April 17 The Government announced the appointment of Tang Wu, Counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Korea, as first Minister to the Republic of Liberia.
18 An agreement was signed between the Republic of China and the United States for purchase by the Chinese government of US$12.l million worth of American surplus agricultural commodities.
20 Countess de Maille, a French archeologist of the Guimet Museum of Paris, said on her return from a six-week visit to Communist China that it was very difficult for a foreign tourist to visit what he or she wished to on the Chinese mainland.
The Sino-American Cultural Committee was set up in Washington with Dr. Arthur Hummel, professor of the American University and a well-known sinologist, as president and Dr. Tsao Wen-yen, cultural affairs counselor of the Chinese Embassy, as executive secretary.
21 Foreign Minister George K. C. Yeh with a party of seven left for Saigon for a five-day visit to pave the way for a state visit to the Republic of China by Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Dien, and to study with Vietnamese officials promotion of Sino-Vietnamese economic and cultural cooperation.
Huang Shao-ku, Vice President of the Executive Yuan, accompanied by Hsu Shao-chang, Director of the American Department of the Foreign Ministry, and an aide de camp left for Buenos Aires to represent President Chiang Kai-shek at the inauguration ceremony of the new Argentine President Arturo Frondizi on May 1.
22 Daniel Alvarez Arnolin, foreign editor of the EFE News Agency in Spain, and Pedro Gomez Aparicio, international news commentator of the same agency, arrived in Taipei for a 10-day visit.
Cheng Yin-fun, Chairman of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, left for Manila to attend the 16th convention of the Kuomintang Headquarters in the Philippines opening in Manila on April 25.
24 Commenting favorably on President Chiang's Good Friday Testimony given on April 4, 1958, Senator Alexander Wiley announced insertion of the full text in the U. S. Congressional Record.
26 Chung Wing Hee, 61, a resident of the United States of 34 years, who returned recently to the Chinese mainland, wrote from Canton to a friend in Texas: "It is so bad on the Chinese mainland that I cannot describe the conditions."
The Foreign Affairs Ministry announced that the so-called treaty of commerce and navigation signed on April 23 between the puppet Peiping regime and Soviet Russia is "absolutely illegal and therefore null and void." The Ministry reiterated that "the Chinese Communist regime has no right to represent the Chinese people in concluding any treaty or agreement with any foreign government and that all treaties or agreements thus signed have no binding force on the National Government of the Republic of China."
Foreign Minister George K. C. Yeh returned to Taipei after a week-long visit in Vietnam. Prior to his departure from Saigon, he issued a joint communique with President Ngo emphasizing the "necessity for unity of all free Asian peoples in order to safeguard the true values of Asian civilization now threatened by atheist materialism."
28 Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and his 25-man goodwill mission arrived in Taipei for a 3-day visit.
May 1 Free China lodged a protest with the Japanese government against display of a Communist Chinese flag over an exhibition hall in Kiyushu city.
Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and his mission left for Ankara. In a joint communique, the Turkish Premier and Premier O. K. Yui pledged "to achieve still closer cooperation in political, economic, and cultural fields between the two anti-Communist countries by practical and effective means." In a speech delivered at a party given in his honor, Premier Menderes said he was hopeful that China would win an early victory in its campaign against the Communists. "The salvation of China is the salvation of the world," he stated.
5 Gail Strong Ogilvie, lady sinologist, deplored, in an article published by the Christiatn Science Monitor, Peiping's movement to latinize the Chinese language in which he said she found "a danger of the exquisitely lovely ideographs being done away with entirely. There is a definite feeling of concern among lovers of the Chinese language who oppose the change, and who can see running through it a political Red thread. China's cultural past, they feel, is bound up in her ideographs. So destruction of the ideographs may be part of the Communists' future program."
6 Free China has an excellent agricultural system, rich, natural and human resources and a high, and still improving, living standard among the rural people, said E. D. White, associate director of the Food and Agricultural Office of the ICA, after a five-day field trip throughout Taiwan and Kinmen. The observation tour covered seed multiplication system, agricultural extension, animal husbandry, rural health, field rat control, rotational irrigation, farmers' organizations, agricultural improvement stations, agricultural colleges, reforestation as well as farmers' family life.
7 A trade mission headed by Tu Dien-ying, chairman of the Taiwan Machinery Corporation, arrived at Bonn to observe industrial installations in various parts of the German Federal Republic.
The Foreign Exchange and Trade Control Commission announced further simplification of export procedures and freeing of 24 kinds of goods from export control.
9 The Sino-Iranian Cultural Convention, concluded in Teheran on November 11, 1957, was approved by the Legislative Yuan.
10 The Government again refuted Indonesian charges that the Republic of China had been aiding the revolutionary forces in Indonesia in reply to a message from the Indonesian government transmitted through the American Embassy in Taipei accusing Free China of siding with the Indonesian revolutionary forces.
14 His Imperial Majesty Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran and his 12-member entourage arrived in Taiwan for a 5-day visit. President Chiang Kai-shek greeted his royal guest at the airport and the latter paid a courtesy call later in the day at the President's suburban residence at Shihlin.
15 The Shah of Iran laid a wreath at the Martyrs' Shrine in honor of China's war dead and accompanied by Vice President Chen Cheng and Finance Minister C. K. Yen rode to Taoyuan south of Taipei to see Free China's successful rural land reform in which he was specially interested. Later he visited a fertilizer shop, a rice processing factory, a beancake shop, a cotton cloth shop, and the site of the Shihmen Reservoir. President and Madame Chiang gave a state dinner in his honor at the Presidential Office before which the President presented the Order of Tsai Yu (Brilliant Jade) to the Shah.
The reorganized Taiwan Garrison Command was formally inaugurated with General Huang Chen-chiu, commander of the defunct Taipei Garrison Command, as Commander. The new command is a merger of the Taiwan Provincial Defense Headquarters, Taiwan Provincial Peace Preservation Headquarters, Taipei Garrison Command and Taiwan Civil Defense Command. Its functions are maintenance of social order in time of peace, effective mobilization and public security in time of war and vigilance against subversion at all times.
Vice Admiral Sunthorn Sunthornnavin first Thai Ambassador to Free China, arrive in Taiwan.