Richard Bush–At Cross Purposes Chapter 2 The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China

1. 台灣、美國與中國三邊關係 Richard Bush–At Cross PurposesChapter 2 The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China 童振源 國立政治大學 中山人文社會科學研究所 助理教授

2. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China • When and how was the US decided to return Taiwan to China in the first place? • Four factors appear to have been at play: • U.S. government planning; • Washington’s desire to keep China in the war; • Roosevelt’s vision for postwar security; and • the impact of personal diplomacy. • The decision was actually made as much as a year before the Cairo Conference.

3. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China • Before 1942, neither the Nationalist government under the Kuomintang nor the Chinese Communist Party placed much emphasis on Taiwan as a territorial issue, and the CCP would not change its position until after the Cairo Declaration. • It was not until the fall of 1942 that the ROC can be said to have conveyed its official intentions. This came first privately in Chiang Kai-shek’s meeting on October 7 with Wendell Willkie, who was visiting China as Roosevelt’s representative. • According to Chinese diplomatic archives, Chiang told Willkie that “after the war China’s coastal fortresses like Lushun, Dalian, and Taiwan must be returned to China.”

4. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China Wartime Options for Taiwan’s Future • Extract on “Alternative Political Solutions,” from “Formosa,” State Department’s Advisory Committee on Post-War Foreign Policy, May 25, 1943, drafted by Cabot Colville of the Department’s Division of Political Studies. 1. Continuance of Japanese Sovereignty • The United Nations through the Atlantic Charter have stated that they “respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live.” • There is, however, no evidence that the people of Formosa will after the war choose a form of government which would keep them a part of the Japanese empire.

5. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China 2. Independence of Formosa • Under the principle of United Nations regarding respect for the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live, it is conceivable both that the Formosans might claim to be a people and that they should choose to live under an independent government of their own. • There is, however, little likelihood of such a movement developing. The populance has not been articulate, and the dominantly Chinese make-up of the population has resulted in a general tendency to favor the cause of China rather than to organize a movement for self-government.

6. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China 3. Internationalization • The placing of the sovereignty of Formosa directly and solely under an international body set up by the United Nations or under some other international administration would be to assume responsibility for administration of the civil affairs of a predominantly Chinese population, affairs in which there is no direct international interest other than that of security. • Chinese suspicion of the basic motive underlying any program of complete internationalization of Formosa should be anticipated.

7. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China 4. Restoration of Chinese Sovereignty A. Unconditional . • Formosan Chinese, comprising 91.5 percent of the population, have retained, even under Japanese rule, an outlook which is more Chinese than Formosan. • The administration of government in Formosa would require the assignment there of a number of experienced Chinese from China. • Economic adjustment would be a more serious problem.

8. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China • If China should require mandatory repatriation to Japan of the Japanese residents of Formosa, industry in Formosa would suffer badly as a consequence of present dependence on Japanese skilled personnel. It appears that China could not soon supply such personnel. • It does not appear that China in her present stage of development is capable of making use of Formosa in execution of the international interest in security.

9. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China 4. Restoration of Chinese Sovereignty B. With Special Arrangements in the Interests of International Security. • If Chinese sovereignty is restored over Formosa, the international interest in the use of points in Formosa for purposes of security might be met by special arrangement. • Some opposition has already been expressed in China to the restoring of Formosa to China under restrictions over the exercise of its sovereign rights. • It is possible that this opposition could be overcome by China’s granting to an international organization stipulated rights in Formosa to be exercised for the purposes of international security.

10. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China • The most definitive piece of evidence on FDR’s decision appears in the files of Harley Notter, who was in charge of the State Department’s planning effort. • “February 22, 1943－president’s ideas [after discussion of European territorial issues]: China should receive Formosa and Manchuria and there should be a trusteeship for Korea. France should lose Indo-China, but its disposition is a question.” • Roosevelt made the initial decision to return Taiwan to China perhaps by December 1942 and certainly no later than February 22, 1943.

11. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China • FDR’s Motivations: Alliance management, FDR’s strategic vision, and personal diplomacy. • Roosevelt believed it was necessary to mollify Chiang Kai-shek. To compensate for the relatively low priority given to the China front, the ROC was to be treated as a potential great power and provided with symbolic evidence of that status in order to maintain its commitment to the war effort. • It is certainly plausible that Roosevelt believed that his Taiwan initiative was an easy way to reward China for its contribution to the Allied effort and raise its morale. • Of greater direct impact on Roosevelt’s Taiwan decision was his personal and idiosyncratic vision for the preservation of international peace and security after the war.

12. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China • To FDR’s mind, it was the great powers and not a global body that should keep the peace. • This was the vision of the “Four Policeman”: the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China that would ensure, by force if necessary, that no nation would have the ability to commit aggression. • After stating that “costal fortresses” like Lushun, Dalian, and Taiwan must be returned to China, Chiang said that he would “welcome the United States to participate in the construction of naval bases at these fortresses, and our two countries can jointly maintain and use these bases .”

13. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China • By the end of 1942 Roosevelt was already contemplating the use of Taiwan as one of the strategic sites from which China and the United Stated would keep the peace in East Asia. • This idea converged neatly with Chiang Kai-shek’s offer of Taiwan as the site for a joint U.S.-ROC base, and one means of binding the United States to China after the war. • That FDR and the Madame Chiang discussed both the return of Taiwan to China and the island’s use as a U.S-ROC base after the war demonstrates that his decision stemmed primarily from his postwar strategic vision, to some degree from the Madame’s charming powers of persuasion, and less for reasons of alliance management.

14. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China To sum up: • In the fall of 1942, the ROC government formalized its demand that Taiwan be restored to China after the war. • At the same time, Chiang offered Taiwan and Lushun as sites for joint U.S.-Chinese bases. • Roosevelt received these messages in December 1942, at just the time that he began to operationalize his Four Policemen concept for preserving postwar security, a scheme in which China would be one of the keeper of the peace.

15. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China • On February 22, 1943, the president informed his senior diplomatic advisers of his decision that the island would be returned to China. • Five weeks later, Roosevelt informed Anthony Eden of his Taiwan proposal, to which Eden made no objection. • Right after Eden left, the US informed T.V. Soong of the decision concerning the island

16. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China Several features stand out: • First of all, this was very much Roosevelt’s decision. • Second, Roosevelt spent relatively little time on the disposition of Taiwan. The time spent on the Taiwan question was a function of its perceived insignificance. • Third, no one in the U.S. government made the argument in 1942 and 1943 that the people of Taiwan were not Chinese and therefore that the island should not be returned to Chinese sovereignty. The only question raised was whether the ROC government had the capacity to govern the territory.

17. The Wartime Decision to Return Taiwan to China • There was, in effect, a decision not to place Taiwan in the same category as Korea or Indochina. Ironically, it had been the leadership of the KMT and the CCP that had viewed Taiwan and Korea in similar terms, and it was they who had to make the bigger conceptual leap in order to assert that the island belonged to China. • Fourth, and most important, all American policy makers both during the war and after agreed that Taiwan was important to the strategic posture of the United States in East Asia. President Roosevelt regarded the return of Taiwan to China as means of implementing his postwar security strategy and chose not to give the people of the island a voice in that outcome.