As is almost invariably the case, campaigning and balloting were peaceful and devoid of unusual incident. The defeated took the mandate of the voters in good grace.
Yet the election was remarkable, because independent candidates won over the ruling Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party in three of the five mayoral races, including that of Taipei, which was by far the most important contest of all. A city of more than one million, Taipei is the temporary national capital, the seat of the Republic's government, and the social, cultural, and economic center of the island.
In terms of national government, the Kuomintang, which is headed by President Chiang Kai-shek, has no serious rival. The organized minorities—Democratic Socialist and Young China Parties—are split by factionalism and have not been politically effective in recent years.
Most of the local election opposition to the KMT has come from independents, who may or may not be members of the minority parties. For an independent—lacking in funds and political machinery—to campaign successfully against Kuomintang nominees is extremely difficult. Historically and as a rule, independents have fared no better in Chinese than in American politics.
The four independent victories (one in a magistrate's race) did not imply any widespread discontent with KMT leadership. A margin of 17 to 4 is a fair endorsement in any political system. At the same time, the loss of those four offices conclusively proved that the election was free and honest, and far from a mere rubber-stamping of Kuomintang candidates and policies.
Those enemies of the Republic of China who have charged the Kuomintang operates a police state were left with the ground cut out from under them. In a totalitarian atmosphere, oppositionists do not win anything, let alone the most important prize of all.
In Taipei, the winner was Henry Kao, who had 191,000 votes to the 176,000 of his Kuomintang opponent, Chou Pai-lien. Both are experienced in the office. Kao served as Taipei mayor several years ago, and then lost to a KMT candidate. Chou was acting mayor for 27 months while the outgoing chief of city government was suspended during trial of a corruption case.
Both campaigned freely and enthusiastically. Chou had the KMT machinery and endorsement of the KMT press, but Kao—an able vote-getter and a more dynamic public speaker—received his full share of headlines, plus overtones of sympathy because of his role as the underdog.
Political strategy of the brief campaign period was interesting. Just before election date, KMT analysis indicated that Chou was not running as well as he should.
At a mass meeting, Chou pledged to solve several problems that have plagued some of Taipei's less privileged citizens during recent years: squatters, streetside peddlers, pedicab owners who want to sell their vehicles, and taxi drivers who face loss of driving licenses for repeated (but minor) traffic violations.
Kao said nothing, but he is known to have deep concern for the economically hardpressed.
Voters apparently concluded that Chou's promises came too late, and that he should have attacked the problems while he was acting mayor.
However, the pledges were continuing to have a healthy, constructive effect, even after the election results were known. The Kuomintang agreed it would go right on working for solutions that would benefit the people, and Henry Kao indicated the problems would get full attention from his administration.
What counted more than the identity of the mayor to implement such campaign promises was the reflection of a deep and abiding interest in the welfare of the whole people.
In the aftermath of his election, Henry Kao paid tribute to the leadership of President Chiang Kai-shek, and expressed his personal loyalty to the Chief Executive and the national government.
Taiwan has no room and the people have no sympathy, he said, for those who advocate an island republic separate from the Republic of China. He also denied any important schism between island-born Taiwanese and mainlanders who came in the aftermath of Communism's continental takeover.
Both Kao and Chou are Taiwanese. In fact, as Kao himself said, he could not have won without the support of mainlanders. Some of the districts that he carried have mainlander majorities.
The other opposition victories were scored in the northern port of Keelung, Tainan in the south, and Taitung county on the east coast. Of the island's large cities, the Kuomintang won only in Kaohsiung, largest port, in the southwest, and Taichung, situated on the west-central plain.
Of the total votes cast, the KMT had a margin of better than 2 to 1.
In addition to mayors and magistrates, Taiwan elects a provincial legislature, city and county councils, and village chiefs. Scores of quasi-public organizations (farmers' associations, irrigation districts, etc.) also choose their own officers by democratic means.
As a national entity, the Republic of China has had no election of the National Assembly since 1947 and of the Legislative Yuan since 1948. This is not a matter of choice but of grim necessity.
Taiwan is only one of 30-odd provinces, all of which participated in the previous election. With the mainland under Communist occupation, the people are not in a position to express themselves. Democratically speaking, it is better to extend terms of the validly elected parliamentary bodies than to hold rump elections in Taiwan.
