February 16. One Chinese Communist MIG-17 fighter was shot down in the aerial encounter over waters twenty miles east of Tungshan Island. Lt. Col. Lo Hua-ping and Captain Yeh Chuan-hai are jointly credited with the kill. None of the four Chinese Sabrejets which participated in the seven-minute dogfight was damaged.
18. The National Assembly Secretariat reported that it had received more than 4,000 messages urging President Chiang Kai-shek to accept a third term. The messages came from Chinese communities in Chile, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Mexico, Australia, West Germany, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, India, Korea, the Ryukyus, Laos, Brazil, New Zealand, Cuba, Canada, Costa Rica, Portuguese Timor, the United States, Peru, Indonesia, the Philippines and Hongkong.
An agreement under which the Taiwan Railway Administration will get US$5,900,000 in loan from the Development Loan Fund for the purchase of 31 American-made diesel electric locomotives and spare parts was signed between American Ambassador Everett F. Drumright, representing DLF, and Mr. Heng Moh, director of TRA. According to the agreement, repayment will be effected over a period of 11 years at the annual interest rate of 3.5%. The DLF loan to TRA brought the total loan grant of the American aid fund to free China to US$45,636,000.
20. The Third Plenary Session of the First National Assembly formally opened in Taipei's City Hall. President Chiang Kai-shek, himself an Assemblyman, urged the delegates in his opening address to safeguard Confucian ethics and morality and to revive the traditional culture and heritage as the principal weapon to defeat communism and carry out successfully the task of national recovery. A total of 1,498 delegates had reported their attendance to the Secretariat of the National Assembly as of February 19. Mr. Mo Teh-hui, non-partisan president of the Examination Yuan and a delegate from Harbin, presided over the opening meeting.
22. Dr., Miguel J. Moreno, Jr., Panamanian foreign minister, Dr. Jorge E. Illueca, permanent Panamanian delegate to the United Nations and Dr. Gonzalo Ortiz, Costa Rican permanent delegate to the United Nations, and their wives arrived for a six-day visit at the invitation of the Chinese government.
23. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the Republic of China has established an embassy in Yaounde, capital of the Republic of the Cameroons, and Mr. Liao Chung-chin, first secretary of the Chinese Embassy in Brussels, has been appointed charge d'affaires ad interim of the embassy pending the appointment of an ambassador.
Sr. Julio des Larracoechea, charge d'affaires of the Spanish Embassy in Taipei, was appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the Republic of China by the Spanish Government.
24. President Chiang Kai-shek decorated Vice Admiral Frederick N. Kivette, the outgoing commander of the United States Seventh Fleet, with the Order of Precious Tripod in commendation of his leadership in commanding the Seventh Fleet to help defend the Taiwan Straits.
25. Panamanian Foreign Minister Dr. Miguel J. Moreno, Jr., decorated President Chiang Kai-shek with the Grand Cross Extraordinary of the Order of "Vasco Nunez de Balboa," the highest order of Panama, in behalf of Panamanian President Don Ernesto de la Guardia, Jr, at the Presidential residence.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the Chinese Legation in Monrovia has been elevated to embassy status with the concurrence of the Government of the Republic of Liberia. Minister Tang Wu would serve as charge d'affaires ad interim of the embassy pending the appointment of an ambassador.
President Chiang Kai-shek appointed Dr. Ting-fu Tsiang, Chinese permanent representative to the United Nations, special envoy to the 150th founding anniversary or the Republic of Argentina on May 25. Tan Shao-hua, Chinese ambassador in Buenos Aires, will be the deputy special envoy.
26. A Sino-Panamanian cultural convention was signed between Chinese Foreign Minister S. K. Huang and Panamanian Foreign Minister Dr. Miguel Moreno, Jr., for their respective governments. Under the convention, China and Panama will encourage the study of each other's language, facilitate the exchange of their university professors, students, publications, films and radio programs, and sponsor athletic contests between their nationals.
27. At a press conference, Dr. Miguel J. Moreno, Jr., Panamanian Foreign Minister, said that China and Panama share the same ideals in respect to human rights and freedom with justice, and that the Panamanian Government feels a moral responsibility to support the Republic of China. He also said that he believes Latin American countries would continue to support the Republic of China in the United Nations.
March 1. Mr. James Shen, spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, pointed out in a statement that Mr. Christian Herter, American Secretary of State, quoted President Chiang's March 26, 1959 message to the Tibetan people during the recent exchange of letters between the Dalai Lama and the US State Department. Mr. Herter said in his letter to the Dalai Lama on February 20 that "While America had historically considered Tibet an autonomous country under China's suzerainty, the American people also stood for the principle of self-determination. The US government believed this principle should apply to the people of Tibet and that they should have the determining voice in their own political destiny."
Thomas Cardinal Tien Ken-hsin arrived in Taipei to assume his new post as the Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Taipei. Cardinal Tien, the only Chinese in history raised to the purple college, was appointed by Pope John XXIII to lead the Chinese Catholics and to serve as a symbol of faith the estimated 4,000,000 Catholics living behind the Bamboo Curtain on the China mainland.
