Since 1958, when the Chinese Communists began shelling Kinmen heavily, more than 800,000 rounds of artillery fire have been directed at the island fortress. Some 3,000 persons have been killed, and as in all wars, civilian casualties have been heavy. For three months last fall the guns were silent. Ruins have been cleared away and homes rebuilt. Schools are open again, but close by every classroom is a concrete bomb shelter. People living on the wind-swept island lack illusion of security.
Early in 1962, the Reds resumed their bombardment, but the firing has been sporadic. Now it is a lukewarm war—for how long, no one knows. Those directing the Chinese Communist moves in Peiping may want to embroil themselves in offshore or other military adventures. War is a favorite device of dictators to take the minds of their people off hunger and privation.
Meanwhile another kind of warfare is being waged daily across the narrow waters between Kinmen and the mainland. It is a battle for men's minds. When the showdown comes, as the Chinese in Taiwan are convinced it will, it is this kind of conflict that may provide the decisive factor. There is little doubt that a tide of discontent is rising on the mainland, both among civilians and in the Red military forces. About 80 per cent of Chinese Communist Army personnel come from the farms, where unrest has become increasingly evident. This deep-seated resentment of the dictators in Peiping may be the Achilles' heel in the Red armor.
The United States and the free world have a vital stake in the outcome. Kinmen, Matsu and Taiwan are the real front-line bastions of freedom in East Asia. If any or all of them should fall to the Communists, America's position in Okinawa would lose much of its strategic significance. Friendly nations in Southeast Asia would be forced to reconsider their relations with Peiping. The free world's position in Japan, Korea and the Philippines would have to be reappraised.
Thinking of Mao
To understand the significance of the psychological battle now being fought across the five miles of water between the mainland and the free world, background on the military thinking of Mao Tse-tung is helpful. The ambassador of the Republic of China to the United States and to the United Nations, Tingfu F. Tsiang, called attention to Mao's views last fall during the Chinese representation debate in the General Assembly. He quoted from an article published April 16, 1960, in "The Red Flag," official organ of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communists, which quoted Mao as declaring that war is inevitable and that some wars are desirable.
"Mao Tse-tung, in his cold-blooded way," the ambassador reminded the assembly, "figures that in a nuclear war, even if China should lose 300 million of her population, the Chinese Communist regime would come out of the war the most populous and powerful nation in the world."
In October, 1961, the Asian Peoples' Anti-Communist League published a study of Mao's tactics entitled "Research on Mao Tse-tung's Thought of Military Insurrection." It deserves far more attention than it has received. The dictator of the Chinese Communist regime, the book points out, has always applied skillful materialistic dialectic methods to create contradictions for his own benefit. During the period of insurrection, he encouraged conflicts between the Nationalist government and the people to expand his own influence.
But this strategy appears to have backfired in recent years. Within the Red armed forces, the book explains, "there are conflicts between officers, between old Communist cadres, between the regular army and the militia, between the central government and the minority races. In spite of purges, the so-called 'unity-criticism-unity' devices and similar moves, the Red government has not been able to curtail these conflicts. On the contrary, these conflicts seem to have a tendency to become aggravated."
Sign of Discontent
On October 8, 1960, the People's Daily News, official publication of the Chinese Communists, reported on an address given by Lin Liao, "minister of national defense," at a conference at Red Army headquarters in Peiping, in which he emphasized that "the most important work in the armed forces should be ideology." He explained he meant emphasis on the human factor in war. "The soldiers must be taught," he said, "that a spiritual atomic bomb, in other words the bravery and discipline of the rank -and file, is much stronger and much more useful than a real atomic bomb."
Some experts on affairs behind the Bamboo Curtain have interpreted this speech as tacit admission that serious discontent exists in the rank and file of the Red armed forces. Their attitude presumably reflects the dissatisfaction of the common people.
It is this unrest that the psychological campaign from Kinmen seeks to foment. The Communists retaliate by pursuing Mao Tse-tung's strategy of seeking to create conflicts between the people and the government of the Republic of China. In this all-out battle for men's minds and emotions, both sides use methods as modern as electronics and as old as the history of printing, which was invented in China before the birth of Christ.
Hewn out of solid rock, deep in a hillside on Kinmen is a radio station which beams its daily messages to the mainland. There is another station on Matsu. From other caves, carved out of the rocky hillsides, are four-inch cannon which can fire shells packed with leaflets instead of canister. Each shell can deliver several thousand leaflets to the mainland in a matter of seconds.
Balloon Barrage
The most colorful of the propaganda barrages are the rubber balloons which are released daily and carry in addition to leaflets, packages of food and medicine. With the prevailing offshore winds, the balloons can reach the mainland in about two minutes and frequently drift far inland. Similar packets are put in bottles and allowed to float to the mainland. Small rafts are carried by the tides to points along the coast. Fishermen who come to the islands are given bars of soap, boxes of matches and other articles. Cleverly hidden inside are messages from the free world. Sometimes the Communists' own weapons are used against them. Match boxes sent to Kinmen by the Reds are returned to them by visiting fishermen or sent back by balloons. Inside the boxes are messages of hope from the Republic of China.
The daily launching of the balloon barrage is one of the most impressive sights for visitors to Kinmen. No tour for a visiting VIP is complete without giving him the opportunity to launch his own balloon to the mainland. At the launching site there is a building which houses extensive exhibits of the psychological weapons in free China's arsenal and the propaganda devices employed by the Reds. Comparison of the two is significant. The first thing that impresses the visitor is the superior quality of the printing in the leaflets of the Republic of China. The workmanship and quality of the goods sent by the Communists are shoddy.
