Men who served their country well, holding the first line of defense, are now playing major roles in making the Republic of China one of the most advanced lands of Asia and the Pacific. As participants in a unique institution, they are enriching their own lives and lending their skills to a number of other countries - including the United States - in the construction of major development projects.
The Vocational Assistance Commission for Retired Servicemen (familiarly known as VACRS) had its beginning in 1954, five years after the Chinese Communist usurpation of the mainland and the withdrawal of free Chinese forces to the island province of Taiwan. Most of the men who came from the mainland had no families in Taiwan. The government recognized the obligation to help them adjust to civilian life once their days of military service had ended.
From a small start, VACRS has gone on to assist well over a quarter million former servicemen, mostly through the provision of jobs in productive enterprises. Thirteen VACRS hospitals provide free medical care for veterans and their families. A dozen veterans' homes take care of the disabled and those too old to take care of themselves.
Emphasis is on helping veterans help themselves. VACRS provides schooling, on-the-job experience and specialized training. It has had remarkable success in creating new job opportunities in business and industry.
The commission supervises more than 100 enterprises operated by veterans throughout Taiwan. The 53 fields of endeavor include agriculture, forestry, fisheries, industry, commerce, mining and construction. All enterprises are self-sustaining. VACRS normally supplies only the "seed money" to get the business started. Thereafter the project is on its own. Proposals are carefully screened as to soundness and practicality. None is approved unless it fills a need in a field that is not adequately served. VACRS has received no complaints that it is competing with private enterprise. Not all projects are successful. Some have been closed down after a trial period.
One of Taipei's largest department stores - which includes one of the city's biggest supermarkets - was started with VACRS "seed money." It is staffed by veterans and their dependents.
Another VACRS enterprise is a large restaurant.
Still another is the biggest enterprise in Taiwan's growing marble industry, which already is one of the world's most extensive.
In one of its most recent untertakings, VACRS workers built the bodies for a couple of dozen minibuses that will help relieve pressure on Taipei's overburdened public transportation system.
While helping themselves, VACRS personnel have assisted their country by reclaiming nearly 16,000 hectares (40,000 acres) of slopelands, tidal lands and unused river beds. The newly productive soil is sorely needed in land-hungry Taiwan.
VACRS operators were the first in Taiwan to use power tillers, harvesters and dryers, especially for the staple rice crop. Modernized agriculture had helped keep the people of Taiwan well fed and allowed farm exports despite a growing population and limited arable land.
VACRS efforts have led to cultivation of such temperate climate fruits as apples and pears and a number of cool climate vegetables in the highlands along the East-West Cross-Island Highway. Much larger developments in Taiwan's mountain areas, which occupy about three-fourths of the island, are planned for the 1980s.
By far the largest of VACRS enterprises is the Ret-Ser Engineering Agency, commonly called RSEA, which has changed the face of Taiwan in the past 20 years. It has also extended its operations to many foreign countries. This operation had its beginning back in 1954. VACRS organized five construction groups, one technical group and one independent construction group to build the East-West Cross-Island Highway linking the populous western plain of Taiwan with the rugged and far more sparsely settled east coast overlooking the Pacific. RSEA was formed from the various groups in 1956.
The Cross-Island Highway was the first major project of RSEA and remains one of its principal achievements. The highway runs across one of the world's most rugged mountain ranges - from Taichung, near the Taiwan Straits, to Hualien on the Pacific. Including two main forks, it covers 260 miles and has 80 tunnels and 130 bridges. The building of the road was completed in just under four years.
More than 10,000 men worked on the highway. Monetary cost was only USSII million but 416 workers gave their lives in the course of construction. To honor the memory of those who died, the beautiful Eternal Springs Shrine was built in Taroko Gorge at a place where numerous small streams cascade down a hillside and into the river.
The highest point in the East-West Cross-Island Highway is at Wuling, on the Taylung-Wushe branch. The elevation is 3,275 meters - 10,743 feet.
About halfway across the island is Lishan, meaning Pear Mountain, a resort with a hotel built in the style of a Chinese palace at an altitude of 1,945 meters - 6,380 feet. On a plateau high above Lishan is Fushoushan, meaning Happiness Longevity Mountain. This is the site of a large farm - a VACRS enterprise - which produces apples, pears and vegetables.