3. President Chiang Kai-shek, in his capacity as director-general of the Kuomintang Party, reaffirmed his opposition and that of the KMT to any amendment to the Constitution in a meeting with Kuomintang delegates to the National Assembly.
4. Iranian Ambassador Dr. Djaved Sadre presented his credentials to President Chiang Kai-shek.
The first screening committee of the National Assembly approved by a vote of 555 to 33 the recommendation to revise the Temporary provisions instead of amending the Constitution during its current session.
5. Governor Chow Chih-jou instructed the Provincial Land Bank, the Land Bureau, and the Department of Reconstruction to draft a plan to purchase some 200 to 300 hectares of land in Taipei and Kaohsiung for the purpose of setting up industrial districts for the benefit of overseas Chinese interested in investing in Taiwan. The government will invest in these districts to install water, power and other necessary facilities before they are sold to the overseas Chinese investors for erection of factories.
According to a public opinion poll conducted by the Hsin Sheng Pao, a vernacular newspaper, an overwhelming 91.7% of the people are for the re-election of President Chiang Kai-shek for a third term. Of the remaining portion of the paper's readers, 8.3% favors the continued leadership of President Chiang in the capacity of director-general of the ruling Kuomintang.
6. A Chinese delegation of eleven members and six alternate members led by Mr. P. Y. Hsu, board chairman of the Bank of China, left for Thailand to participate in the 16th annual meeting of the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East. Other members of the delegation include: Mr. Sherman Wang, deputy director of the Central Trust of China; Mr. Hsiu Chen, deputy director of the Taiwan Railway Administration; Mr. Falix Chang, vice president of the China Development Trust Corporation; Col. I Fu-deh, chief engineer of the Water Resources Planning Commission, and Mr. Hsieh Sheng-chung, director of the rural economics division of the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction.
8. The Chinese Air Force began a 30-day "air reserve personnel mobilization" exercise throughout Taiwan.
10. President Chiang Kai-shek received Mr. Kim Dong Jo, special envoy of President Syngman Rhee of the Republic of Korea.
11. The National Assembly adopted after a third reading the proposed amendment to the Temporary Provisions of the Constitution. The revised Provisions read as follows: In accordance with the procedure prescribed in Paragraph 1 of Article 174 of the Constitution, the following Temporary Provisions to be effective during the Period of Communist Rebellion are hereby enacted: 1) The President during the Period of Communist Rebellion may, by resolution of the Executive Yuan Council, take emergency measures to avert an imminent danger to the security of the State or of the people or to cope with any serious financial or economic crisis, without being subject to the procedural restrictions prescribed in Article 39 or Article 43 of the Constitution. 2) The emergency measures mentioned in the preceding paragraph may be modified or abrogated by the Legislative Yuan in accordance with Paragraph 2 of Article 57 of the Constitution. 3) During the Period of Communist Rebellion, the President and the Vice President may be reelected without being subject to the two-term restriction prescribed in Article 47 of the Constitution. 4) An organ shall be established after the conclusion of the third plenary session of the National Assembly to study and draft proposals relating to the exercise of the powers of initiative and referendum by the National Assembly. These, together with other proposals pertaining to constitutional amendment, shall be discussed by the National Assembly at an extraordinary session to be convoked by the President. 5) The extraordinary session of the National Assembly shall be convoked by the third President elected under this Constitution, at an appropriate time during his term of office. 6) The termination of the Period of Communist Rebellion shall be declared by the President. 7) Amendment or abrogation of the Temporary Provisions shall be resolved by the National Assembly.
In a joint communique, Mr. S. K. Huang, minister of foreign affairs, and Mr. Kim, President Rhee's special envoy, reaffirmed the solidarity of the Republic of China and the Republic of Korea in their common efforts to defend freedom against international Communist aggression and to achieve the reunification of their respective countries.
12. The 50-member Kuomintang Central Committee unanimously elected its Director-General Chiang Kai-shek and Deputy Director-General Chen Cheng as the KMT candidates for the forthcoming presidential and vice presidential elections.
13. A.E. Ali Mohamed Misellati, director-general of the Broadcasting, Press and Publication Department, of the United Kingdom of Libya, arrived here for a ten-day goodwill visit.
14. The student bodies of Provincial Normal University in Taipei and Normal College in Saxony, West Germany, signed an agreement pledging cultural exchange and friendship in the struggle against Communism. Mr. Wu Chia-chi, chairman of the student association at Provincial Normal University, signed for his university, while Mr. Karlheinz Hedtke represented the German college at a ceremony at the Students Center in Provincial Normal University. The agreement calls for closer cooperation between the two institutes, offering assistance, both spiritual and material, to the peoples struggling against Communism. Both will request their respective schools to offer three exchange scholarships to Chinese and German students. The agreement also calls on the respective governments to restore normal diplomatic relations.