479 B.C., added righteousness (yi) to Confucianism. This concept involves "propriety" or "duty" and is to be applied in all human relationships.

Mencius said: "States have been won by men without humanity, but the world, never." He taught the imperative of right rule and justified the overthrow of tyrants. In a state, he said, "The people rank the highest, the spirits of land and grain come next and the ruler counts for the least."

Hsun Tzu, who was 10 years old when Mencius died, developed the third great leg of the Confucian tripod. This is li, which translates as a "code of ritual" but is actually the ethical system essential to an ordered society.

Confucianism was never - as the Communists maintain - a tool used by the aristocracy to suppress the people. Its emphasis is on human relationships and the teaching of men to live in harmony with one another. The Confucian Doctrine of the Mean assures against excesses. Harmony brings balance and contributes to the happiness and prosperity of all.

The Communists have maintained that Confucianism is a religion and have razed its temples.

Yet it was Confucius who, asked about the metaphysical, responded: "We don't know yet how to serve men, how can we know about serving the spirits? We don't know yet about life, how can we know about death? "

The spokesmen for Mao thought cannot quote Confucius because the words of the sage contradict their representations about Confucianism.

Confucius said: "If a ruler is upright, all will go well without orders. But if he himself is not upright, even though he gives orders they will not be obeyed."

He had this other advice for governments and governors: "Lead the people by laws and regulate them by penalties, and the people will try to keep out of jail but will have no sense of honor or shame. Lead the people by virtue and restrain them by rules of decorum, and the people will have a sense of honor and shame and will do good."

Confucianism can be summed up in two words: "Love men." The Chinese people are still trying to live up to that summons. The Communists cannot stop them.

In his brief dynasty from 221 to 206 B.C., the first emperor, Ch'in Shih-huang, tried to destroy Confucianism by burning the books and burying the scholars. He failed and was excoriated for 2,000 years. Now the Maoists hold him up as a heroic figure.

Confucianism cannot be excised, nor even submerged under the nonsense to be found in Mao's "little red book."

Young people of the mainland have responded to the "criticize-Confucius" campaign by asking why there should be so much noise about someone who lived so long ago. They admit to knowing nothing about Confucius.

What they do not realize is that within the family circle they are still leading Confucian lives.

Confucianism is an irremovable obstacle to Communism among the Chinese people. There is nothing the Maoists can do about it. (To be continued)