Taroko Gorge, the last 12 miles of the Cross-Island Highway westward from the Pacific, was by far the most difficult section for the RSEA builders. Many of the tens of thousands of travelers who pass through the gorge each year marvel that the highway could be built at all. A rushing stream has cut the narrowest of channels through mountains of solid granite and marble. At many points, the walls of the canyon rise almost perpendicularly from the streambed. Former servicemen chiseled 38 tunnels out of the walls of Taroko Gorge, many with windows looking down to the river. The gorge is one of Taiwan's most popular tourist attractions.
Yen Hsiao-ehang, a retired colonel who heads RSEA, has pointed out that the building of the Taroko Gorge road and the rest of the Cross-Island Highway was a "labor-intensive" project using relatively simple tools. He said labor-intensive construction is still called for under many circumstances - such as when there is excessive manpower and wages are low; when employment is important to a nation's economy and capital is in short supply; and when a nation's workers have not yet mastered the use of heavy construction equipment.
These conditions still apply in many lands. But RSEA has left its labor-intensive phase far behind.
Yen, 55, a professional engineer, has headed the agency since 1959. He was graduated from National Fu-Tan University and received further training at the Fort Belvoir Engineering School of the U.S. Army and the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration. He held many engineering posts during his military service.
Discovery of vast marble deposits in the Taroko Gorge area during construction of the East-West Highway led to establishment of a large VACRS processing plant. Many other companies since have entered the field, chiefly in the Hualien area, to give the Republic of China one of the world's biggest marble industries. Most new buildings in Taiwan use marble extensively in decoration and it is a growing export. The VACRS plant produces marble sheets for such purposes as flooring and paneling in thicknesses of 3/8, 3/4 and I inch or more and in sizes up to 4 by 8 feet. The plant also processes marble blocks up to 4x4x8 feet and in colors ranging from white through red, green, yellow and gray to black.
Skilled sculptors and craftsmen produce hundreds of kinds of art objects and novelties from Taiwan marble. An RSEA spokesman said products number 1,933, ranging in size from an egg to a full-scale lion.
Travelers traversing Taroko Gorge cross a bridge of sculptured white marble, guarded at either end by a pair of large Chinese lions. It is easy to tell which is male and which is female, the tour guides tell visitors. "The female lion is the one with its mouth open," they claim.
In spite of expanding production, the marble deposits will last for thousands of years at the present rate of production.
RSEA has undertaken 2,420 projects in the last 20 years. Included are 2,272 kilometers of roads, 116 bridges, 103 harbor projects, 63 dredging operations, 91 hydraulic projects, four airfield expansions, 19 sanitary projects, 10 power plants and 230 others.
The RSEA work force exceeds 11,500, including 1,354 engineers and more than 7,000 skilled workers. The agency owns 6,036 pieces of heavy equipment worth more than US$150 million. Work performed last year had an average value of more than US$20 million monthly.
Most of RSEA's skilled workers were trained after leaving military service. The agency is required to employ about 1,000 newly retired servicemen each year. These are "professionals" who served in the armed forces for 10 years or longer. Recruits who put in only the two or three years required under the Republic of China's compulsory military service law and then choose to return to civilian life are nominally not eligible.
But some have been hired in the last few years because RSEA has had more work than retired veterans could perform.
Those who join RSEA keep their military pensions. Most of them earn better than average wages in keeping with their skills. They also qualify for the agency's other privileges and are entitled to a second pension when they reach RSEA's retirement age of 60.
"We conduct pre-qualification training for the ex-military before they join us," Yen said. "They are given on-the-job training and specialized training as required."
The most promising young engineers are given training for managerial positions at the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand and the Asian Institute of Management in the Philippines, as well as graduate study at Taiwan universities. RSEA has 27 engineers who were graduated from the Asian Institute of Technology with masters' degrees. Ten others are still studying there.
RSEA has to seek work to keep its personnel busy. "Unlike most other contractors, who hire only when there are contracts, we must arrange continuous work," Yen said. "We must also maintain our competitiveness in the construction market."
One of the most impressive proofs of Taiwan's modernization are the Ten Basic Construction Projects aimed at transforming the Republic of China into a developed nation by the end of the 1970s. The projects are: North-South Freeway from the port city of Keelung, near Taiwan's northern tip, to the biggest port and second largest city of Kaohsiung, near the southern tip; two nuclear power plants in the north; the International Airport at Taoyuan near Taipei; a new harbor near Taichung, a third of the way down the west coast; electrification of the west trunk railroad; a big shipyard, integrated steel mill and sophisticated petrochemical industrial center, all located in or near Kaohsiung; the North Bend Railroad connecting the main Pacific port of Hualien with Suao, the end of the present mainline railroad; and enlargement of Suao Harbor.