Most of the members of both National Assembly and Legislative Yuan made their way to Taiwan and have served faithfully during the ensuing 14 years. Of course, the mortality statistics are beginning to take their toll. Fortunately, both were large bodies, and remaining members will be able to carryon until liberation of the mainland makes new nationwide elections possible.
Difficulties at the national level do not detract from the Taiwan achievements in local democracy. The decade and a half of experience gives realistic promise of the future that lies ahead for the provinces, the counties, the cities, and the towns of the mainland.
In the years from the Revolution of 1911 and the founding of the Republic down to 1949 and the Communist usurpation, many local government advances were made—but nothing to compare with the democratic maturity that was exhibited in Taiwan's recent election of mayors and magistrates.
As one editorial writer said, "It was the Kuomintang's finest hour." It also was one of China's proudest days.
Something seemed astir in connection with the growing intensity of Communist Viet Cong attacks in South Vietnam.
Two high-ranking free Vietnamese have visited the Republic of China in recent weeks. Talks also have been held with the Republic of Korea and with the Philippines. Response to U.S. appeals for more help for Vietnam have been prompt, and included an emergency shipment of Taiwan-made fertilizer.
Some speculation suggested an international brigade was in the making, including military units from China, Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, 'and perhaps other countries. This probably is beyond feasibility at the moment. The United States—and South Vietnam—have said that troops are not required.
More likely is training and technical help, perhaps both inside and outside the Vietnam theater of operations.
Another possibility, and an exciting one, concerned suggestions that the crises in Vietnam and Laos might break down the obstacles to free Asian alliance and unity.
Together, China, Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam could field forces of something like a million and a half men—not so inferior, numerically, to the human hordes at the command of the Chinese Communists. There were growing signs that such a lineup is not nearly so distant as once appeared.
U.S. reports of a limited offensive against North Vietnam were continuing. If the South Vietnam situation continues to worsen, that apparently would be the only alternative to a De Gaulle-style attempt at neutralization and the withdrawal of the United States from Southeast Asia.
Strikes at Hanoi and Haiphong, or perhaps at the soft underbelly of the Chinese Communists, might well involve the employment of U.S.-allied forces rather than of the Americans. In this way, the danger of bringing Peiping or even the Soviet Union into a brush-type war would be considerably lessened.
Also mentioned was the alternative of stepped-up free Chinese guerrilla and commando undertakings on the Chinese mainland just across the Taiwan Straits, or possibly in Yunnan, which funnels assistance to the Communists of both North Vietnam and Laos.
If given U.S. air and sea support, such operations might be highly effective in reducing Viet Cong pressure in South Vietnam. The Chinese Communists have been hurt by the limited commando raids already undertaken, and these actions have led to an increase of uprisings against Red authority. With food still in short supply, and the industrial Great Leap Forward a total flop, the Chinese Communists are in no position to engage in even a small war.
As for the military capabilities of the Republic of China, Vice Admiral Charles L. Melson, the outgoing commander of the U.S. Taiwan Defense Command, spoke out franklyon that subject recently. He said the free Chinese forces are prepared to give a good account of themselves, "if ever called upon to take military action," because they are "well trained, well equipped, highly capable, and very combat-ready."
He noted that the presence and strength of the Republic of China armed forces tie down "a large number of Communist troops along the coast. Hence, they were of little use ... in other parts of Communist China."
In other words, the ROC Army, Navy, and Air Force are already doing—on a limited scale-what would be achieved more dramatically in more extensive operations. The larger the number of Communists engaged along the invasion coast opposite Taiwan, the fewer who are available for aggression in Vietnam, Laos, or any place else.
Trade and trade fairs were in the news once more. For the first three months of 1964, the favorable balance of trade was maintained at the substantial level of US$26.6 million. This, in fact, was more than the favorable balance for all of 1963, with the best months of 1964 yet to come.
The fairs were far apart—one in New York and one in Taipei.
New York's event was a World's Fair that opened in late April for a two-year run.
Representing China and Chinese culture was a pavilion unanimously acclaimed as one of the most handsome structures on the fair-grounds. For the opening period, visitations were running at the rate of about 10,000 a day.
Content of the pavilion was incomplete at the outset, and was subject to change. The objective was to represent Chinese culture as a whole, and provide some interesting information about both the past and the present.
