Challenge to the Nationalists in Taiwan

...Whenever they opened a new office, for instance, they marked the occasion with a rally and denounced the government with increasing ferocity...

...They maintain to this day that they exercise sovereignty over all of China and, as a matter of dogma, declare their determination to return some day to govern the land that is rightfully theirs...

...In similar fashion they control the military establishment, a 600,000-man machine officered largely by mainlanders but otherwise filled with local recruits...

...and he waves his tail...

...Carter reminds me of our Iranian proverb about the lion when he is cornered," Khomeini says...

...Why, then, did the government permit Formosa to publish at all, or at least after the first issue had signaled its purpose...

...The answer evidently is that the authorities hoped a show of limited freedom would increase their prestige and popularity, and perhaps help to unite the people in favor of their policies...

...The 'mustadifin' [the people] cannot be deprived of whal Iheyhave, for they have nothing but poverty...

...There is no doubt the police were unarmed and that a number of them were injured...

...The magazine called for national elections, too...

...They used the police as guinea pigs," said a relatively neutral foreign diplomat...

...We want to uproot the foreign domination of Iran," Khomeini says...

...The Imam is unmoved even by the threat of an economic blockade...

...The Taiwanese, meanwhile, are allowed just a handful of seats—the number they would have if the island were governed as merely an off-shore adjunct to China...

...More significantly, they own vast businesses, often in collaboration with mainlanders, and have unquestionably shared in the island's "economic miracle...

...The Formosa people went too far," concluded a moderate Taiwanese politician...

...Carter is no lion...

...It would, in his view, merely strengthen his revolution...

...But that is whal he is doing...

...Nobody can fight a nation ready to die because death is only a door lo paradise...

...T et us promote the new I political movement," said JL^publisher Huang in a statement on the inside cover of the premiere issue...

...Reports from the Ministry o( Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior and Ihe Army are brought to him daily...

...They had, after all, posed what may have been the greatest threat to the security of the Nationalist Chinese regime since 1947, when thousands of Taiwanese were executed for their opposition to the rule of the mainlanders...

...Mei Li Ta," it announced, meaning, "Beautiful Island"—the name given as well to each of the magazine's offices as they proliferated in rapid succession...

...and the waving of his tail is actually an invitation to others to intervene and mediate...

...We are only for democratic rights," the visitor said, sidestepping the question of whether the adherents of the movement really espoused "independence" or separate statehood for Taiwan...

...Far from serving the entrenched leaders as a valve for popular discontent, the Taiwanese movement threatened to explode into a genuine revolution...

...clearly this capitalist enclave is under separate management from the "other China" and will continue to be for a long time...

...Khomeini remains deeply suspicious of mediation—whether by the United Nations, Ihe International Court ol Justice or any other international body...

...Taxi drivers who confessed to having read an issue or two were as easy to come upon as professors and students...

...That question is crucial, for in the past the government, using its "martial law" authority, has arrested anyone advocating the recognition of Taiwan as a nation separate from the mainland...

...Initially the government responded with harassment...

...The impact of this policy, on a daily basis, is to provide the rationalization for perpetuating the rule of Chiang Kai-shek through his son and heir, Chiang Ching-kuo...

...Nor does Ihe Imam fear some lesser, punitive attack...

...In the four months since the appearance of its premiere issue, Formosa— the old Portuguese name for the island that comprises Taiwan, technically a province of China—had opened offices throughout the country to distribute "illegal" books and pamphlets, stage rallies and lectures, and, of course, sell the magazine...

...If there is a contradiction between ihe truth and circumstances then it is circumstances which must change, not the truth," he says...

...The establishment press, controlled by mainlanders, trumpeted the news of the wounds inflicted upon innocent policemen and soldiers who had not carried arms and had refrained from fighting back...

...They set a trap for us and we fell for it," observed a source connected with the movement...

...He is not interested...

...Long Live Democracy," was the title of the next article, followed by an expose of a corruption scandal involving the 30-year-old son of a former secret police chief...

