Two diplomatic meetings were in the spotlight during August - one in Canberra, the other in Taipei. Foreign Minister Wei Tao-ming headed a 10-man delegation to the third conference of the Asian and Pacific Council in the Australian capital. He reported on the Chinese mainland turmoil. On his return to Taipei he noted that the members of ASPAC are in agreement on important aspects of the world situation, including the Vietnam war and new tension along the 38th parallel in Korea.
Further steps were taken towards the establishment of a food and fertilizer research center in Taiwan and a cultural and social development center in Korea. Also discussed were plans for economic research and trade development institutions.
U.S. Ambassador George W. Ball came to Taipei in the course of a Far East swing that also included South Korea and Japan. He said the United States continues to oppose the ousting of the Republic of China and seating of Red China at the United Nations. He also said any consideration of China representation must be considered an important question requiring a two-thirds vote of the United Nations General Assembly.
Ambassador Ball met with President Chiang Kai-shek and Vice President/Prime Minister C. K. Yen. Foreign Minister Wei Tao-ming and Defense Minister Chiang Ching-kuo gave a breakfast in his honor.
More than 30 diplomats and Foreign Ministry officials attended a three-day Taipei conference on the Asian and Pacific region. Ambassadors came home from Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, South Vietnam, Korea and Japan to participate. Minister Wei Tao-ming presided.
Directing attention to the turmoil on the Chinese mainland, the conferees pointed out that what happens there holds the key to war or peace in the region and possibly in the world. The diplomats agreed on the importance of briefing other countries of the region about Chinese Communist developments.
China and Korea held their fourth economic cooperation conference in Taipei and pledged themselves to set an example for the East Asian region. They had already agreed to develop the petrochemical industry cooperatively and will add new ventures in machinery parts, rural reconstruction, fisheries, science and technology.
Heading the delegations were Korean Deputy Prime Minister/Economic Planning Minister Park Choong Hoon and China's Minister of Economic Affairs K. T. Li. The 13-member Korean group traveled south to visit economic projects and was received by President Chiang Kai-shek. The fifth conference will be held in Seoul next May or June.
A 25-man agricultural team helping the Philippines improve rice cultivation will work in Leyte for another two years. The first year's demonstration was so successful the Philippines government asked for the two-year extension. The Chinese have already reclaimed 3,000 hectares of paddy. Output has reached 4,500 kilograms per hectare, more than three times the pre-demonstration level.
Sino-Filipino friendship was also expressed in the raising of funds for the relief of Manila earthquake victims. More than NT$1 million (US$25,000) was collected.
The Republic of China entered into a cultural cooperation agreement with Upper Volta. Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs H. K. Yang and Volta's Minister of Education Moise Lankande signed at Ouagadougou.
Outgoing Ambassador Tran Thien Khiem was decorated with the Order of Brilliant Star upon his return to Saigon to become his country's interior minister. Four members of the Vietnam Senate came to Taiwan on a fact-finding tour during the month.
Roger Garreau, the former French ambassador to Poland, spent eight days in Taiwan and said the people of France are still friends of the Republic of China. De Gaulle's recognition of Peiping was a matter of political expediency, he added, and did not change France's basic attitude toward China and the Chinese.
Another visitor, B.D. Darby, a member of the Australian parliament, said the Republic of China has succeeded in creating a middle class of farmers and small industrialists that makes Taiwan unique in East Asia. He urged other countries to follow the ROC example of land reform.
Liberian Undersecretary of State Ernest Eastman came for an eight-day study of agricultural and industrial projects. Liberia was the first African country to receive a free Chinese farm demonstration team.
Taiwan's nine-year program of free education will be inaugurated with a mass rally at the Taipei City Hall the morning of September 9. Speakers will include Vice President/Prime Minister C. K. Yen and Education Minister Yen Chen-hsing. Festive events will include free admission to Kiddieland and the Zoo and free movies at parks and public schools.
Nearly 220,000 primary school graduates will be entering the seventh grade throughout Taiwan this month. Of the 429 schools, 133 have been newly built to accommodate the influx. About 2,000 new teachers have been recruited to raise the total to 3,664.