In Taipei, an American Trade Fair gave many Chinese their first close-up glimpse of recent U.S. products. The fair subtitle was appropriate: Partners for Progress. The exhibitors were American companies and their agents who are doing business in and with free China.
With exports that are running close to US$400 million a year and imports only slightly less, the Republic of China is becoming a market of some consequence, even for a huge exporting country such as the United States.
Once upon a time, Japan was the overwhelmingly favored trading partner of Taiwan. That remained so even after the return to Chinese sovereignty. Taiwanese industrialists and businessmen were accustomed to filling Japan's needs. The people were familiar with Japanese goods and liked them.
Today's trade is a much more sophisticated story. Japan is buying more than it sells. The Chinese manufacturer and merchant buys where the price is right and the quality is the best. More often than not, for machinery, that is from West Germany or the United States.
An often overlooked source of the Republic of China's prosperity is JCRR—the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, well known on Taiwan but scarcely heard of in the United States, which is one of the partners.
JCRR is one of those rare creatures of international existence: an organization that works. Its commissioners are appointed by the Presidents of China and the United States, and its technical personnel come from both countries. Its task is simple but vital: with the expenditure of only a few million U.S. dollars, to assure a prosperous, growing, progressive rural community.
Like all developing countries, Taiwan boasts of its industry, and the island is fortunate; its industrial segment is growing at a much faster rate than its farms. Still, as in every underdeveloped area, this industry must be built with the sweat of the farmers. If agriculture can produce no excess, there is nothing with which to build factories and create a prosperous urban society.
In a very rough sense, this is the key problem of the Communists on the mainland. Their agriculture has not provided the increment necessary for industrialization.
Communism has, of course, no JCRR, which has helped boost the sugar industry to a point where it is earning more than US$100 million a year and providing more than one-quarter of Taiwan's exports.
Specifically, what does JCRR do?
It grants help in the form of subsidies and loans to a variety of projects to help increase food production, diversify agricultural production and increase exports, and contribute to industrialization by providing factories with raw materials.
For the year ended last April 1, JCRR provided slightly less than US$11 million for 280 projects. Most of these—238—were grants, but they received a slightly smaller amount of money than the 42 loan projects. Money also was spent to pay for professional staff and for typhoon rehabilitation.
During that same 12-month period, some 165 public agencies and private organizations of all levels worked with JCRR in such varied undertakings as irrigation, soil improvement and conservation, marketing, livestock production and sale, forestry development, fisheries expansion, farmers' services, rural health, agricultural credit, community services, and research.
In the current year, JCRR will move away from some of these areas of assistance, which now can stand on their own feet, and into more fundamental research to increase export production and bring marginal lands—of which Taiwan has an abundant supply—into profitable use. Grants will be deemphasized and more loans will be available.
Measured by money expended, and in comparison with the far-flung U.S. aid programs, JCRR is nothing. Eleven million dollars wouldn't pay the interest on some of the big U.S. projects. Yet JCRR has probably done more for more people than assistance projects costing a hundred times more—and it has the added advantage of being bilateral. JCRR is no handout, and its administration is dominated by Chinese—the people who are being aided.
The Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction may be the wave of the future in terms of international programs of assistance. It isn't perfect, but no one has come up with anything better.
Two rather small developments provided continuing evidence of the Taiwan advance toward the 21st century.
The island received its first television less than two years ago. But by the end of 1964, the signals will reach to the remote east coast and the southern tip of the island via microwave relay. The 20,000 sets in use today probably will be multiplied several times as other cities and prosperous farmers receive opportunity for education and entertainment via the magic electronic box.
For the moment, Taipei has two stations —one commercial, one educational—on the air a total of seven hours or more a day. With a prospective audience of 12 million people, competition would appear inevitable.
The other indicator was the opening of an express highway between Taipei and its port of Keelung on the northern coast. Cutting the distance to some 15 miles, the freeway also slashes time for an average vehicle to a little more than 20 minutes.
Keelung happens to be one of the rainiest cities in the world—close to 300 inches—and the road builders had difficulties beyond their experience. No sooner was the road opened than some cracks appeared in the Keelung terminal section.
But this was a small matter. Builders learn by doing and by their mistakes. What mattered was that the road was built in time to carry the traffic that Taiwan's growing economy requires.
It was the island's first expressway—but certainly not the last. Plans are already afoot to build more high-speed roads and keep the Republic of China's island province moving into a prosperous and exemplary future.