...The facts, however, do not bear this out...

...Another carried a revolver—fairly certain proof that he was from the police or the Army, given the government's success in enforcing the law against weapons for personal use...

...The trouble was that the Formosa people were not about to settle for roles as members of a pro forma opposition whose only function was to buttress the regime...

...The Imam believes that what he has set in train is a struggle between truth and untruth, right versus wrong...

...These had been scheduled before the break in diplomatic relations with the United States last spring, but were canceled as an "emergency" measure...

...The next day —last December 11—the government closed down Formosa, a magazine spearheading a movement for Taiwanese rights that was responsible for the rally...

...Whal is the reason for thai...

...He barely glances at them...

...But they maintained their party by calling it the "Nonparty," and Formosa was their principal weapon, the nucleus of their movement...

...He roars at the lop of his voice...

...Another agrees the more hot-headed members of the audience hit some of the policemen with torches they had been carrying in a procession...

...On the roof there is a chair from which Khomeini acknowledges and sometimes addresses the crowds, who in the tens of thousands daily make the pilgrimage lo throng in the streets below...

...True, the authorities had refused their request to hold the rally in a park, but they had relented by permitting lectures...

...Other articles touched on such matters as the legitimacy of the government, the perpetuation of martial law, the importance of local self-government, and the weakness of the governor of Taiwan, who obviously can do nothing without the approval of the central government...

...One morning at my hotel a politically moderate Taiwanese showed me a copy of the first issue, proclaiming on the cover that it was "The Magazine of Taiwan's Democratic Movement...

...Formosa represented the best legitimate channel for expressing the resentment of the 15 million Taiwan natives who are still dominated by some 2 million mainlanders, most of whom arrived on the island in 1949 as Communist forces were rolling over the American-backed Army of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek...

...The more freedom they had, the more they used it...

...Excerpts from his report, which appeared in the London Sunday Times, follow...

...The government appeared to win more than simply a tactical victory...

...The roar is to frighten, but the hoi air reveals his own fear...

...Violence broke out when the police cornered the marchers at an intersection and fired tear gas...

...To an American the problem seems almost esoteric...

...Those words were chosen carefully...

...In the world outside Ihere is turmoil...

...That is one reason why the Imam, as I learned from long discussion wilh him, does not believe President Carter can intervene militarily in Iran...

...Foreign analysts, with ties neither to the government nor to the Taiwan movement, say that it was by far the most influential publication on the island—the more so since it seemed to synthesize a range of opposition views...

...He knows Ihe truth...

...Circulation over the first four issues had climbed to slightly less than 100,000...

...ly anathema, it is tantamount to "betrayal...

...The organizers challenged the local command, though, by staging a march in which torches were carried as symbols of freedom...

...All those people are ready lo die," he says...

...The Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] is untouched...

...Indeed, it is commonplace to hear it said here that most Taiwanese want change no more than do the mainlanders...

...In addition, the police followed everyone connected with the movement...

...There will be no more civil disobedience," said one...

...Formosa, printed on quality paper and averaging 100 pages, obviously had assistance from Taiwanese businessmen, including the publisher and financier of the first issue, Huang Hsin-chi...

...The slogan above the name of the magazine might have seemed more suitable for a travel guide, but actually was a political statement in itself...

...If the facts of the episode in Kaoh-siung are likely to remain shrouded in uncertainty, what happened as a result of it is beyond dispute...

...Taiwanese merchants have provided funds for outspoken politicans even while kowtowing to mainland bureaucrats...

...The police also arrested almost every member of the staff...

...To find it he observes the rubric of the inspirer of the Shiile seel, Ihe Imam Ali: "Ask your heart, ask your heart, ask your heart...

...Before Gholbzadeh had read out the full text, the Imam had waved it aside...

...To the Nationalist Chinese, though, any suggestion of independence is not mereDonald Kirk, a longtime NL contributor, is a freelance journalist currently reporting from the Far East...