Taipei's seventh-grade enrollment will be nearly 36,000. Fewer than 4,000 primary school graduates decided to terminate formal education to go to work or take up vocational training. Government school attendance will be about 33,600 and the other 2,400 will go to private institutions.
Education will receive US$6 million from the Sino-American Fund for Economic and Social Development to help defray increased costs. Tuition is going up at private and vocational junior high schools and at high schools. However, the new rate of public high school tuition will be a low US$5 a semester and private high schools will charge a maximum of US$17.50 a semester. The highest level of vocational tuition will be US$20.
Ministry of Education figures show 3,361,041 students enrolled at all levels of schooling, a quarter of the population. The breakdown is: kindergarten, 88,897; primary school, 2,348,218; high school, 785,313; and college, 138,613. Boys outnumber girls 2 to 1 in college and 3 to 2 in high school.
Social science is the most popular college specialization with 53,354 students. Then come engineering, 27,000; medical science, 13,000; and law, 3,091. Fifty students are working on their doctorates and nearly 1,300 on their master's degrees.
Special allowances are being paid junior high teachers to persuade them to go to island and mountain schools. They will also receive priority for promotion and for preferred posts after three years of service.
An expanded school lunch program will get under way this fall. About US$50 million will he spent on the program in five years and nearly 700,000 children benefited. Part of the cost will be met by the United States.
Transportation problems are accompanying the step-up in the number of junior high students. Taipei had 360,000 school commuters last year and the number will be 420,000 this fall. About a third travel by train, the rest by bus. The Ministry of Communications is planning to use some government and military buses to provide student service.
Nearly 60,000 students took the unified entrance examination of 31 colleges and universities in July. Only 19,450 were certified for admission. Additional admissions by private institutions are expected to raise the size of the freshman class to 21,600. Vocational training will be given 12,000 of those who flunked the exam.
Statistics of the Ministry of Education showed that 1,094 college graduates had been approved for graduate study abroad in the first half of 1968. More than 83 per cent went to the United States. Eighty-three students went to Japan, 44 to Canada and 13 to West Germany. Men outnumbered women by better than 2 to 1.
Nine academicians were elected to the Academia Sinica, the Republic of China's highest ranking scholarly body. Membership now totals 63. There were 27 candidates. A three-fourths majority is required for election. Four ballots were taken. Those chosen are:
-Mathematics and physics: Dr. Yang Chung-tao, 45, professor of mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Feng Yuan-cheng, 49, professor of engineering at the California Institute of Technology; Dr. Wang Chao-chen, 53, research director of an American company.
-Biology: Dr. Liu Chan-ao, 57, professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Loo Chih-teh, 68, head of the National Defense Medical Center; Dr. Wei Huo-yao, 61, dean of the College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, the only Taiwan-born member.
-Humanities: Prof. Chien Mu, 74, historian and head of the graduate school of the College of Chinese Culture, the oldest of the nine; Dr. Ku Ying-chang, 50, professor of economics at the University of Michigan; Prof. Kuo Ting-yee, 65, director of the Institute of Modern History of the Academia Sinica.
The Academia Sinica has nine institutes: history and philology, chemistry, physics, botany, zoology, modern history, mathematics, ethnology and economics. A 10-year, US$15 million expansion program is now under way. Several new institutes will be established.
Fund raising is in progress for a Performing Arts Center to be built just behind International House in Taipei. The tentative budget is US$2.5 million, of which US$1 million is expected to come from local sources. The other US$1.5 million is sought from American foundations.
Large and small auditoriums are planned with total seating capacity of 2,500. The committee is headed by Lin Yutang. Taipei has only one large auditorium, that of the City Hall. It is old and commonly called a "big barn" by both Chinese and Western performing artists.
A statue of President Chiang Kai-shek that formerly stood at Chungcheng and Chungshan Roads was unveiled at its new location at Chungcheng and Tunhua Roads. The statue was moved to make way for a traffic exchange.
President and Madame Chiang went to Taichung for an inspection of the Reserve Officers Training Corps base at Chengkung Hill. The President reviewed a parade and addressed 5,000 trainees who were finishing an eight-week summer course.
The First Couple gave a reception for more than 60 academicians and overseas Chinese scholars at the Chungshan Cultural Building on Yangmingshan. The scholars were in Taiwan for the summer.