Communist propaganda is shoddy, but, it illustrates how the truth can be twisted to reach the uninformed and the naive. For example, the Republic of China sent a loan exhibition of Chinese art treasures to the United States last year. It has been shown at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, and in many other large cities of the United States and has attracted a great deal of favorable attention and expanded interest in China.
Pirating Charged
Communism's twisted interpretation for the people of Kinmen declares: "Aggressive Americans have shipped many of our valuable historical antiques in Taiwan to America by concealing them under the title of 'exhibition.'
"There were such priceless antiques as the jade flower vase of 1,000 B.C. and silk palace curtains. Such pirating has once more aroused the indignation of our whole country. No matter where the American pirates ship the treasures, our people will hunt them back."
The truth, of course, is that the art treasures will return to free China, and with them will come the grateful appreciation of the Americans who were given the opportunity to see them.
There are American bases in Taiwan. They are modest by comparison with American bases in Okinawa and Japan and were freely provided by the Chinese government. But to the Communist grist mill, they become a propaganda weapon. A leaflet charges that "American aggressors in Taiwan have stolen many farms for their bases, camps and villas, and more than 3,000 farmers have been driven from their homes by American bayonets." Apparently the Communists reason that since they would do exactly that, the United States would also.
Other propaganda lines are even more distorted. The United States is pictured as the bully guilty of aggression in Cuba. President Kennedy is described as the arch villain. As a matter of fact, the leaflets describe the President's powers quite accurately, but give those powers a sinister meaning.
The contrast between Communist propaganda and the messages sent to the mainland by the Republic of China is striking—and significant. Most important, free China's statements have the unmistakable ring of truth. The quality of the printing and the liberal use of color photographs are impressive. The leaflets emphasize the progress made in Taiwan, the land reform, industrial development, the high standard of living and the freedom of the people.
To those who live in Communist communes, the story of land reform in Taiwan, which has given farms to the tillers and made Taiwan one of the showpieces of democracy in the Far East, must be impressive. The leaflets offer convincing pictorial evidence of the happy, contented and prosperous lot of farmers and remind the starving people of the mainland that in the Republic of China, the standard of living is high.
Other leaflets cite the tyranny of the Communists. One leaflet asks:
"Do you want to be liquidated? Under the Communist regime there will be a day when you will be liquidated. Think it over. Look at the tragedy of these people." The leaflet is illustrated with a photograph of a Communist execution.
The messages emphasize the willingness of the people of Taiwan to assist those on the mainland in regaining their freedom and offer rewards for those who escape and bigger rewards to those willing to help overthrow the Communists. They assure the mainlanders of the strength of the forces of the Republic of China. One leaflet in color shows a Nike-Hercules missile and reads: "The Nike-Hercules missile of the Nationalist Army can shoot down a MIG fighter like an eagle snatches a chicken." Other leaflets show pictures of the Chinese Navy, Air Force and Army in action and stress the readiness of the armed forces to fight for and with the people of the mainland.
Happy Life
Pictorial evidence is offered of the happy life in Taiwan. One picture shows a Chinese family enjoying a "joyous moon festival in a home filled with warmth and happiness." And who could resist the persuasive appeal of the leaflet which reads:
"Have you thought of a free life? Have you thought of having a home and a happy family?
Have you thought of having decent clothes and enough to eat? Don't you wish to make a better world? Then be brave and start the revolution to overthrow the Communists."
Occasionally there are more spectacular propaganda exploits. Last October 10, the anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China and a national holiday comparable to the Fourth of July in America, frogmen from the Chinese Navy slipped ashore during the night and planted the flag of the Republic of China along the coast of the mainland.
Another impressive form of propaganda is Kinmen itself. Visitors to the island fortress are impressed first with its immaculate neatness. In contrast to some parts of the Far East, the roadsides are not littered with trash. The soldiers' vegetable gardens - and each company seems to have one - are neatly laid out and carefully cultivated. The buildings damaged by the Red bombardment have been repaired and the rubble has been cleared away. Foreign visitors to Kinmen invariably comment on the cleanliness of the island.
The second impression of the visitors, and it must be remembered that fishermen and others from the mainland occasionally come to Kinmen and undoubtedly carry back reports, is its military strength. An incredible amount of work has been done to make it impregnable. Each unit has quarters dug into solid rock. Munitions and supplies are stored in caves deep in the hillsides. Every possible landing beach can be covered by gun fire from positions carved out of the rocky terrain. Foreign visitors usually leave the island, with the conviction that nothing short of an all-out nuclear assault could take this rock-ribbed citadel of freedom.
The third impression is the high morale of the armed forces on Kinmen. The strength of the garrison is a military secret, but there are combat- ready soldiers everywhere, the Chinese Air Force maintains regular patrols over the Taiwan Straits and the Chinese Navy is constantly on the alert. Visitors cannot help but be impressed with the quiet confidence of officers and men alike in their ability to cope with any Communist attempt to invade the island.
Civilian Morale
Morale of the civilian population on Kinmen is also high. Though these people live under the constant uncertainty of not knowing when a round of artillery fire from the mainland will threaten their lives or their homes, life goes on, fields are planted and tilled, festivals are enjoyed. The normal life of the people of Kinmen is in itself a rejection of Communist propaganda and their policy of intimidation.
No one knows the effectiveness of the messages of freedom and hope sent to the mainland. The soldiers on Kinmen are convinced that the effort wins converts among the unwilling slaves of Communism behind the Bamboo Curtain. It may well be that when the showdown comes, the winning of the minds and the emotions of the people on the mainland will be more important than organized armed strength in destroying Communism in Asia and ending the suffering and oppression that it has wrought.