From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

35. Taiwan: The Other China
Their isolation made the Taiwanese keen to develop ties with Singapore in the
early years. On our part, we were anxious not to be completely dependent on the
Israelis for military training. Initial discussions began in 1967. They sent a top-
level representative who saw Keng Swee, then defence minister, and me. By
December they had submitted a proposal for building up an air force. We were
keen to train our pilots and naval officers in Taiwan; the Israelis could not offer
such facilities. The Taiwanese defence ministry was helpful, but every now and
again would hint that when their foreign ministry got wind of their defence
assistance, they would require some form of diplomatic recognition in return.
We made it clear that we could not give way on this.
When the Taiwanese did set up the “Office of the Trade Representative of
the Republic of China” in Singapore in 1969, it was clearly agreed that this
exchange of trade missions was not recognition of either state or government by
the other. We did not want to get entangled with the mainland’s claim as the sole
government of China, including Taiwan.
When the UN resolution for the admission of the People’s Republic of China
(PRC) came up, we voted for the resolution to admit China but abstained on the
resolution to expel Taiwan. Our policy was to remain consistent: there was “one
China”, and the reunification of the PRC and Taiwan was an internal matter to
be resolved between the two.
The links between Taiwan’s National Security Bureau and our ministry of
defence had resulted in their lending us some Taiwanese flying instructors and
several technicians and mechanics to get our aircraft maintenance section
started. When the director of their National Security Bureau proposed that I visit
Taiwan to meet their premier, Chiang Ching-kuo, son of President Chiang Kai-
shek, in Taipei in May 1973, I agreed. Premier Chiang and his Russian wife met
Choo and me at the airport, drove with us to the Grand Hotel and showed us to
our suite. The following day, we flew with him in his VIP Boeing 707 to an air
base, where he put on a half hour scramble-and-take-off demonstration by an

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airforce unit. Then we drove together to Sun Moon Lake, a holiday resort, where
we spent two days getting to know each other.
At a dinner in Taipei I met his foreign minister, finance minister, economic
affairs minister, chief of general staff and director of National Security Bureau,
and so made the acquaintance of his top trusted aides. Apart from my good
personal chemistry with Chiang Ching-kuo, the foundation of our relationship
was that we were both against communism. The Chinese Communist Party was
his mortal enemy and the Malayan Communist Party, which was linked to the
Chinese Communist Party, was mine. We had a common cause.
He spoke English haltingly and his Mandarin was difficult to understand
because of his heavy Zhejiang accent. He understood my English, and together
with my Mandarin we were able to do without an interpreter. This was crucial in
establishing empathy which later developed into rapport. I explained the
geopolitical situation in Southeast Asia, how Singapore was viewed as a third
China, after China and Taiwan. We could not deny our racial, cultural and
language links, but the fact that we were against the Malayan communists
reassured our neighbours that we would not be a Trojan horse for a communist
China.
Our trade representative in Taipei reported later that the premier had a good
opinion of Singapore and of me, and was pleased to have met me. One factor
definitely helped: my daughter, then a young medical student, had accompanied
us. She is Chinese-educated and speaks Mandarin fluently. Her demeanour
identified her immediately as Chinese. It made a crucial difference to how
Chiang Ching-kuo perceived my wife, my daughter and me, and helped
determine relations between Singapore and Taiwan. A close friendship
developed between Chiang and me in an exchange of correspondence.
There was a total news blackout on my visit, both in Taiwan and Singapore.
It was at my request, to avoid international attention and controversy.
When I visited Taiwan again in December 1974 Premier Chiang took a
personal interest in my programme. He lined up navy and marine corps units for
a ceremonial drive-past, as for a visiting head of state, all without publicity. He
also accompanied me to view his country’s progress, including major
construction works like the East-West Highway built through difficult mountain
terrain.
During this second visit I broached the subject of training our armed forces
in Taiwan, because of Singapore’s limited space. We had discussed it with his
military staff several months earlier. He was sympathetic. By April 1975 we had