RSEA is deeply involved in all of these projects except airport construction and railroad electrification. It is doing all the work on three - Taichung Harbor, Suao Harbor and the North Bend Railroad.
Building a major seaport where none existed is one of the biggest undertakings of the Republic of China's Ten Basic Construction Projects. The scene is the Taiwan Straits coastline half an hour's drive from the major city of Taichung. Along the straits for a distance of over 250 miles there is only one good harbor - that at Kaohsiung in the south. Yet the west coast with its broad fertile plain has most of Taiwan's industry and commerce and the biggest share of the more than 16 million people.
With my wife, Elinor, I toured the Taichung Harbor area on a bright, sunshiny afternoon. We wore unfamiliar "hard hats" and our chief guides were H. C. Hsieh, chief of RSEA's public relations section; Winston C. Liu, deputy project manager; and Y. T. Pan of the project staff. Liu has received extensive engineering training in the United States and has inspected many major American projects.
The construction of Taichung Harbor is somewhat reminiscent of the building of Los Angeles Harbor from almost nothing into one of America's greatest seaports. When Taichung Harbor is completed, it will accommodate even the largest of ocean vessels. It is located about 100 miles from Keelung, the major northern port serving Taipei, and about 100 miles north of Kaohsiung. It is also about 100 miles east of the China mainland.
The Japanese, who held Taiwan for 50 years from 1895 to 1945, first had the idea of building a seaport in the silted beach area between two small rivers west of Taichung. Japanese engineers even started construction of a breakwater off the beach, which is well inside the port the RSEA engineers are building. Japan abandoned the project partly because of technical difficulties and partly because of the expansionist adventures that led them into the disaster of World War II.
Taichung Harbor is being carved out of the shoreline in an area where silting is a problem. (File photo)
Work on Taichung Harbor began in December, 1973. The target date for completion of the first stage is October 31, 1976 - the birthday of the late President Chiang Kai-shek, whose foresight led to the undertaking of the Ten Projects. At that time the port will have capacity of 2,800,000 tons of shipping a year.
Completion of the second stage will bring enlargement of capacity to 6,400,000 annually in 1979. The final stage of construction scheduled for completion in 1982 will enable the port to handle more than 12 million tons of cargo a year.
The cost of the first and second stages will be about US$200 million dollars. Because of the uncertainty about costs, there is no firm estimate for the third stage.
We received a good view of the first stage work as we were driven to the present end of the roadway, some two-thirds of the way along the north outer breakwater. White-capped waves whipped up by a brisk northerly wind dashed against the wall of the breakwater, and from time to time broke over the top of a section ahead that had not yet reached full height. On the other side, between us and the partially completed south breakwater, the sea was already much calmer. It is through this channel that shipping will enter Taichung Harbor and pass out en route to the seaports of the world.
Engineer Liu noted that the area is periodically subject to strong monsoon winds and not infrequently to typhoons. The protective breakwaters and seawalls are designed to keep the inner harbor quiet enough so that waves will be not more than 1 meter high, although they may reach 10 meters in the Taiwan Straits.
Beyond the seawalls, secondary barriers called "groins" are being built to lessen the intrusion of sand washed in by the waves. To the north, a windbreak planted thickly with a hedge of trees will halt most of the wind-blown sand. It will be a decade or more before the trees are large enough to be truly effective.
The breakwaters and seawalls are reinforced by great boulders weighing up to 40 tons, hauled to the site from a mountain quarry some 60 miles away, and by cast concrete forms called "tetra-pods." These look not unlike gigantic versions of the "jacks" used in the children's game. Only these "jacks" weigh about 25 tons each. They are laid together by cranes to form an interlocking barrier.
Enormous building blocks called caissons go into the construction of the harbor breakwaters, seawalls and the piers that will take shape later. We toured the dry-land area, later to become part of the harbor, where many caissons were in various stages of construction. These are essentially huge cast-concrete boxes, up to 24 by 18 by 16 meters in size (about 78x59x52 feet) and weighing up to about 5,000 tons. Each is divided into 15 compartments.