...When Foreign Minister Sadegh Gholbzadeh came with the news of the Security Council Resolution condemning Iran and calling lor the release of the hostages, the Imam did not listen...

...Not that the Taiwanese are totally without power...

...We talk of the occupation of the American Embassy and I ask the Imam: "Every political action must have a defined reason...

...Formosa associates charge the troublemakers were undercover agents of the police and the Garrison Command, and that their function was to give the government the pretext it needed to attack...

...Although not yet a mass magazine, it had a following that exceeded its circulation...

...Waging war against 38 million people armed with religion as well as guns would provoke a bloodbath in which the United Slates would submerge...

...By insisting that the National Assembly really represents the entire mainland, the regime can reserve seats for more than a thousand representatives with antecedents in distant provinces they have not seen for more than 30 years...

...Finally, after the two men signed statements saying they were responsible for their injuries, they were released semiconscious at 2 a.m...

...There is even more doubt about the Command's claim that no one in the crowd was injured at all...

...The flare-up entered a new phase as a much larger crowd formed at a different intersection for still more speeches...

...There is considerable doubt about the claim of the Taiwan Garrison Command, responsible for the security of the island province, that upwards of 180 of the policemen and riot troops summoned to the scene suffered wounds of some kind...

...Associates of the movement do not agree...

...He wakens in the Iranian people the instincts of martyrdom thai underlie the Shiite faith...

...The movement will now go underground...

...In the last attack, on December 7, one of them hit members of the staff with the back of an axe...

...If Carter killed, say, 5,000 Iranians in an air strike in revenge for 50 American hostages, ihe sympathies not only of the Moslem world but of the whole Third World would lie with Iran," he says...

...They say that violence may now be the only recourse...

...The World According to Khomeini The prominent Egyptian journalist and former editor of al-Ahram, Mohammed Heikal, recently held an extensive interview with Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...

...gusts of hot air issue from his throal...

...The mainland rulers further preserve their dominance by keeping most of the top positions in the ministries for themselves, their sons, relatives, and friends...

...Nobody realized the extent of the injuries...

...The need for improving their image at home was obvious in view of Taiwan's military and diplomatic isolation after the United States unilaterally abrogated its mutual defense pact with the Nationalists and withdrew the last remnants of its forces from the island...

...That is Khomeini's power...

...He also seems well aware that the world cannot exist for long without the 4 million barrels of oil a day that Iran produces...

...Blood will achieve victory against Ihe sword," he insists...

...They wanted to move too fast...

...We were horrified at the conflict," said a Formosa staffer who was there...

...Publisher Huang asked the crowd to disperse when police trucks started driving through the crossing, but some of the people threw Molotov cocktails and lit fires under the wheels of the trucks...

...As he sees it, privation would affect only the privileged classes...

...That point was especially important because most of the people associated with Formosa belonged to a political party formed for the campaign that was outlawed when the government decided against elections...

...Four times in November and December hooligans ransacked Formosa offices...

...In spite of these episodes, Formosa staffers expected no serious problems to arise during what proved to be their climactic performance less than 24 hours later...

...They demanded that the two men in the truck hand over the tapes, took them to a police station and beat them, while about 40 movement members staged a sit-in on the pavement in front of the building...

...Whatever happens, the incident at Kaohsiung, virtually unreported in the West, marked an historic turning point in Taiwanese politics— and, possibly, in the fortunes of the regime that regards itself as the custodian of the legacy of what it still calls the "Republic of China...

...They do sit in their own Provincial Assembly, admittedly a body of limited influence, and govern on a local level...

...The crowd kept chanting such slogans as, "Beautiful Island is Ours," "Human Rights Forever" and "Democracy Forever," but broke up under a final volley of tear gas grenades...

...On December 9, outside Kaohsiung, they stopped a sound truck advertising the rally the next day...

...As I stood wilh him, he waved for an hour nonstop...