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reached agreement for Singapore Armed Forces training in Taiwan under the
code name “Exercise Starlight”. Valid initially for one year, it allowed us to train
infantry, artillery, armour and commando units, dispersed all over Taiwan in
areas used by their equivalent forces. They charged us only for what we
consumed and no more.
Chiang had a fair, round face, wore thick horn-rimmed glasses, and had a
fairly rotund figure. He was calm and quiet, with a soft voice. He did not pretend
to be an intellectual but had a practical mind and keen social intelligence. He
was a good judge of character and surrounded himself with trustworthy men who
would give him honest advice even when unwelcome. When he spoke, it was
after careful reflection because he was not given to casual commitments. He
could not travel freely abroad and found me an additional source of information
on developments in America and the wider world. He would ask keen, searching
questions on changes in the geopolitical scene. Until he became infirm in the
mid-1980s, Chiang would accompany me around Taiwan on each of my visits of
three to four days. In a free-ranging exchange, he would test on me his
assessments and views of political events formed from reading reports. He felt
his international isolation keenly.
From 1973 to 1990, I visited Taiwan once or twice a year, nearly always
stopping over in Hong Kong. It was instructive and inspiring to see the economic
and social progress of the Chinese in Taiwan, with 8–10 per cent annual growth.
From a low-wage, labour-intensive economy based on agriculture and
manufacture of textiles, garments and sports shoes, they moved steadily
upmarket. At first they pirated expensive medical, legal and other textbooks
which they sold at ridiculously low prices. By the 1980s they were printing them
under licence on quality paper and in hard covers. By the 1990s they were
making computer chips, motherboards, PCs, laptops and other high-tech
products. I had observed a similar upgrading of the economy and living
standards in Hong Kong. The rapid progress of these two maritime Chinese
communities gave me great encouragement. I picked up useful pointers. If they
could make it, so could Singapore.
The Chinese in Taiwan, without the straitjacket of communism and a
centrally planned economy, were racing ahead. Taiwan, like Hong Kong, had
minimal welfare. This was to change with the introduction of popular elections
in the early 1990s. The opposition pressed for and got the government to
implement medical, pension and other social security benefits, so the budget ran
into deficit. With a rambunctious opposition in the legislature, the government in

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the 1990s had difficulty increasing taxes to balance the budget. Fortunately, so
far Taiwanese workers remain better motivated than their Western counterparts.
Chiang and his ministers were proudest of their advances in education. Every
student was educated at least to junior middle school, nine years, and by the
1990s some 30 per cent were university graduates. Their finance minister, K.T.
Li, lamented the brain drain. From the 1960s, out of some 4,500 graduate
students who went to America for PhDs every year, only 500 would return. As
Taiwan rose in the economic league tables, Li set out to attract some of their best
to return, those who had worked in top research laboratories and in the big
electronic multinationals. He built a science park near Taipei and provided them
with cheap loans to start their businesses in semi-conductors. Their computer
industry took off. These men had built up networks with Americans in the
computer industry and acquired the knowledge and expertise that enabled them
to keep abreast of the latest developments and to market their products. They
were supported by locally educated Taiwanese engineers and technicians.
The 2–3 million mainlanders who came over with General Chiang Kai-
shek’s forces had included a thick layer of intellectuals, administrators, scholars
and entrepreneurs. They were the catalyst that transformed Taiwan into an
economic powerhouse.
However, the mainlander elite in Taiwan knew they were in a difficult
position in the long term. They were a minority of about 15 per cent. Gradually
but inexorably, both the bureaucracy and the officer corps of the armed forces,
originally manned by mainlanders or their children, came to have increasing
numbers of Taiwanese. It was only a matter of time before the Taiwanese, 90 per
cent of the population, swung their political weight. Chiang and his senior aides
recognised this. They were selecting from among the Taiwanese those they
considered the most reliable and dependable – people who would continue their
policy to stand firm against the communists on the mainland, yet never go for an
independent, separate Taiwan, which was anathema to the mainlanders.
By the mid-1980s a younger generation of educated Taiwanese had risen
through the ranks of officialdom. We changed our trade representative, who was
from Chiang’s own province of Zhejiang, to one who could speak the local Min-
nan dialect, a sub-dialect of Fujian province. We could see a different Taiwan
emerging. We had to know the Taiwanese in the bureaucracy associated with the
Kuomintang (KMT), but steered clear of Taiwanese dissidents who wanted