When a caisson is completed, a dredge goes to work removing soil around it, making a channel to the water and then removing the soil underneath. When the caisson floats free, a tugboat tows it to its allotted place in the construction. A crane maneuvers it into place with as much precision as is required in building a brick wall. Then the caisson is filled with water and sunk. Sand replaces the water to make the section about as immovable as anything man-made could be, and it is topped with concrete. If a higher level is needed, that can be added after the caisson is in place.
Taichung Harbor involves the use of 109 of these enormous building blocks for the breakwaters and seawalls and 30 for the first stage piers.
It is difficult to do justice to a picture with statistics - but building the three stages of Taichung Harbor will include nearly 9,000 meters of breakwaters and seawalls (about 5½ miles) and 7,000 meters of deep-water piers (over 4 miles). The amount of sand and earth to make a harbor out of a beach amounts to nearly 68 million cubic meters.
Some 3,000 RSEA men are at work on the project. Most of them live, some with their families, in housing provided nearby. Their equipment includes 174 dump trucks, 34 cranes, 25 bulldozers and a flotilla of 44 tugboats, scows and other craft of various sizes and purposes.
Even this is only a small part of all that's going on.
Stage One to be completed this year includes the main channel, a turning basin and the No. 1 slip. Stage Two will add a commercial harbor. Stage Three includes a second slip and a fishing harbor.
A further expansion - without any construction date set so far - will include a third slip and a big waterfront industrial area.
That's Taichung Harbor, a major port being carved out of a shoreline. It is expected to build Taichung, already a city of half a million, into an industrial complex with a population of around one million and ranking as one of the main production centers of the Far East.
Suao, near the northern end of Taiwan on the Pacific side, was a sleepy fishing village until RSEA workers started enlarging its port as one of the Ten Projects. The work involves building a breakwater 1,710 meters long (more than a mile) and 3,865 meters of piers (more than 2¼ miles). The cost will be about US$79 million and the scheduled completion date is June, 1979. Suao Harbor will relieve congestion at the port of Keelung farther north.
Without the Big John tunnelers, the Suao-Hualien railroad would be almost impossible to build.(File photo)
There could scarcely be a more spectacular railroad anywhere, nor one more difficult in constructIon, than that RSEA workmen are building between Hualien and Suao. The route must penetrate a mountain range that rises steeply from the ocean. The length is only 88.3 kilometers (less than 55 miles) but it includes 36 bridges and 37 tunnels being bored by the spectacular "Big John" machines. Each of two bridges is over 1 kilometer long. Nine tunnels are over a kilometer each in length. The longest will be 4.09 kilometers, nearly 2½ miles. The total length of bridges and tunnels will be 37 kilometers, or 45 per cent of the railroad.
Construction was started on Christmas Day, 1973, and is scheduled for completion by the end of 1978 at a cost of around US$l00 million. From Hualien, a narrow gauge line runs south about 125 miles to the city of Taitung near the southern end of the island. This railroad will be widened to standard gauge about the time the Suao-Hualien line is completed.
A southern link connecting Taitung with the mainline running south from Taipei through Kaohsiung is planned for the 1980s to give Taiwan an around-the-island railroad. There's a good chance RSEA will be building it.
Three thousand RSEA men and 1,000 pieces of equipment worked six years in completing one of the agency's biggest jobs - the Tsengwen dam, reservoir and power plant at a cost of about US$150 million. The dam, completed in 1973, is the largest on Taiwan and the biggest rock and fill structure in the Far East.
The most beautiful of many buildings constructed by RSEA veterans are the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall on Yangmingshan, high above Taipei and just a few miles north, and the Chilin Hall addition to Taipei's famous Grand Hotel, ranked among the 10 best in the world.
RSEA's efforts to keep its skilled workers and heavy equipment occupied have taken it overseas for contracts with half a dozen other countries, including the United States. It is registered as a qualified contractor in more than a dozen states of the Pacific, Asia, Africa and Latin America. RSEA has obtained most of its overseas jobs through competitive bidding.
On overseas projects, RSEA works in close cooperation with the governments concerned. It employs nationals of the host countries where qualified workers are available. Overseas contracts total more than US$300 million.
On the Pacific island of Guam the free Chinese builders are completing 530 two-story housing units for the U.S. Navy. The neat white buildings received a 1975 Award of Merit from the American Institute of Architects in cooperation with the U.S. magazine House & Home.
