Taiwan Today

While the peoples of many nations have a shared admiration for the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln’s (1809–1865) standing in the Republic of China (ROC) is perhaps more central to national identity and history than it is for any other country except the land of his birth. The prevalence of images of the American Civil War president is evidence of Taiwan’s unique history and of its links with the United States.

The Lincoln Society was founded in 1984 to promote activities that encourage international friendship as well as the values and ideas that the man espoused during his lifetime, and it has been at the heart of his prominence and popularity in the ROC over the past three decades. Thousands of individuals have been impacted by the organization’s breakfast and dinner meetings, and the Gettysburg Address Contest held for Taiwanese university students every year since the founding of the society has been equally influential.

Stories about Lincoln’s life have appeared in textbooks since the late Qing dynasty (1644–1911) as a mainstay of Chinese education, representing a rare foreign beacon of virtue for Chinese children. The tall, bearded figure who maintained the American union has proven a useful symbol for Chinese unity against foreign intruders and internal forces alike that have occasionally threatened to divide the nation.

The Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and the creation of the ROC brought Lincoln’s image to the forefront of popular imagination. Lincoln provided Sun Yat-sen (孫中山, 1866–1925), considered the founding father of the ROC, with a potent connection between the young Chinese republic and American democratic principles. Sun gained an appreciation of Lincoln during his time spent in the United States and the then US territory of Hawaii. The story goes that the solitary portrait hanging in Sun’s Shanghai apartment was one of Lincoln, and Sun claimed that his Three Principles of the People—Nationalism, Democracy and the People’s Livelihood—formulated to govern the ROC were inspired by Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

“Americans would detract from the glory of the immortal Lincoln if they think he belongs to America alone,” US-educated ROC delegate Cai Tinggan (蔡廷幹, 1861–1935) stated while attending the 1921–1922 Washington Conference in Washington, D.C. Cai added, “We revere him in China. In our present political impasse between the North and South, China yearns for a strong and central figure like your great Lincoln to consolidate the country.” Cai sinicized Lincoln by placing the American president within Chinese cultural traditions, noting that Lincoln “lived up to the highest ideals” of the ancient Chinese Taoist philosopher Laozi, who lived some 2,500 years ago.

During World War II, Lincoln’s image became a symbol of the presumed historic and political ties between the Unites States and the ROC as wartime allies. On July 7, 1942, the United States Post Office issued a stamp to commemorate the beginning of the fifth year of Chinese resistance to Japanese aggression. Personally approved by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945), the stamp was a potent reminder to ordinary Americans of the importance of their Chinese allies and supposed parallels between the two nations’ political systems. It was the first American stamp to contain a picture of a Chinese leader and Chinese characters, as it listed Sun’s Three Principles in Chinese alongside Lincoln’s democratic principles. The 5-cent denomination allowed for first-class service to China. The stamp was issued in Denver, Colorado, where Sun had just arrived in 1911 when he learned that the Xinhai Revolution had toppled the Qing dynasty.

The struggles China was suffering in its war with Japan were conveyed to the American public by prominent Chinese in the United States at the time. For example, best-selling author Lin Yu-tang (林語堂, 1895–1976) used Lincoln’s legacy in his 1943 Between Tears and Laughter to challenge US political and military leaders to think beyond victory in order to plan for post-war issues such as decolonization and the territorial integrity of China. Lin reminds the reader that, in Lincoln’s words, “We cannot escape history.” In February 1943, Soong Mei-ling (宋美齡, 1898–2003), who was also known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek, made sure to visit the Lincoln Memorial during a trip to Washington D.C. as a way to emphasize the similarities between the Chinese and American republics.

A Firm Resolve

The importance of Lincoln in the ROC grew even stronger in the post-war era. Article 1 of the Constitution adopted by the ROC government at Nanjing on December 25, 1946 and promulgated on December 25, 1947 reiterated Sun’s Three Principles according to Lincoln’s formula: “The Republic of China, founded on the Three Principles of the People, shall be a democratic republic of the people, to be governed by the people and for the people.”