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independence. Their organisations were illegal, and several were imprisoned for
sedition.
In the mid-1980s I noticed Chiang’s health had declined markedly. He could
no longer accompany me around Taiwan. From our conversations I gathered he
was being pressed by the US media and Congress to democratise the political
system. Chiang lifted martial law and began this process. His son Hsiao-wu,
their trade representative in Singapore, had filled me in on his father’s thinking. I
told Chiang that to ensure Taiwan’s security he had to retain the support not only
of President Reagan, but also of the US media and Congress because Reagan
needed the backing of both. Later, Chiang allowed the unofficial opposition,
which had been illegal, to participate in elections for the Legislative Yuan.
Chiang died in January 1988. He had enjoyed enormous domestic prestige
which helped to manage the forces unleashed by his recent lifting of martial law.
I attended his funeral. Also present to pay their respects were many Japanese and
American leaders, former prime ministers and high office holders, but no current
incumbents. It was a traditional Chinese-style funeral. His body was taken to a
temporary resting place outside Taipei, to be kept, like his father Generalissimo
Chiang Kai-shek’s, for eventual interment in their county in Zhejiang province,
south of Shanghai.
Vice-President Lee Teng-hui then took over. I had met him first as mayor of
Taipei, then as the governor of Taiwan province. Occasionally we played golf.
He was competent, industrious and deferential to his superiors, especially the
president and the mainlander ministers. He was then a friendly self-effacing
official, tall, with greying hair, thick glasses and a wide smile. Before Chiang
Ching-kuo chose him as vice-president in 1984 several other native Taiwanese
KMT leaders had been considered but thought less suitable. I assumed Chiang
must have been absolutely satisfied that he was reliable and could be trusted to
continue Chiang’s policies never to allow an independent Taiwan.
For a few years President Lee Teng-hui continued the KMT’s settled policy
of one China and no independent Taiwan. He set out to win over enough of the
old guard and a few of the young guard mainlanders in the KMT to take
complete control of the party. All those in key positions who gave contrary
views or unwelcome advice were soon removed, including Hau Pei-tsun, the
premier, and Fredrick Chien Fu, his foreign minister who had advised against his
visit to America in 1995. Lee rapidly democratised the system to place more

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Taiwanese in key appointments and strengthen his hold on the KMT and the
country. The KMT old guard had earlier told me they expected and accepted the
inevitability of this. But they did not know how swiftly President Lee would
shift political power to the 90 per cent majority through popular elections to the
national assembly and Legislative Yuan. He transformed the KMT itself until
eventually many left it to form the New Party, a move which seriously weakened
the KMT’s grip on power.
Once he had consolidated his position, President Lee began to express his
feelings in words which caused the leaders in Beijing to conclude that he wanted
to keep Taiwan separate from China for as long as possible. In 1992 President
Lee announced his terms for reunification. He defined “one China” as the
Republic of China, not the People’s Republic of China. National reunification
would only be achieved under a “free, prosperous and democratic China” – in
other words, communist China must first become as democratic as Taiwan. I did
not know then that this was intended as a fixed, unbridgeable position, not a
starting point for negotiations.
In April 1994 President Lee gave an interview to Ryotaro Shiba, a well-
known Japanese journalist. It was published in a Japanese magazine and never
denied. In it, he said the KMT was a party of outsiders, that the Taiwanese
people had suffered greatly under the occupation of outsiders, which included
the KMT government, and that “Difficulties will lie ahead of Moses and his
people … ‘Exodus’ may be a kind of fit conclusion.” For a president of Taiwan
to talk of Moses leading his people to the Promised Land was a statement China
could not ignore.
Native Taiwanese harboured a deep grievance against the mainlanders for
the “2-28” incident. Around 28 February 1947 thousands of native Taiwanese
were killed by Nationalist troops for expressing their resentment against the
mainlanders who behaved not as liberators but as overlords. All public reference
to this tragedy was suppressed, but it lived on in the memory of the local
population and broke into the open when a Taiwanese became president. To his
credit, President Lee kept in check any attempt to settle past scores.
Popular elections tend to reopen these old wounds and accentuate the divide
between native Taiwanese and mainlanders. To appeal to the 90 per cent
majority, politicians emphasise their indigenous identity. They campaign in the
local Min-nan dialect and ridicule mainlander opponents for their inability to