President Chiang's other activities included a reception for Liberia's Undersecretary of State Ernest Eastman and Mrs. Eastman and a meeting with eight goodwill emissaries from Ghana. Madame Chiang received some 160 players who participated in the second Asian Women's Basketball Championships that had been won by Korea with Japan second and China third.
Vice President C. K. Yen addressed the second meeting of the Asian Chinese Banking Amity Conference in Taipei. He expressed hope that the organization could be made worldwide and this turned out to be the case. Some 40 overseas bankers attended the conference.
Members agreed to establish the World Chinese Economic and Financial Cooperation and Research Center in Taipei. Chinese banks around the world will be mobilized to promote trade with Taiwan and help attract investment.
Vice President and Mrs. Yen gave a reception for members of an American medical mission and their wives. The five-man team was invited by the National Science Council to look into problems of Chinese medical education, especially at the Medical College of National Taiwan University.
National and Taipei city officials gave Vice President Yen a 90-minute airborne briefing on plans for the integrated urban development of northern Taiwan. The area will extend from Keelung in the north to Chungli in the south and include all of Taipei. Projects include a new harbor at Tamsui, moving of the Taipei International Airport to Taoyuan, establishment of a national park at Yangmingshan and the development of satellite towns to relieve Taipei population pressure.
Some 200 members of the U.S. 14th Air Force Association, which took over from General Claire Chennault's famed Flying Tigers in World War II, came to Taipei for their 25th anniversary reunion. Vice President Yen told the airmen who fought so successfully in China's World War II cause: "We must join hands once more to wipe out our common enemy and safeguard the ideals that we have cherished."
"We once fought shoulder to shoulder," the Vice President continued. "Now we must join hands again to eliminate the Chinese Communists who have placed the mainland under a more tyrannical rule."
Leon Spector presided at the four-day meeting. Lt. Gen. Charles B. Stone III presented awards to winners of the association's scholarship competition.
Free China's ruling party, the Kuomintang, got a new secretary general. He is Chang Pao-shu, a fisheries expert with a doctor's degree from Tokyo University. A long-time KMT official, he succeeds Ku Feng-hsiang, who is to become chairman of the board of the China Television Company, which will operate the island's second commercial station.
First rice crop of 1968 totaled 1,193,945 metric tons for an all-time record. The final figure will be augmented by ½ to 1 per cent by late harvests. The increase over last year was more than 41,000 tons and the target was exceeded by nearly 14,000 tons.
Agriculture grew at the rate of 6.7 per cent annually during the first three years of the fifth Four-Year Economic Development Plan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs reported. The fifth plan ends this year. The target increase of 4.1 per cent was exceeded substantially as a result of improved irrigation and cultivation, especially the use of more fertilizer and improved pest control.
According to estimate of the Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, the rate for the 1969-72 plan should be 4.45 per cent annually compared with population growth of 2.27 per cent. The goals will be 3.13 per cent for crops, 3.63 per cent for forestry, 12.63 per cent for fisheries and 6.55 per cent for animal husbandry.
Dr. T.H. Shen, the JCRR chairman, predicted these production increases (the first figure for 1968, the second for 1972): rice, 2.5 million to 2.74 million metric tons; sugar, 850,000 to 876,000 m/t; pineapples, 325,000 to 432,000 m/t; bananas, 669,000 to 785,660 m/t; asparagus, 35,000 to 52,000 m/t; hogs 3,649,000 to 4,706,000 head; fisheries, 497,000 to 800,000 m/t; lumber, 1,026,000 to 1,128,000 m/t.
Value will rise from about US$800 million to US$950 million. Dr. Shen warned against expecting further spectacular gains in agriculture. These are precluded, he said, by the shortage of arable land and the withdrawal of agricultural land for residential and industrial use.
JCRR expects to spend US$425 for agricultural development during the sixth four-year plan. About half of this will go to fisheries and animal husbandry. Research will be stressed in the agricultural sector.
Seventeen representatives from East Asian countries, the United States and the Asian Development Bank attended a preparatory conference for establishment of the Asian Vegetable Research Center. The site will be Shanhua, a town in southern Taiwan.