Throughout Taipei’s continuing struggles with Beijing, the Taiwanese media would often provide images of Lincoln as a steadfast military leader, with the theme of Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech becoming a useful metaphor for the struggle. On Lincoln’s birthday in 1952, an editorial in the New York Times made the same point, lamenting the tragedy that had befallen mainland China. Writers for the Taipei-based journal Free China Review (now Taiwan Review) used Lincoln to prod Americans to remain firm in their resolve to support the ROC, equating the situation in mainland China with the Lincolnian conviction that a nation could not remain half-free and half-slave. During the Korean War, after US General Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) was removed in 1951 as commander-in-chief of the United Nations Command by US President Harry Truman (1884–1972), a Free China Review article titled “Reasserting the True American Spirit” warned against appeasement in the face of communism by praising Lincoln’s hardline Cooper Union Address against the expansion of slavery, which was delivered in New York City in February 1860. In 1954, another article, “The Call of Freedom,” aligned Lincoln’s efforts against slavery with the need to confront communism by asking: “When will another Great Emancipator come to deliver the hundreds of millions of people now suffering from Communist tyranny? The emancipation of these victims of Communist domination and persecution cannot be brought about through mere wishful thinking.” Then in the 1960s and 1970s, with the threat posed to the ROC by warming ties between the United States and mainland China, the Taiwanese media sought to counter the China card played by the US government via images of Lincoln.

Using Lincoln imagery also helped Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石, 1887–1975) to position himself as the heir to Sun and the embodiment of Chinese republicanism. On May 20, 1954, the same day that the National Assembly re-elected Chiang president of the ROC, the Chinese-language military magazine National Spirit compared Chiang to Lincoln. The author explained that both men lived exemplary lives. Lincoln revered George Washington (1732–1799) and learned from biographies he read about the first American president; Chiang was presented as the political heir to the ROC’s Sun. The writer depicted the historic figure of a Confucianized Lincoln as the nexus between Sun and Chiang.

The most memorable manifestation of Lincoln’s image in Taiwan during the Cold War came in the form of two postage stamps issued in 1959 commemorating his 150th birthday. These “Leaders of Democracy” stamps—in two denominations, each presenting images of both Sun and Lincoln as well as the ROC and US flags—were the first stamps ever issued by the ROC to include the picture of a foreigner.

In Taipei’s Zhongzheng District, there is an historical brick building that now houses the National 228 Memorial Museum. Built in 1931 during the Japanese colonial period (1895–1945), the building was once leased by the US government and known as the Abraham Lincoln American Center, and it comprised the Taipei office of the US Information Agency, a library and a venue for artists. During the rule of martial law (1949–1987) in Taiwan, the center was host to a diversity of opinions and artistic tolerance, a place to seek non-official sources of information, and symbolic of Lincoln’s role in inspiring democracy in Taiwan. The center was renamed the American Cultural Center after the United States ended official diplomatic relations with the ROC on January 1, 1979. However, the end of formal relations with the United States did not mean the end of Lincoln imagery in Taiwan, but rather a changed imagery with increased relevance. In the 1950s, Lincoln’s image had been enlisted in the cause of reunifying China. By the 1980s, with mainland China growing more powerful, Lincoln was represented as a peacemaker and a moral unifier. It was thought that a conciliatory Lincoln—the Lincoln of the Second Inaugural Address, “with malice toward none”—would become a guide to peaceful unification of the ROC with mainland China. Long symbolic of the potential for democracy, Lincoln’s image now came to represent real changes in the political system, a “new birth of freedom.” An August 1988 Free China Review article praised recent developments in the ROC as having brought local self-government in Taiwan closer to the ideals set down by Lincoln and delineated for the ROC by Sun.