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speak the language. Some even question the allegiance of mainlanders to
Taiwan.
Older mainlander leaders felt hurt by these divisive attacks. Mainlander
scholars had helped build universities and nurtured many able native Taiwanese.
Outstanding mainlander leaders like Premiers Y.S. Sun and Yu Kuo-hwa and
Finance Minister K.T. Li had crafted the policies that transformed Taiwan from
an agricultural into an industrial economy. They laid the foundation for Taiwan’s
considerable success.
A more grievous result of electioneering has been the growing involvement
of triads (Chinese mafia or secret societies). The KMT’s triad links date from
pre-war Shanghai days, when General Chiang Kai-shek used them to fight the
communists. They accompanied him to Taiwan. A Taiwanese mafia has
flourished and taken root. As long as elections did not lead to real power, the
government was able to control them.
When the political system opened up in the late 1980s and elections became
contests for real power, the triads soon discovered that they could get themselves
elected into positions of power. By 1996, when 10 per cent of the national and
30 per cent of the local legislatures were secret society members, they were a
political force. Corruption and vote-buying have become entrenched. Once in
office, they have to recoup their expenditure.
A free press has not been able to check corruption (“black gold”) or suppress
the triads which it has compared to the Sicilian mafia. They have become so
powerful that when a notorious triad leader was killed by a rival gang in 1996,
the secretary-general of the office of President Lee Teng-hui paid public homage
by sending a traditional funeral scroll to win over his followers. The deputy
legislative speaker and other prominent legislators were present at the funeral, as
were several opposition leaders. The mafia has penetrated the construction
industry, agricultural cooperatives and even the baseball league. It has muscled
its way into annual general meetings of listed companies and cash-rich temple
committees, and even started recruiting members in schools.
In June 2000, two weeks after his appointment, the first non-KMT justice
minister, Chen Ding-nan, said:
“In the East Asia region, Taiwan has the most serious cases of corruption
and has failed to do anything about it for the past 50 years. Lee Teng-hui
is the source of Taiwan’s black-gold politics. He knew where it was and
did little more than talk about the need to combat it. That was the reason

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why former justice ministers were forced to step down because they took
Mr Lee’s words to heart and tried to clean up. The atmosphere, the
culture, the people – it can easily influence judges and police and even
the legislative officials. We need them to take responsibility.”
I received President Lee in Singapore in 1989, the first visit by a Taiwanese
president to Southeast Asia. I extended him all the personal courtesies due to a
visiting head of state. But although we had not then established diplomatic
relations with the PRC, I decided the protocol level would not be that for a head
of state. There were no flags, no guard of honour, no ceremonial trappings of a
state visit. In all public statements, we referred to him as President Lee “from
Taiwan”, not “of Taiwan”. Nevertheless that visit raised his political profile in
the region.
Because I had acted as a channel for messages between the two sides, the
PRC and Taiwan chose Singapore as the venue for their first-ever talks, in April
1993. The Chinese named it “Wang-Koo Talks” after the surnames of the
leaders who officially represented “unofficial” organisations on both sides. I met
both delegation leaders separately and knew that they were entrusted by their
respective presidents with different agendas. Koo Chen-fu, representing Taiwan,
wanted to settle only technical matters like authentication of documents and
verification of lost registered mail; his president did not want any discussions on
liberalisation of trade, let alone reunification. Wang Daohan wanted these
preliminaries to lead to substantive discussions on reunification. As expected,
the talks did not improve relations.
President Lee is a voracious reader with an enormous capacity for absorbing
information. He had been educated in Japanese schools in Taiwan when it was
Formosa, a Japanese colony. During the war, he was among the few Taiwanese
chosen to be educated in Japanese universities, in his case Kyoto Imperial
University, second in prestige only to Tokyo Imperial University. He returned to
Taiwan after the war to complete his university education in Taipei. Later, he
went on to America for two stints, the second of which was in Cornell where he
did a PhD in agricultural economics.
By preference, he proudly told me, he read four top Japanese papers every
day and watched NHK TV by satellite from Tokyo. Even for books, he preferred
to read Japanese translations rather than the English originals because he found
them easier reading. Steeped as he was in Japanese history and culture, he did