China will underwrite 30 per cent of the US$7.5 million cost for the first five years. The United States will provide 40 per cent, the Asian Bank 10 per cent and Japan, the Philippines, Korea and Thailand will share the other 20 per cent. Vietnam will make a token contribution.
Chinese and Japanese banana growers and traders will meet this month to settle some of their problems. The Japanese have agreed in principle to a long-term contract. A preliminary meeting set prices at US$7 to $8 a basket. Schedules call for shipment of 230,000 baskets in August and 470,000 in September. Quotas for the last quarter of 1968 will be set this month.
Fifty-eight African agriculturalists from 20 countries completed their training in the ninth five-month seminar sponsored by the Sino-African Technical Cooperation Committee. More than 400 Africans have been trained in the last five years. Two seminars are held annually.
Vice President C. K. Yen spoke to the graduates. He told them that African climatic and geographical conditions are much like those of Taiwan and that the continent can have an equally successful development of agriculture.
Free China and Japan have agreed to try to increase their trade and especially to seek a reduction in the large balance favoring the Japanese. Last year Japan exported US$328 million worth of goods to Taiwan while importing only US$137 worth.
The Japanese are asked to buy more bananas and other agricultural products and to stop dumping plastics and chemicals in Taiwan.
A long-range plan calls for raising Taiwan sales to Japan to US$251 million in 1971. Traditional exports will be increased, including sugar, rice, salt, lumber, fruits and vegetables. New sales to Japan will be sought in these categories: rape seeds, peanuts, black sesame, gunny bags, pork and rabbit meat.
Studies are under way regarding the future of the Foreign Exchange and Trade Commission, which has raised Taiwan's foreign trade level to US$1.5 million a year.
The Central Bank has already established a Foreign Exchange Bureau to take over some of the operations in that field. Some aspects of trade promotion may be handled by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. FETC is chaired by P.Y. Hsu, who is concurrently the governor of the Central Bank. It includes a number of ad hoc groups charged with the responsibility of handling specific trade problems.
Beginning November 1, only copies of simplified application forms (instead of more than 30) will be required by the Foreign Investment Commission. This is in answer to complaints about red tape by overseas Chinese and foreigners contemplating Taiwan investments.
Investment from abroad is expected to total about US$70 million this year, surpassing the 1967 record of US$63 million. The amount for the first six months of 1968 was US$34 million, of which a little over US$10 million came from overseas Chinese, principally of Hongkong.
The Council for International Economic Cooperation and Development has announced plans for a second export processing zone. The first zone at Kaohsiung already has 60 operating plants and will be sold out by the end of this year. The 60 factories involve investment of US$17 million. They are employing 12,000 and are producing at a rate of about US$96 million worth of goods annually.
West Germany's Farbwerke Hoechst AG will invest US$1 million in a pharmaceutical plant at Taoyuan in northern Taiwan. Production is expected to begin next year. A feasibility study of Taiwan investment has been completed by the Bendix Corporation of the United States.
One negative note about foreign investment came from the Control Yuan, the watchdog of the government. A committee of controllers urged the protection of home industry, although not to the point of preserving inefficiency. More foreign investments should involve large amounts of capital and light industry should be reserved for domestic investors, the committee said. Protection of monopoly was opposed.
The four-year economic plan to open next year calls for investment of US$4.5 billion in industry, an increase of 64 per cent over the four-year period ending this year. Capital intensive industries and the infrastructure will receive the lion's share of attention.
To attain an economic growth rate of 7 per cent annually, the island will need US$170 million worth of foreign capital a year. The average for the last four years has been only US$100 million. The industrial target will be about 13 per cent a year.
Polyester fiber self-sufficiency will be attained in 1971, according to the Foreign Exchange and Trade Commission. Taiwan imported US$2.7 million worth of fibers for processing last year. Consumption will increase to 12,000 metric tons by 1971, more than double this year's figure.
Minister of Economic Affairs K. T. Li was named as winner of the 1968 Ramon Magsaysay award for government service given by the Philippines. He was hailed as a "chief architect" of Taiwan's industrial development. The award includes a gold medal, certificate and US$10,000.
Trustees of the Magsaysay Foundation, which honors a former president of the Philippines killed in a plane crash in 1957, said Li had helped end dependence on American economic aid, had attracted large amounts of foreign capital, had tripled China's foreign trade and had helped direct a highly efficient use of natural resources.