No person did more to advance the study of Lincoln in Taiwan than Yu-tang D. Lew (劉毓棠, 1913–2005), the founder of The Lincoln Society. Born in China and having immigrated with his family to the United States at the age of 8, Lew earned a Harvard Ph.D. in 1941 and served as ROC Ambassador to Brazil, New Zealand and the United Nations. From 1974 to 1988, he served as the first director of the Graduate Institute of Sino-American Relations at the Chinese Culture University in Taipei. Lew was also editor of Sino-American Relations, an English-language academic journal that provided a channel for the development of Lincoln studies in Taiwan. Lew’s glowing writings about Lincoln’s character focused on the renewal of contemporary politics through higher moral standards inspired by both the American president and Chinese ideals, uniting the best of American and Chinese traditions. In his founding address for The Lincoln Society in June 1984, Lew praised Lincoln in Chinese terms, calling him both junzi, a person of noble character, and shengren, a saint. The American president’s doctrines confirmed the ancient Chinese philosophical concept that all men are born to do good, he added.

In November 1989, The Lincoln Society hosted the Lincoln and Democracy conference in Taipei in conjunction with the Pacific Cultural Foundation, the American Studies Association of the Republic of China and the National Central Library. Most impressively, the organizers of the conference noted that their gathering was the first conference devoted to Lincoln to take place outside the United States.

The conference, held in the year of Lincoln’s 180th birthday, came at an opportune time from the vantage point of Sino-American anniversaries, political developments in Taiwan and even geopolitics. November 12, the opening day of the conference, was Sun’s birthday, making it an auspicious day for the commemoration of Lincoln in Taiwan. Moreover, the 126th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address fell on November 19, a few days after the conference. Most strikingly, a cluster of global events helped highlight Taiwanese economic and political development. Communist regimes in Hungary and Poland had collapsed weeks earlier, and just days before the conference started, the Berlin Wall fell. The Tiananmen Square protests the previous June seemed to portend changes in mainland China. As an American participant noted, the involvement of scholars from Malaysia, South Africa and South Korea at the Lincoln conference served as a reminder that democratic political development in the ROC had been less contentious than in other nations.

Tolerance and Freedom

Lincoln’s image continues to thrive in Taiwan today. The bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth in 2009 gave occasion to reflect on Lincoln’s greatness, and, not surprisingly, Taiwan was a focal point of the global commemoration. At a Lincoln Society dinner on February 11, 2009, then American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Stephen M. Young and ROC President Ma Ying-Jeou (馬英九) each emphasized Taiwan’s successful democratization during their speeches on Lincoln, with the AIT director speaking of the “endless thirst and curiosity about the man who was our 16th president.” Ma’s speech, “Tolerance and Conciliation are the Core Values of Democracy,” focused on themes of freedom, tolerance and democracy. Ma reminded his listeners of Lincoln’s importance to the formulation of Article 1 of the ROC Constitution, saying that Taiwanese “are all admirers of President Lincoln.” Ma also pointed to similarities between liberal American and traditional Chinese thinking, citing Song dynasty (960–1279) poet Fan Zhongyan (范仲淹, 989–1052) and 20th-century intellectual Hu Shih (胡適, 1891–1962) for their relevance to understanding the importance of an open society. Ma noted that Lincoln’s legacy was shared by all, without distinction of ethnicity, nationality or gender. On July 4, 2011, Ma joined then AIT Director William Stanton at the opening of the exhibition “Dr. Sun Yat-sen and the United States,” where Ma again spoke of how the 16th US president inspired the ROC founding father.

Individuals who have served as judges for various Gettysburg Address competitions in Taiwan report how Taiwanese students may restyle Lincoln’s short speech, with particular words and phrases receiving special emphasis. While the quality of recitations is said to be uniformly excellent, the interpretations have also been emblematic of Lincoln’s place in Taiwan. America’s greatest president has served both the cause of universal values and the unique aspects of society and politics in Taiwan. Taiwanese circumstances have certainly guided the development of Lincoln’s influence in Taiwan.

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Joseph Eaton is an associate professor of history at National Chengchi University in Taipei.

Copyright © 2014 by Joseph Eaton