Out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, RSEA men are doing another big job for the United States. They are dredging harbor entry channel and turning basin at little Diego Garcia Island, which the U.S. has leased from Britain for a naval station. The small population of Diego Garcia formerly earned a livelihood from copra. The Diego Garcians were removed at American expense to the nearby island of Mauritius, now an independent republic. They left behind a population of donkeys, which is multiplying.
When RC. Hsieh, the RSEA public relations chief, visited Diego Garcia, the British governor said he hoped the Chinese workers would remove the donkeys. Hsieh told him that when RSEA finished the job and removed its equipment, it might also take the donkeys to Taiwan - but he was making no promises!
An American Navy Seabee crew is building an airfield and doing other land work at Diego Garcia while the RSEA crew works on the harbor.
Before South Vietnam fell to the Communists, RSEA men did extensive dredging and provided tugboat services in Saigon Harbor.
In the Republic of Indonesia, they built 130 kilometers of highway on the island of Sumatra.
In Thailand, RSEA has completed four highway projects, three of them financed by the World Bank.
In the Central African Republic an RSEA technical advisory team is helping build highway and airfield construction projects.
Skilled construction workers from the Republic of China are finding some of their greatest challenges - and meeting them - in the Middle East under conditions far different from those at home.
In the dry desert kingdom of Jordan, they are building a 187-kilometer highway from Safi, in the central part of the country, to Jordan's only seaport at Aqaba. The port is located on the Gulf of Aqaba, an arm of the Red Sea.
Perhaps the most challenging of all RSEA overseas projects is in the historic Middle East kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a vast desert land with enormous oil deposits not much water and comparatively few people. The Chinese technical experts are using heavy equipment to build two highways. One will connect Mecca, the Holy City of the Muslim faith, with Al Hawiyah. The other runs from Taif to Binasaad.
RSEA and a Greek company have a joint US$118 million contract to enlarge the Red Sea port of Jeddah. RSEA contracts in Saudi Arabia total about US$200 million.
Highway construction in Saudi Arabia must proceed in temperatures of 120 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. Grading operations require vast quantities of water. There isn't any in most of the Saudi Arabia construction areas. Water must be hauled for long distances in large tank trucks.
Before Chinese crews were moved into this conservative Muslim country, workers were briefed on local customs. Chinese are not heavy drinkers of alcoholic beverages. Devout Muslims drink none at all. For the Chinese in Saudi Arabia the order is: No liquor.
As in other areas, RSEA provides a comfortable environment for workers. Good cooks prepare food of the kind personnel are used to at home. Closed circuit television provides Chinese programs videotaped at the main office in Taipei. Most food is imported in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. There is no difficulty purchasing locally the ingredients needed for Chinese cookery. At Diego Garcia RSEA buys part of its food supplies from the U.S. Navy commissary. The rest is imported from Thailand. Suitable food is no problem in Southeast Asian countries.
Most of RSEA workers on overseas jobs are single or leave their families in Taiwan. They find it easier to save money when alone. Most Chinese are thrifty by nature. A few have their wives with them. In the Pacific area, there has been some dating of local girls by RSEA single men. A sizable number have taken home brides acquired on their overseas assignments. There is no contact between the Chinese workers and local girls in Arab countries.
After a visit to Saudi Arabia job sites, Public Relations Chief Hsieh reported: "Our reputation with the local people is very good."
Yen Hsiao-chang's most recent visit to Saudi Arabian job sites last fall coincided with Ramadan, a holy period of the Muslim faith. The devout go without food or drink from sunrise to sunset for an entire month.
"The local workers we hired were either off or working only half days," Yen said. "But the progress of construction was at a crucial stage. Something had to be done to make up the shortage of labor. One young engineer proposed a crash program with our volunteers taking the place of local workers. When I arrived at the job site, I was moved to see our young engineers wearing Arab headgear and working under the blazing sun. They were driving rollers, scrapers, asphalt pavers and trucks. Some were working as laborers."
Yen said RSEA hopes to continue to playa vital role in development of the Republic of China and to carry out major overseas projects in friendly countries.
"We are young and optimistic," he said. "We have had our successes and our failures. But we have a devoted staff, we are proud of the quality of the work they have performed and we keep looking ahead. Our motto is: 'We keep moving on!' "