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not think much of the mainland, either its history and culture or its present
communist leaders, viewing them with the eyes of a Japanese-trained elite. He
had a disdain for the communist leaders, and publicly called them “blockheads”,
“stupid” and “damaged brains”. The Chinese leaders never returned these
compliments, but I felt sure some desk officer in Beijing dutifully recorded
them.
I found him self-confident, well-read and well-briefed on every subject that
interested him. But because of Taiwan’s isolation, he could not understand why
world leaders did not sympathise with Taiwan as the Japanese did. He
considered Japan’s sympathy and support for Taiwan of great importance. He
also believed that if he followed the prescriptions of American liberals and the
US Congress for democracy and human rights, the United States would defend
him against communist China.
I could not understand President Lee’s position. An old friend of his
explained that his Japanese training had imbued him with the bushido spirit of
the Japanese warrior, and he considered it his mission to lead the people of
Taiwan to the “promised land”. Lee, this friend added, was also a devout
Christian who would do God’s will at all costs, fired by the bushido spirit.
In June 1995, after powerful lobbying, President Lee got the US Congress to
pass a unanimous resolution to give him a visa to visit Cornell, his alma mater.
That visit and the speech he made at Cornell had a far graver impact than the US
Congress expected. I had feared some reaction, but did not realise the depth of
China’s distrust for President Lee and the implications they read into the US
president’s decision to allow the visit. Later that year, in October, I asked
Premier Li Peng why he was so convinced that Lee Teng-hui wanted
independence. Li Peng said they had watched the whole video recording of Lee
Teng-hui’s speech in Cornell. Lee did not refer at all to one China, but
emphasised Taiwan, and called it the Republic of China on Taiwan. This
conviction led in March 1996 to the most serious confrontation between the two
sides since the 1958 crisis in Quemoy. The Chinese deployed troops and
conducted military exercises in Fujian province opposite Taiwan, and fired
missiles that landed in waters near important seaports on Taiwan’s west coast.
To moderate the situation, on 3 March 1996 I made this plea: “China’s
leaders have referred to me as an old friend. I am an older friend of Taiwan. If
either one is damaged, Singapore will suffer a loss. If both are damaged,
Singapore’s loss will be doubled. Singapore benefits when both prosper, when
both cooperate and help each other prosper.” Vice-Premier Qian Qichen, China’s

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foreign minister, at a press conference said this was an internal matter, that
although I knew more about Taiwan than most outsiders, this was not a matter
that involved outsiders. This gentle rebuff did not surprise me as it was in
keeping with their basic stand that this was an internal “Chinese” problem to be
resolved directly between the leaders on both sides.
Meanwhile, President Lee began to de-emphasise Taiwan’s Chinese-ness.
From the end of the war in 1945 until the death of Chiang Ching-kuo in 1988,
their schools and universities taught in the national language (Mandarin).
Students learnt the history and geography of mainland China of which Taiwan
was a province. Now, schools teach more of the history and geography of
Taiwan, and less of China. As early as 1989, soon after Chiang died, I could
sense the embarrassment of Premier Yu Kuo-hwa, a mainlander, who
accompanied me on a visit to Taitung, an old Japanese hot spring resort. After
dinner, in a karaoke session, the local Taiwanese ministers sang Min-nan songs,
which Yu did not understand.
During his 12 years as president, Lee voiced separatist sentiments that had
lain dormant in Taiwan. He underestimated the will of the leaders and people of
the Chinese mainland to keep Taiwan firmly within China’s fold. Lee’s policies
could only prevail with the support of the United States. By acting as though
such support would be forthcoming for all time, he led the people of Taiwan to
believe that they did not need to negotiate seriously on Taiwan’s future with
China’s leaders. His contribution to Taiwan’s future has been to turn the
reunification issue into the most important item on Beijing’s national agenda.
China’s leaders closely watched the election campaign for the next president
in March 2000. They were concerned with the rising support for Chen Shui-bian,
candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party. Native Taiwanese nationalists
who formed this party had long fought for Taiwan’s independence and been
imprisoned and punished by the KMT government under President Chiang Kai-
shek and his son, President Chiang Ching-kuo. On 22 February 2000 Beijing
media published a State Council White Paper to warn that if Taiwan refused to
discuss reunification indefinitely China would have to use force. It was directed
at Chen. On March 15, three days before the vote, Premier Zhu Rongji in a live
television press conference warned the Taiwanese that China would shed blood
to protect its territory.
Chen Shui-bian won with less than 40 per cent of the vote against
independent candidate James Soong with 36 per cent. The KMT candidate, Lien
Chan, the incumbent vice-president, lost badly. President Lee Teng-hui was seen

