CONFIDENTIAL
4.
There is one other Taiwan point on which we would welcome information from the Americans. That is the murder, on 15 October in San Francisco, of the Taiwan intellectual, Liu Yiliang, also known as Henry Liu, who used the pen-name Jiang Nan. Liu left Taiwan for the USA in the 1960s and in the early 1970s published a biography of Chiang Ching-kuo; he visited the PRC several times in the last decade or so. There has been speculation in the Hong Kong press that the murder was the work of Nationalist agents. This has also been suggested by Professor Chen Guying, formerly of Taiwan University, now a research fellow at Berkeley on detachment to Peking University, according to a report quoting him in the Beijing Review of 19 November (of which I also enclose a copy, for you and FED only).
5. If the Americans believe this to be the case, the incident could cause considerable friction in US-Taiwan relations. Any information you can glean from the Americans on this issue would be of interest here.
Yours
ever
Men
K C Walker Asian Region
Research Department
CC:
(with enclosures)
A P F Bache Esq, TOKYO
RP Margolis Esq
Deputy Political Adviser HONG KONG
J Powell Esq, HKD
DJ Currie Esq, FED
J Crowley Esq, PUSD
CONFIDENTIAL