Minister Li, who was born at Nanking and is 59, said the credit should go to President Chiang Kai-shek and the hard work of the whole nation. He was a teacher, shipbuilding executive and U.S. aid administrator before entering the cabinet.
Chinese-American and foreign authorities continued their study of Taiwan tax reform. Dr. Liu Ta-chung, Cornell University economist and chairman of the Tax Reform Commission set up under the Executive Yuan (cabinet), is proposing increased and simplified income taxes, simplification of the import tax rebate, data processing of tax information and a timetable for tax reform. The commission's members are in agreement that Taiwan's income taxes are too low and should be raised at least to the level of such developing nations as Korea and Thailand.
Some legislators urge more attention to tax evasion rather than a higher rate.
Another expert, Dr. Richard A. Musgrave of Harvard, urged tightening of tax loopholes and raising of the income tax rate in the lowest bracket.
Both tax and economic officials were concerned about Taiwan's first serious inflation in several years. The amount of the inflationary rise increased after the imposition of new service levies and a boost in commodity taxes. The Ministry of Economic Affairs appointed a committee of officials from 17 National and Provincial level agencies to make a three-month study. The investigation had the blessing of the cabinet.
The Taipei consumer commodity price index increased about 1 per cent in July. Only clothing prices showed no rise. Rice, pork and vegetable prices have gone up. The vegetable price increase is mostly seasonal and also was spurred by exports to Japan. Steps were taken to increase production and eliminate foreign sales until the shortage is over.
Tourism continues to draw the attention of economic planners. An estimate of the Boeing Company predicts that the level of Taiwan tourism may be 1.2 million annually by 1980. About 300,000 visitors will come this year.
For the first half of 1968, the tourist total was just over 146,000 - of whom 120,000 were foreigners and 26,000 overseas Chinese. The increase over the corresponding period last year was 27 per cent. A tourism survey showed 101 hotels with 6,217 rooms in Taiwan, about half of them in Taipei.
The Executive Yuan has decided in principle to establish the China Tourism Development Corporation, a lending agency with resources of US$12.5 million. The Sino-American Fund for Economic and Social Development will provide US$10 million and banks the remainder. Loans will be made for the development of tourism projects other than hotels.
Seven Japanese tourism experts came for a three-week assessment of Taiwan's weaknesses, strengths and capabilities. They were headed by Takashi Hirayama, president of the Japan National tourism Association.
Their specialties include hotels, landscaping, tourism development planning, architecture and international conferences. After visiting every part of the island, they will submit recommendations to the Tourism Council of the Ministry of Communications.
Alishan, a 7,500-foot mountain in central Taiwan, is to be developed as a major resort area by the Provincial Forestry Bureau. It is easily reached from Chiayi by a narrow-gauge logging railroad now serviced by modern diesel trains. Plans call for raising passenger capacity to 900 a day, for building more hotels on the mountain and for beautifying the area and providing more activities of interest to sightseers.
Another tourism project is the improvement of Tien Hsiang lodge at the western portal of Taroko Gorge. A helicopter-landing pad will be built. Taroko is one of Taiwan's most scenic locales and can be visited in a one-day combination air and bus trip from Taipei.
Kaohsiung's airport is expected to attain international status in 1969 and Japan Air Lines has already announced plans to fly there on its Taipei-Hongkong schedules. Taiwan's second largest city is expected to have 800 first-class hotel rooms by the end of this year.
Taipei's International Airport is planning additional services for tourists. A service center will be expanded to assume responsibility for hotel reservations and transportation, to handle messages and to give assistance with government formalities.
Intercontinental Hotels is looking into the possibility of building a 14-story hotel of from 500 to 700 rooms on the site of the Mackay Memorial Hospital on Chungshan North Road. This would be by far the city's largest hotel. The IC chain operates 49 hotels around the world, including the Mandarin in Hongkong. It is affiliated with Pan American World Airways.
Ten outstanding young women received Golden Phoenix awards for their contributions to country and society. They are:
-Miss Tsai Shu-hua, 35, of Kaohsiung, botany.
-Miss Hsu Chien-yao, 29, of Chekiang, medical science.