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to have abandoned Lien Chan by a perfunctory campaign in Lien’s support.
Several of Lee’s closest friends endorsed Chen. This added to the distrust of
China’s leaders for Chen. Beijing said it would wait and see, listen to what Chen
would say and watch what he would do. Chen made conciliatory statements after
he was declared the winner but none of the statements committed him to
eventual reunification. President Jiang Zemin said talks could only resume under
the principle of one China. Chen said one China could be an item for discussion.
At his inauguration on 20 May, Chen said “both sides possess enough wisdom
and creativity to jointly deal with the question of a future ‘one China’.” He gave
no cause for any precipitate action against Taiwan, but did not say enough to
shake the mainland leaders’ belief that he would continue the “Lee Teng-hui era,
without Lee Teng-hui”. Two hours after the speech, the mainland said he lacked
sincerity. Beijing will probably wait until after they know in November 2000
who will be the next US president, before deciding on their course of action.
The stage may be set for a dramatic face-off. If the new president
equivocates and does not agree to accept that Taiwan and the mainland are parts
of one China, however defined, the situation will become volatile. No Chinese
leader can survive if he is seen to “lose Taiwan”. The new president has two
choices: carry on where Lee Teng-hui left off, which means conflict, or close
that chapter and start a new one on a realistic basis. Taiwan has been separated
from the mainland for over a hundred years since 1895. No Chinese in Taiwan
relishes being reabsorbed into this huge mass of 1.2 billion. They prefer their
different way of government, lifestyle and higher standard of living, which they
have worked hard to achieve. Even the mainlanders who have been in Taiwan
since 1949 and support reunification do not want it in the near future.
The United States may be able to stop China from using force for another 20
to 30 years. Within that time, China is likely to develop the military capability to
control the straits. It may be wiser, before the military balance shifts to the
mainland, to negotiate the terms for an eventual, not an immediate, reunification.
Assume that the worst has happened, that the mainland has used force and
caused the United States to react and decisively defeat the PLA by superior
technology. “Is that the end of the story?” I asked three American think-tankers
soon after the elections in Taiwan. One replied, “That is the beginning of the
story.” He had thought through the problem. If superior US technology frustrates
them, it is not difficult to imagine 1,200 million Chinese being fired by one
powerful urge to show Americans they are not cowards and inferior.
For President Chen Shui-bian to continue Lee Teng-hui’s policy of creating a

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separate and distinct Taiwanese national identity will confirm Beijing’s
suspicions that he has set Taiwan’s course on independence. This will increase
the danger of a precipitate solution to the issue of reunification. If Taiwan
becomes an independent nation, Lee Teng-hui will go down in Taiwan’s history
as a hero. If Taiwan is reunited with the mainland by force, history will not be so
kind to a man who brought unnecessary pain and suffering on the Chinese
people in Taiwan.
The Chinese people on both sides of the straits can lessen their problems by
establishing easier relations over the years. If there is to be a peaceful
reunification there has to be a gradual blurring, not an accentuation of the
differences that at present divide and distinguish the two societies. Both need
time to work and narrow the social, economic and political gap. The sense of
belonging to the Chinese nation is weaker in Taiwan than Hong Kong. The
mainland has the weight and girth to accept this and adopt an open and
magnanimous approach to help this process of reconciliation. Reunification
achieved by force will leave indelible scars. On the other hand, Taiwan’s leaders
have the responsibility not to move towards independence or deliberately widen
the differences between the two societies.

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October 1986. Formal picture taken with Emperor Hirohito of Japan. 
(LKY)

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September 1967. Welcoming Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and Mrs
Sato in Singapore.