-Miss Wang Chia-kang, 36, Taipei county, medical science (cancer study). She returned from the United States to receive her award.
-Miss Chen Hsiu-mei, 28, Taipei; she is a judge of the Hsinchu District Court.
Presenting the awards was Wang Yun-wu, former vice premier and the chairman of the selection committee.
Health is one of Taiwan's main concerns. Taipei has a doctor for every 804 residents and a total of 1,449 public and private hospitals and clinics. The island as a whole runs behind these figures but well above the world average.
Nevertheless, a visiting American medical mission found room for improvement. The five-man team said that regulations regarding medical schools, hospitals, environmental sanitation and food handling are inadequate.
The visitors also said the brain drain may lead to a shortage of 1,000 doctors by 1973 and to 3,000 by 1983. They urged that medical graduates pursue advanced study abroad and then be drawn home by higher pay. They supported tighter controls for pharmaceuticals, medical schools, hospitals, food inspection and hygiene.
Convened at the National Taiwan University Hospital was a symposium on genetics that drew the attendance of 18 Chinese and foreign scholars. Sponsors were the Academia Sinica and U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Topics included the genetics of animals and plants, development of genetic science, mutations and molecular genetics.
Under consideration by the legislative Yuan is an 84-article law to bring the preparation of herb medicines under scientific control. Herb doctors and pharmacists would supervise production of the remedies. One proposed article was opposed on realistic grounds. It required that each herbal dispensary employ an herb doctor. The count of such dispensaries is 7,000 versus only 2,000 licensed herb doctors.
Growing pains of Taipei will not end soon. The influx of outsiders is at the rate of 60,000 annually with the accent on youth. Those 14 years old and younger make up 40 per cent of the population of 1,560,000. Those 65 and over add up to only 2 per cent.
Each resident of the city now has only 9 square meters of living space. Plans call for increasing this to 15 meters through the construction of high-rise buildings.
Taipeilanders have the consolation of paying taxes that are lower than those paid by citizens of Tokyo, Los Angeles and New York. The average tax burden of a Taipei resident is a little over US$25 a year, compared with more than US$137 in Tokyo and US$215 in Los Angeles. The New York level is estimated at nearly US$600.
Taipei authorities are planning eight market centers for 6,200 vendors who were virtually put out of business when streets and sidewalks became off limits for commercial enterprise. The new locations will not be in the downtown area but will be more favorably located than the present substitute sites along the Tamsui River.
The city's water supply will be expanded in a US$5 million program to be carried out before June, 1970. Pumping stations and purifiers will be installed and a dam built across the lower reaches of the Hsintien River, the city's principal water resource, to keep the flow at a level of five feet. The augmented supply of water should be enough for 2 million people.
Under construction is Taipei's widest and most handsome boulevard. Jen-Ai Road, leading from Tunhua Road to the Presidential Building, will have width ranging from 120 to 300 feet. Eventually Jei-Ai will be extended from Tunhua to Keelung Road. Width will permit parkways, flowers, shrubs and trees.
To improve the chaotic, overcrowded public transportation situation, between three and five private bus companies will begin operations early next year. They will provide from 600 to 800 new buses and raise the city's total to 1,200 or more. Several hundred new vehicles are on order by the municipal system. A fleet of about 1,400 buses is required to service Taipei's population of 1.56 million.
Government moved to increase efficiency with the resurrection of the recommendation system in specialized personnel appointment. This will enable government agencies to bypass the rigid civil service examination system in the recruitment of those with special talents.
The idea goes back to pre-Christian times. But as the careerists entrenched themselves, it became harder and harder to break through the red tape to obtain people with special talents. Recommendation for the relaxation came from the Kuomintang.
About a quarter of a million persons are on the government payroll in Taiwan - 254,000 to be exact. The breakdown is 51,000 employed by the Central Government, 187,000 working for the Taiwan Provincial Government, more than 15,000 employed by the Taipei special municipality and some 1,100 working for Kinmen and Matsu (which are in Fukien province).
What with rising land and construction costs, the government is thinking of suspending part of its housing program. Low-cost housing doesn't come cheap any more. Additionally, a more prosperous population is finding that private housing costs only little more and is devoid of red tape. Construction will continue for the poverty-stricken, for government employees and for squatters and those moved out of slums.